A Basque journalist's diary from Kurdistan - PART THREE
A Basque journalist's diary from Kurdistan - PART THREE
URTZI URRUTIKOETXEA IS A BASQUE JOURNALIST WRITING FOR THE BASQUE DAILY PAPER BERRIA. WE PUBLISH HERE HIS DIARY FROM KURDISTAN
In the mythical Kurdish cities (6th August)
Kurdish revolt is not limited to a lost corner of Turkey or a guerrilla acting at the Iran-Iraq border. Furthermore, it corresponds to a nation of 15 or 20 million people, from the more than 2 million Kurds living in Istanbul to the villages and cities of Kurdistan, where people struggles daily to keep their language alive. Our way has taken to two of these cities.
Night has fallen when we arrive to Cizre. At the bank of the river Zeki and their friend are waiting for me. Doctors, pharmacists, they belong to middle-high positions of the society, working or studying careers related to health. They make you feel comfortable: apart of the usual Kurdish hospitality they speak English, they know about Basques, they have interest about ETA, about autonomy, about our language or Batasuna. They ask about football, too, of course, like everywhere in the Middle East, if we enjoyed the Spanish victory or I like Barcelona or Real Madrid. We go back to their conversation, they talk in Kurdish. Diglossia has affected this group of friends like most Kurds, they have always studied in Turkish and Kurdish is merely the language used at home, with the family. However, they keep speaking Kurdish, even if they sometimes pass to Turkish for the strength of years of Turkish pressure. But they quickly change to Kurdish. “No Turkish spoken here”, we were told when we came last year from Diyarbakir to the autumn festival. Cizre is a special city, actually. Kurds have many mythical cities in their imaginary. Most of them have witnessed Kurds’ tragic history, but there are other reasons as well. Cizre, the historic Yazira, is a city in the heart of Kurdistan, in the actual province of Sirnak. It belongs to the Botan region, birthplace of the clan of the same name. The city has woken from the last decades’ sleepiness, since all the transport going to and coming from South Kurdistan passes through here. It is the only open border from Turkey to Iraq, and it has been useful to approach Kurds from the North and the South. The assimilation policies used for almost a century have left their mark in Cizre like everywhere else in Kurdistan, but here Kurdish is not only a language that everyone know, but also a tongue spoken by all.
Prison
The main road is always busy of lorries heading to Iraq. Botan is a warm region; Kurds went to the streets in the evening, to have dinner on the fields of the Tigris Riverbank. We have been served fish, salads, kebabs and mezes. There is an agreeably ambient at night; sometimes we might think we are in the autonomous Kurdistan. But the reality comes soon: Zeki apologizes because next morning we will have to wake up early, since he is going to visit his brother at Mardin prison. Zinar also comes home; they will go together to Mardin. His brother is the major of Cizre, in prison since last year. Since last December –and even before that – the Constitutional Court closed the Democratic Society Party (DTP), hundreds of party members, majors and councilors have been imprisoned. “My brother’s cell is so crowded they have to sleep in turns, with the heat of Mardin”. No comparison with the Kurdistan behind the border. But they have close relation. “Our uncle lives there” Faruk tells us. “You know there have been so many revolts and harassment here, and our uncle’s father had to exile there”. He, too, with his wife Leyla, is somehow exiled; they are living in Izmir, in western Turkey, because of the lack of infrastructures in Kurdistan, like millions of Kurds. “I still must stay for two years there, until I finish my medicine studies. Then we will come here, to Cizre, or to Hakkari, we don’t care where, but so far in Kurdistan”. We some shisha at a friend’s home, drink one beer, they thank my bottle of Rioja wine. I remember the house, last year so many people met here, some of them come from Europe, writers, journalists, language supporters, doctors. They are also the avant-garde of the future Kurdistan.
Cizre is not in many travel books, for most it is simply a stopover in the way to Iraq. It is true the city doesn’t hold much of the ancient splendor, when the Botan clan ruled in a great part of Kurdistan. But there is a special place: Mem and Zin’s grave. The 17th century writer Ehmede Xani used those two persons to build the Kurdish epic poem, being this still one of the references of the modern Kurds, with its sensuality, open Islam –wine is everywhere in the book– and, above all, the claim for independence and unity of the Kurds beyond the division of clans. Four centuries ago Xani took a couple related to different social classes; he not only wrote a Kurdish Romeo and Juliet but denounced the intertribal struggles and stressed the need to build their own nation. Mem and Zin also praises the Kurdish language, criticizing the authors that write in Arabic, Turkish or Persian and asking them to write in Kurdish.
