Origins of Kobani’s name
As the controversy over the FSA and Kobani simmered, Aqidi said, “Kobani is part of Aleppo [governorate] and we are taking action in the name of preserving Syria’s integrity.” Erdogan, for his part, commented on Kobani’s name in a spirit no different from that of Aqidi. Asked whether Kobani was an Arab or Kurdish city, he said, “Its name, which is actually Ayn al-Arab, speaks for itself. It became Kobani later.”
The name “Kobani,” which the Kurds prefer to use, is not of Kurdish origin. It emerged in history as the site of a station built as part of the Ottoman railway project to link Berlin and Baghdad. Speculation is rife on the origin of its name. According to the most popular theory, sites with adequate water resources were selected as stations when the railway was constructed. A small hamlet south of what is now Turkey’s border town of Suruc was known as “Arap Punar” (Arab Spring) at the time. The station there was built by workers from Suruc. On their way to work, the workers would say they were going to the “Kompanie” — the German word for “company.” In time, the word evolved to “Kobani” and stuck with the populace. According to another theory related to the railway construction, a company name — “Ko. Bahn” — took hold as “Kobani” in the local vernacular. Yet, no company by the name “Ko. Bahn” appears among the builders of the railway, which include construction heavyweights such as Philipp Holzmann and Friedrich Krupp.
The Syrian state named the city Ayn al-Arab (Arab Spring) and the city was shaped by developments originating from Turkey. Settlement in the area intensified with the arrival of railway workers from Suruc. During the 1915 genocide, it became a safe haven for Armenians. Following the 1925 Seyh Said uprising, many Kurds who fled Turkey or were deported settled down in Kobani.
Even after the Syrian-Turkish border was demarcated Suruc, which lies on the railway route, continued to be the region’s center. Clandestine border crossings were so rife that Ankara’s complaints led the French ruling Syria at the time to set up an intelligence center in Kobani to ensure border control.
In the 1950s, when Turkey mined the border, Kobani was cut off from Suruc and began to develop as a city. Following Syria’s independence, the French intelligence building became the seat of the top local administrator. In 2012, when the Kurds took control of the region, they made the building the headquarters of Asayis, the Kurdish security force. And last month, this building — the city’s only historical structure called “palace” by the locals — fell into IS hands, and thus became the target of US airstrikes.
No matter whether you call it Kobani or Ayn al-Arab, the city — which has also Armenian heritage — signifies one indisputable fact: It is one of the junctures where the tragedies of Kurds and Armenians intersected in history. Kobani was a station for communities who fled, were expelled or emigrated from Turkey. Now this place has become the symbol of resistance against IS. Kobani is the talk of the world because it is resisting, not because it has Arab, Kurdish or Armenian heritage.
It speaks volumes that Erdogan — bent on not leaving Kobani to the Kurds and trying to place it under FSA control — has come to call the city Ayn al-Arab, the name it was given under the Arabization policy of the same Syrian regime he has seen as an archenemy since 2011.