Anthony Avice Du Buisson is a South African-born student whose lifelong commitment to justice was shaped by his early experiences in post-Apartheid society. Growing up amid the echoes of struggle and reconciliation, he developed a deep understanding of solidarity and the fight against oppression.

Before arriving in Washington D.C., Anthony worked to amplify Kurdish voices through his writing and advocacy with Kurdish Lobby Australia, where he shed light on the human cost of war and the enduring significance of the Kurdish cause.

Now pursuing a master’s degree in Global Governance, Politics, and Security at American University’s School of International Service, Anthony continues to channel his passion for peace and human rights. As a recipient of the Mustafa Barzani Peace Fellowship, he reflects on how his studies have broadened his understanding of global politics while strengthening his resolve to support communities striving for freedom and dignity.

In his conversation with the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace, Anthony discusses his journey from South Africa to Washington, his advocacy for the Kurds, and his vision for a more just and peaceful world.

How did your interest in public service begin?

I'm originally from South Africa and I was born in the post-Apartheid Era, under the presidency of Nelson Mandela. One of the reasons why that is significant for me is from a young age, I was taught the importance of post-racialism, this idea of going beyond racial stigmatization. I learned from a very early age, especially from the example, the importance of public service. I think because this is a man, in my opinion, who had been jailed wrongly, and who had all the opportunity to essentially do revenge onto the people who had wronged him, but he learned to understand the enemy and understand the oppressor, and the connection that he has with the oppressed. From that, you could say there has been early influences in my character and how I view the world, specifically in this idea to not only help those in need but help especially marginalized groups and individuals fighting bigger forms of oppression, find a way forward and find a way of transition from that oppressor-oppressed dynamic. Bringing me to today, I immigrated from South Africa to Australia, and as someone who's from a different culture coming to another different culture, it's very hard to try and integrate into that society. One of the reasons why this is significant for my development is that I learned, at least in some small part, what it feels like to be an outsider and how not to belong to the larger society into which you're trying to integrate.

How did you become interested in the Kurds and the Middle East?

At the end of high school, I think it was 2010 or 2011, I had some awareness of the Kurds in a much more general sense. I knew there was a Kurd group in the Middle East from watching some of the footage from the Iraq War. But one of my personal stories I like to retell, I had a Moroccan barber, and I must have been 16 or 17, and I remember going into the barbershop. On the counter, there were a bunch of National Geographic magazines, some from the 80s and one of these magazines was from 1993 and it was “Struggle of the Kurds.” Okay, so it had a very pronounced, very profound Kurdish Peshmerga fighter and I remember being fascinated with it. It talked about their struggle against Hussein, and that is the first time my brain connected things I'd heard in the past. I said to myself, “there's a group of people who desire this idea of self-determination and who are trying to fight oppression, and most of the oppression of regimes that have been racist towards them, who have excluded them from the larger whole. And in many respects, I think I related a bit to that, even though, I had no connection in terms of biological or cultural connection at that time, I felt I could relate in their struggle a little bit.

How did you get started writing about the Kurds?

I got into the works of a guy named Christopher Hitchens and he used to write, especially post-Iraq War on the Kurds. He gave an introduction in his articles for Vanity Fair, to the Kurdish struggle, who the Kurds were, who the Taliban is, the armies—all these different dynamics. From there, it piqued my curiosity. But what really you could say put a fire behind that was when I saw what was happening in Syria and Kurdistan, Rojava, with the Daesh attacking Kurds in 2014 or 2015, and I remember watching so tentatively at that television screen, thinking to myself “We have this terrorist organization by the name of Daesh, ISIS essentially, and they vehemently want to subjugate other populations, notably the Yazidis.” The Yazidi genocide, something that's very grating in my mind, like the impact of Yazidi Kurds, watching them struggle, I felt that I had to do something. I guess this is where my inner Mandela, my inner like South African, comes in—I can't sit back and watch this happen, I need to start speaking, I need to do something. So, I start to write. Initially, I would say I was not very good, but what it did is it gave me a focus point on their struggle, the Kurdish struggle. It was inspiring, because you have an overwhelming force against these people right now who just want to exist. They just want to live in their home country, and they don't want to be oppressed. They're not wanting to go to war. I think that was what spurred me to start writing.

What did you experience during your visit to Kurdistan?

