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Kurdistan: the beloved country cannot even cry

11/13/2007

I was not going to write about Kurdistan and the Kurds. That is because I am an Israeli and a Zionist. One way in which the cause of Kurdish self determination has been discredited in the Middle East is by claiming that it is all a plot by evil Zionists to dismember Arab states (since when are Turkey and Iran Arab states? -see here ), or a plot by America to "punish" Turkish independence. If the Americans do not bomb the PKK into oblivion, they are "meddling" in the affairs of the Middle East and not doing their proper duty it seems.

I wasn't going to write, but I could not resist. The one-sided international lynch mob that has organized itself to deny rights to the Kurds of Turkey, and to help the Turkish government commit genocide, must be proested by someone.

Self determination of every people can be viewed as a "plot" to dismember some other country. The American revolution was a plot to dismember the British Empire, and the Indian struggle for freedom was another such plot. Self-determination for Syria and the Arabs was a British imperialist plot to dismember the Ottoman Turkish empire, wasn't it?

The "terror" of the PKK has a cause: the suppression of Kurdish language and culture in Turkey. Nobody is pressuring the Turkish government to give the Kurds what they want and what they deserve - real ethnic autonomy within Turkey. Nobody is even ready to admit that this is a right.

35 million Kurds have lived "since time immemorial" in northern Iran and Iraq, and in Eastern Turkey and Syria. Following World War I, they were promised independence by US President Wilson, but the promise was never implemented.

In Iraq, Kurds have won a measure of autonomy and they say they are satisfied with the present arrangement. If they are satisfied, then of course there is no reason to change the arrangement. It is not about dismembering Iraq at all as some make believe.

But in Turkey, the Kurds are not even taught their own language in public schools. Very reluctantly, under European pressure, the Turks agreed to allow some private schools that teach Kurdish. We can imagine the outcry that would issue from all the politically correct people if Israel did not provide education in Arabic for its Arab citizens, and offered such private schools as a 'concession.' Yet as regards the Kurds, everyone agrees that they have no rights. Gangsters who blow up mosques in Iraq are termed "fighters," but Kurds who fight Turkish soldiers are called "terrorists." The United States, ostensibly the only real friend of the Kurds, is reportedly supplying intelligence information to the Turkish airforce to enable them to hit PKK "terrorist" (or "insurgent" or "freedom fighter") targets in Iraq. An occupying power has an obligation to protect the population of an occupied area, not to invite others to bomb it.

The Kurds are the stray fringes of the dirty little secret of the Middle East and North Africa: Many of the independent states created by the withdrawal of Western colonialism, simply reinstated older Arab and Muslim colonialism, stifling the legitimate right to self determination of native peoples. Most of you never heard of the Amazigh and the other native peoples of North Africa, who probably constitute the majority of the North African population, and who are denied the right to develop their own culture and language and relegated to the pejorative status of "Berbers." Of course you know what Berbers are, right? Everyone knows who Berbers are. But they don't know that "Berber" is a word that is not much better than n*gger. In Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere, there are national and religious minorities that have been brutally supressed. Not surprisingly, the word "self-determination" makes "politically correct" Middle East pundits very very nervous, except when it is applied to the Arabs of Palestine, or the Oozlebarts of Iraq.

According to the dogma of the politically correct, suppression of national rights must lead to violence and terror. The result of suppressing the national rights and aspirations of all these people must eventually produce bigger and better PKK terrorist movements, as well as nationalist and separatist movements throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Even if you don't believe that, you must surely see the justice of allowing each people self determination. There is room in the community of nations for a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, a Czech state and an East Timor state, a Bangladesh and a Pakistan. There was room enough for everyone. Except that when the turn of the Kurds came, it turned out that there is no room at the inn, and they must be ignored and condemned.

Ami Isseroff

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Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000647.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission.

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Replies: 2 comments

This artickle just a garbage, why ?

1. How come Kurds are speaking Kurdish if their language completely forbidden?
Do not forget these lands belong to Turks since 1070 AD ! Today there a
large number of private schools,newspaper, books , TV etc all in Kurdish.
Including one of our ex President, Prime Minister, Minister of Internal
Affair, Minister of Foreign Affair, Head of the National Assembly, a top
commander of Armed forces all were Kurdish orgin, today's ruling party has
75 Kurdish origin representative, I do not count others. So you got to wake
up and not only look newspapers while coming a conclusion. Could it be much
better, yes it could but this doesn't give any reason under any condition
for terrorism.

2. How you can ignore PKK has blown up markets, shops, tourist resorts, buses
etc., aren't those a terorist act ? If you say no, they no one in this
earth has the right to say there is terrorism, we shall erase this word from
the dictionaries.

3. Some says Kurds have 35 to 40 Million of Kurds hence they should have a
state. Is it a must condition for a state or is it a populational issue ?
Did you know quite large number of Kurdish parents has some ten more
child, even some families has 90 children ! In the begining of Turkish
Republic they were just 3.5 % of total population of 14 Million, today
olmast 14 %. Lets every stateless nation make more children and get a
state ! This means Germany could one day be an ancestoral Turkish Land !

4. Do not mess up the issues; Iraq is under occupation and people ( excluding
some)who fight have their own independent issues. How you come to compare
with Turkey who won these lands since a thousand year. Shall everyone back
to their historical lands ? Then Turks would claim half of the old world.

5. So called Kurdistan is a b*lt! Drawing a land is an illness of the west.
That is why Middle-east has so many problems today. And how come Israel
created, in a land actually was not belong to them, one can argue if you
said Turks come later. Plus, Kurds spreaded in a larger geography due to
their nomadic triabal structure and this not naturaly means the land they
are leaving are belong to them. Take Turkey, Kurds were in a limited area of
very southeast of Turkey, after deportation of Armenian they grasp the
lands, and since most of the Turks in the area also moved to cities, and
growing population made Kurdish origin people became majority. Otherwise, we
all know they were in the tiny mountainous areas of southwest Iran, part of
N.W of todays Iraq and a very small pertion of SE of Turkey, speaking a
language of Persian (Iranian) dialect.

6. You as an Isaely Zionist denay statehood of the owner of the land you were
in now. Why Turks shall offer a statehood in a land actually was not totally
belong to Kurds? We can not use a timewatch and back to centuries before and
make the things of today, forget it !

Posted by Ilterbeg @ 11/19/2007 06:45 AM CST

Here is an example of an ignorant person. We are also fighting with these people who think that the world belongs to turks.

You say that the lands you live on belongs to you since 1070. What about before 1070? So then Israeli people has a right to say that Palestinian lands doesn't belong to them anymore because they occupied it.

You say that PKK has blown up markets, shops, buses, etc., probably you heard that from a turkish newspaper, so what about the villages that has been destroyed, fired, and people were oppressed by army?
What about the Kurdish people who got killed in the middle of the day in the very crowd place of the town? How did they disappear?

Posted by Jan Curbirser @ 11/27/2007 06:18 AM CST


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