an interesting(dangerous) trip to KURDISTAN!
well that has been a long time that i was trying to write this post, but i kept delaying, and now i want to write it so that everyone will understand the kurds and their situation better, hopefully!
i stayed in the usa for one year as an exchange student some time ago, and my host family that i stayed with wanted to come over to turkey and then see my hometown; they called it southeastern turkey, like the turks like to call it, and i would insist that it was kurdistan(northern kurdistan). so they came to stenbol(istanbul) first and i took them to several good places in stenbol such as sultanahmet, aya-sofya(agia-sophia) museum, grand bazaar, spice bazaar, taksim(square) and etc. shortly they stayed in stenbol for four days, and now the time had come for going to kurdistan, with my saying.
we arrived in amed(capital of kurdistan), they only got to see the walls, second biggest walls in the world after great wall of china. and we headed towards sêrt(siirt) where my family has been staying since they have come to the city from ginyanis, a village of botan. that night we arrived late and they were tired so they just went to sleep. the other day we took a walk of sêrt, çakmak neighborhood in particular because; that place is the most patriotic place in sêrt, almost all of the people living there are real-kurd! not korucu or bêşeref if you know what i am saying. and we stayed for awhile in my uncle's house as well. yes his home is in çakmak too, i am proud of my family they are all patriotic!
and next day we went to eskîf(turks call it hasankeyf) it is in district of êlih(batman). it is one of the very old, and historic places in kurdistan, and in the whole world! unfortunately they(tc;turkish republic) are planning to build a dam; ilisu dam-project. and the only reason to why, they are destroying such a great place that should be in world cultural heritage monumants, and is unique; is of course because this place is KURDISH, so it is kurdish history and as you all know tc would destroy every single thing that has any kind of relation with kurds or kurdish! and very unfortunatley eskif is kurdish too. here is what my host mom has written about that dam shit:
The whole thing about the dam blows my mind, that the EU would not make the cancellation of the dam a condition of EU membership. It seems that though the people and the NGOs convinced the contractor to pull out the first time, there is another company, Siemens of Germany, that is interested in building the dam. It is not just a question of taking away peoples' homes without adequate resettlement policies and infrastructures in place, flooding a historic treasure, but also that it has been demonstrated that there is a far more efficient and less costly way of increasing electrical power simply by upgrading the transmission system. Then there is the fact that the projections for how long the water supply would be able to produce power would only be about 70 years, which does not at all justify the cost. There is of course the question of relations with Syria and Iraq and cutting off there access to the waters from the Tigris and Euphrates. Yet, only one report that I read said it all quite frankly, that with all the evidence against the construction of the dam, it was obvious that the Turkish government's obsession with moving ahead on this project was linked to their attitude and position on Kurds and Kurdistan. Sick! At any rate, I have started a letter to the contractor as part of a campaign to stop the project again.
and actually that dam will not last for 70 years, some scientists say at longest it would be 50 years!
anyway i am coming to the real issue, the issue that made me write this post!
it was about midnight, and we were going to my home with my host family(mother and her daughter) from internet cafe that night. we were very close to my house, suddenly the police came and stopped us and asked for our ids. i gave mine and they gave their ids too, but it was mother's driving license and daughter's student id, so they asked for passports. i told them the story that; they were my host family in the usa while i was an exchamge student in their house and etc... they said no they should see the passports. then i told them that; my house is very close to here so lets just go to my house and we will show everything to you there. there were several cars(transits) full of policemen.(secret police of course, even though i know most of them very well, i could not figure out that they were gizli polis when we passed them) my cousin and my younger brother were with us too. they said no you cant go to home. when i said ok then let my brother and my host sister go to home and get the passports while we are here with you. they again said no. they only let my brother go. i dont know what to think about this thing, because they did not let my host sister go with my brother even though my host mom was going to stay with us !!!!
when i asked why you are keeping us like that and that they give a very bad impression of turkey to those americans, and all that stuff that i thought may free us, which did not work; their answer was " nowadays the thieves number has increased daramatically so we have to control everybody" and also " we want to make sure that those ladies are not ...(protitutes) " .... unfortunately this was just bullshit, because while we were held in the middle of street surrounded by tens policemen, many people, gang menbers and thieves passed by and they said nothing. i know those gang mambers by heart.and the police said noıthing to them because the thieves and the police are friends, indeed very close friends and they work together the thieves steal and the police take its piece, that is how it works here in kurdistan.