I went to Kurdistan in December 2019 by myself. I went to Kurdistan, and I landed in Hawler. I remember talking with a friend of mine who is a Kurd from Bakur, and he said to me, “Anthony, Kurds are very hospitable. It's all hospitality in the Kurdish culture. You say, Anthony, but you must not abuse that, you've got to pay your share or else they will pay for everything. My expectations were blown away when I went to Kurdistan. I went to Hawler and I met up with Kurdish journalists who I connected with initially over Twitter. I went all around, I went to Hawler, Duhok, Amedi, Sinun, and Halabja. My whole mission was to take the idea of what Kurdish society is and what I’ve learned about and actually see that on the ground. What I ended up doing is meeting very good people, and I've not seen as much hospitality as I did during my time there. I made connections up there and the reason I did that, is because I wanted to just see that society face to face, but also by going to place like Halabja, I want to also pay respects to those who have fallen from the local genocide. I felt that it’s very important when you have this passion, the solidarity there, that you also then go to the place that you're talking about, so it's not just like the separate thing in the back of your mind.

How have your interests affected your educational path?

At the time of my trip, I had been working with Kurdish Lobby Australia, an organization based in Australia that deals with raising awareness of the plight of the Kurds in the Middle East, to parliamentarians in Australia, people Poland, for example, and for actually then trying to talk to the diaspora in Australia as well Kurdish diaspora in the New Zealand to raise their issues to the Parliament personally. We want to try and change the perspectives of policy makers who otherwise might be influenced, for example, by Turkey. I finished my double degree, and I said to myself, “Okay, I need more to this. I need to do an honors thesis.” Me, being already embroiled in this knowledge of the Middle East and research into law, I did my honors thesis on very complicated subjects. Essentially, it's the applicability of the war ground conflict in regulating behavior on non-state actors. Essentially, it means how do non-state actors behave if you incentivize them to be more acquiescent towards the international infrastructures and I used the case of the Syrian Democratic Force and Syrian Kurds. I wrote that thesis, and I said to myself, “Okay, there must be more than that to this. I need to do more. I need to take what I have, my analysis, my writing and I need to put it now into public service. I need to do it into public service or policy making.” So, I said to myself, “Okay, we're going to do that. We need to.”

What brought you to American University?

The United States is the big place, because Australia is great, but it's middle power land. I went in and started applying for different universities in the US— Fletcher, Georgetown, John Hopkins, American University—and I didn't think was going to get into anything, meanwhile, I got into all of them. But it's like, okay, how? What's the catch with them? Because, you know me come from working class background. I found American University out of nowhere. My friend just mentioned the School of International Service and he said they do a Kurdish program. They do like, you know, an extra program like Kurds. American University surprised me out of nowhere with the Mustafa Barzani Peace Fellowship. Okay, what is this? Oh, it's a fun setup to support people who have an interest in Kurdish studies, but also who have good academic record and who want to try synthesizing that passion for their whatever they're pursuing, and they give me a lot to go. American University showed up and said to myself, “well, yes, I'm going with American University.”

I've just been amazed by a program that is putting forward this idea that there should be a Kurdish study program at the university. I think "that's that makes sense, doesn't it?” There's Turkish studies, Iranian Studies, Iraqi studies, Syrian studies, Arab Studies, Islamic Studies— but I say that there's not enough being done about the Kurds. They are a significant population in the Middle East, there's over 18 million of them there without the state. They aspire to have a home. Why? It's because no one leaves them alone. I think a Kurdish studies program is necessary because you need to have professionals, you need to have people who can learn about this subject and who can connect their passions and their skills to support you this effort of Kurdish studies, or Kurdistan in general.

How have your studies been so far in the program and beyond?

I do like the way in which American programs are when it comes to their education. Here, you can discuss, you can converse. To me, I feel like my mind's been engaged a bit more. I had a subject called War, State, Islam, with Professor Elizabeth Thomas. It's about telling the cultural history of the Middle East and how these movements and nationalisms came about, and I think it's very important. She allowed me the opportunity to write about how Turkish nationalism gave rise to Kurdish nationalism in the Turkish Kurdistan, for example, and having that opportunity was very interesting.

What do you hope to gain from this program?

I hope to get the skills necessary to assist me in achieving a more active role in policymaking and in active analysis for policy makers, so they can make better informed decisions, in regard to the Middle East and Kurdistan. The Fellowship helps me achieve that vision, because I am not a rich person and it is such a relief to me, because if I did not have it, I would not be here. The generosity from the donors of this fund, and the support it gives me—I have no words.

Do you have any advice for people interested in this kind of work?

It’s very important that people travel. They need to talk to people with different backgrounds, they need to put aside their egos and admit when they're wrong or be willing to be vulnerable. I think that's very important, because I think a lot of the time, especially if you reach a certain level, in terms of academia or even your studies, or your profession, whatever it is there, so you can develop an ego. I think that you have to give people a chance. Obviously, it’s not always going to work out and obviously, if you're more learned, it can help you more. I'm a definite believer in training and being self-taught, as well as just helping people who are in need. It's part of my belief structure that I cannot be a spectator to injustice.