i want to say one more thing about that while i have mentioned this: it was two years ago, the governor of sêrt, who was appointed by central government from ankara, he held a meeting with all thieves, gang members and all those fucking assholes, bad guys. he held that meeting because at that time many people were joining pkk again, and the stealing cases had increased so much that the thieves would go and cut people's hands, and behead them for the bracelets, and necklaces that women wore. and do you know what the governor told those guys? it is incredible, you wont believe your ears but thats is what he has told them: " do whatever you want to and no one will even touch(stop) you, i give you guarantee, as long as you dont go to mountains and join the PKK" do you see the irony? they encourage thieves and allt hose fucked-up people to go and behead innocent people fr money but no, they dont let anyone to go and fight for his/her honor!
anyway, while we were held there some people from the apartments around started to scream at us, and curse us saying that: " you have no right to disturb us and wake us up. you sons of bithces ...." when i told the police to tell them that it is the police that are keeping us here and the ones who make the noise, the police said: " no i will tell them later" so that fucking asshole which i know by heart was the police's friend, and he was arab too that was why the police did not say shit to him even though they were the ones who were doing all shit.
anyways my brother finally came and brought the passports and after being kept there for an hour or so we were released.
but it was a great opportunity because this way they , my host family, now understands me and the kurds better. and here is what my host mom has written to me about this incident as well:
"I was telling him(a guy in stenbol) how our little affair with the police gave me a better understanding of the way the Kurdish people are treated and the attitudes of the Turks, but at the same time I was telling him how this is somehow one of the greater flaws of humankind."
and also they were very afraid about me while we were held there, because they said:
"we were very afraid that you would say something about kurdistan and it would all turn into something even worse. we were scared to death when you discussed with that police and you raised your voice when he finally shut you up and (pushed you)."
so yes that is what has happened to us! and i hope they will tell this to everyone they know and this way more people will understand the kurds, and hopefully sympathize with them and maybe will support them in their holy fight against those fascist states that have been surrounding kurdistan and massacring us,kurds for decades!
her biji kurd û kurdistan!
i stayed in the usa for one year as an exchange student some time ago, and my host family that i stayed with wanted to come over to turkey and then see my hometown; they called it southeastern turkey, like the turks like to call it, and i would insist that it was kurdistan(northern kurdistan). so they came to stenbol(istanbul) first and i took them to several good places in stenbol such as sultanahmet, aya-sofya(agia-sophia) museum, grand bazaar, spice bazaar, taksim(square) and etc. shortly they stayed in stenbol for four days, and now the time had come for going to kurdistan, with my saying.
we arrived in amed(capital of kurdistan), they only got to see the walls, second biggest walls in the world after great wall of china. and we headed towards sêrt(siirt) where my family has been staying since they have come to the city from ginyanis, a village of botan. that night we arrived late and they were tired so they just went to sleep. the other day we took a walk of sêrt, çakmak neighborhood in particular because; that place is the most patriotic place in sêrt, almost all of the people living there are real-kurd! not korucu or bêşeref if you know what i am saying. and we stayed for awhile in my uncle's house as well. yes his home is in çakmak too, i am proud of my family they are all patriotic!
and next day we went to eskîf(turks call it hasankeyf) it is in district of êlih(batman). it is one of the very old, and historic places in kurdistan, and in the whole world! unfortunately they(tc;turkish republic) are planning to build a dam; ilisu dam-project. and the only reason to why, they are destroying such a great place that should be in world cultural heritage monumants, and is unique; is of course because this place is KURDISH, so it is kurdish history and as you all know tc would destroy every single thing that has any kind of relation with kurds or kurdish! and very unfortunatley eskif is kurdish too. here is what my host mom has written about that dam shit:
The whole thing about the dam blows my mind, that the EU would not make the cancellation of the dam a condition of EU membership. It seems that though the people and the NGOs convinced the contractor to pull out the first time, there is another company, Siemens of Germany, that is interested in building the dam. It is not just a question of taking away peoples' homes without adequate resettlement policies and infrastructures in place, flooding a historic treasure, but also that it has been demonstrated that there is a far more efficient and less costly way of increasing electrical power simply by upgrading the transmission system. Then there is the fact that the projections for how long the water supply would be able to produce power would only be about 70 years, which does not at all justify the cost. There is of course the question of relations with Syria and Iraq and cutting off there access to the waters from the Tigris and Euphrates. Yet, only one report that I read said it all quite frankly, that with all the evidence against the construction of the dam, it was obvious that the Turkish government's obsession with moving ahead on this project was linked to their attitude and position on Kurds and Kurdistan. Sick! At any rate, I have started a letter to the contractor as part of a campaign to stop the project again.
and actually that dam will not last for 70 years, some scientists say at longest it would be 50 years!
anyway i am coming to the real issue, the issue that made me write this post!
it was about midnight, and we were going to my home with my host family(mother and her daughter) from internet cafe that night. we were very close to my house, suddenly the police came and stopped us and asked for our ids. i gave mine and they gave their ids too, but it was mother's driving license and daughter's student id, so they asked for passports. i told them the story that; they were my host family in the usa while i was an exchamge student in their house and etc... they said no they should see the passports. then i told them that; my house is very close to here so lets just go to my house and we will show everything to you there. there were several cars(transits) full of policemen.(secret police of course, even though i know most of them very well, i could not figure out that they were gizli polis when we passed them) my cousin and my younger brother were with us too. they said no you cant go to home. when i said ok then let my brother and my host sister go to home and get the passports while we are here with you. they again said no. they only let my brother go. i dont know what to think about this thing, because they did not let my host sister go with my brother even though my host mom was going to stay with us !!!!
when i asked why you are keeping us like that and that they give a very bad impression of turkey to those americans, and all that stuff that i thought may free us, which did not work; their answer was " nowadays the thieves number has increased daramatically so we have to control everybody" and also " we want to make sure that those ladies are not ...(protitutes) " .... unfortunately this was just bullshit, because while we were held in the middle of street surrounded by tens policemen, many people, gang menbers and thieves passed by and they said nothing. i know those gang mambers by heart.and the police said noıthing to them because the thieves and the police are friends, indeed very close friends and they work together the thieves steal and the police take its piece, that is how it works here in kurdistan.
i want to say one more thing about that while i have mentioned this: it was two years ago, the governor of sêrt, who was appointed by central government from ankara, he held a meeting with all thieves, gang members and all those fucking assholes, bad guys. he held that meeting because at that time many people were joining pkk again, and the stealing cases had increased so much that the thieves would go and cut people's hands, and behead them for the bracelets, and necklaces that women wore. and do you know what the governor told those guys? it is incredible, you wont believe your ears but thats is what he has told them: " do whatever you want to and no one will even touch(stop) you, i give you guarantee, as long as you dont go to mountains and join the PKK" do you see the irony? they encourage thieves and allt hose fucked-up people to go and behead innocent people fr money but no, they dont let anyone to go and fight for his/her honor!
anyway, while we were held there some people from the apartments around started to scream at us, and curse us saying that: " you have no right to disturb us and wake us up. you sons of bithces ...." when i told the police to tell them that it is the police that are keeping us here and the ones who make the noise, the police said: " no i will tell them later" so that fucking asshole which i know by heart was the police's friend, and he was arab too that was why the police did not say shit to him even though they were the ones who were doing all shit.
anyways my brother finally came and brought the passports and after being kept there for an hour or so we were released.
but it was a great opportunity because this way they , my host family, now understands me and the kurds better. and here is what my host mom has written to me about this incident as well:
"I was telling him(a guy in stenbol) how our little affair with the police gave me a better understanding of the way the Kurdish people are treated and the attitudes of the Turks, but at the same time I was telling him how this is somehow one of the greater flaws of humankind."
and also they were very afraid about me while we were held there, because they said:
"we were very afraid that you would say something about kurdistan and it would all turn into something even worse. we were scared to death when you discussed with that police and you raised your voice when he finally shut you up and (pushed you)."
so yes that is what has happened to us! and i hope they will tell this to everyone they know and this way more people will understand the kurds, and hopefully sympathize with them and maybe will support them in their holy fight against those fascist states that have been surrounding kurdistan and massacring us,kurds for decades!
her biji kurd û kurdistan!
posted by tari ronahi at 9:31 AM
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