Zeki and Zinar have left to Mardin. Alongside with Midyat, the skyline of both cities is dominated by the profiles of churches. Tur Abdin was the region inhabited by important Christian communities until 1915. The Armenian genocide is not usually a mainstream topic in actual journalism, but much less the Assyrian Christians that suffered their same fate. Their offspring don’t live far away, some in South Kurdistan, others beyond the border in Syria. For instance, in Qamishli. It will be our next stop.
What does Dersim have?
It is not on the map, but Dersim is in the hearts of every Kurd. The actual official name is Tunceli, changed after the massacres of 1937 and 1938. Giving back the original name was one of the steps announced by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) when they presented their Kurdish Initiative, one more in the list of promised never fulfilled by the government.
Dersim reminds rebelliousness. And somehow, they spread this rebel and free character to everyone going there. The Kurdish movement has used for a long time a well calculated speech in order to show its real will to solve the conflict. During the recent festival of Dersim, however, Diyarbakir major Osman Baydemir voiced what most Kurds have in mind: the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Turkey. “Why not have, beside the Turkish flag, our red, yellow and green”? He made a well prepared speech, in line with the issue of the “democratic autonomy” presented last month by some BDP majors. Baydemir said that the proposal was “an expression of the willingness and unity of the Kurds. AKP talks about national unity and brotherhood. Here you have our project of national unity and brotherhood”. Baydemir stressed that the project should end the tears and conflicts of the 21st century. “There will be a Parliament of Turkey, the Turkish anthem will be song and the Turkish flag will be waved. But each region will have also its Parliament, there will be one in Marmara, and also the Kurdistan Parliament. And the Kurdish flag will be also waved”. The project of the democratic autonomy should be compared with some local governments that already exist in Europe. “Autonomy is misunderstood in Turkey. It is not secession but a project to live together. In Europe there are countries that enjoy autonomy, being their population less than 2 million. And our autonomous region is bigger than any other in Europe”.
The prosecutor in Dersim ordered an investigation after this speech. The Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek also spoke against Baydemir, in a nationalistic speech full of insults.
Rebel and victim
The Kurdish guerrillas have fought hardly in this region, too, even if it is far away from South Kurdistan. Army’s reprisals were hard, too, there have been accusations of using white phosphorus, just the same Ankara blames on Israel. “The army always knew they don’t have friends here, and they committed many atrocities. In the 90’s there was a famous torturer, a pure sadist. Among other brutalities he tied a boy to a tree and burnt him alive. But he paid for it, too: after he retired to a Turkish coast town, he was executed by some guerrillas” says Baris, a local man. We speak about the similarities with the Basque town Gernika: the year of the tragedy, the place of both towns in the people’s memory. It would be nice to develop some twinning project.
This rebel character of Dersim has had a high toll, including the massacre of 1937 and 1938 that many claim as genocide. Local BDP members invite us to a visit up the Munzur valley. Although it is a national park, dams that will destroy the whole region are being built. The beauty of the area hides the tragedy with which the Turkish Republic imposed itself: “tens of followers and relatives of Seyid Reza were thrown over that cliff”, points Baris. It is forbidden to go to the nearby caves, which “still contain the bones of thousands of men, women and children massacred”. The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey. It happened during the last years of life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, while imposing his Republican, secular and monoethnic project. Students learn that Ataturk’s adopted daughter Sabiha Gokcen was the first aviatrix in Turkey. “But we don’t forget that she bombed Dersim from her planes”.
Local people have always been rebel to the power, to the religion, to the language. The big mosque in the town “is one of the gifts of the AKP government, no local people goes there” says Baris. Locals are Alevis, a very special branch of Islam, they don’t fast like the rest during Ramadan, you can find alcohol everywhere and no woman covers her head here. Our friends put some candles in special syncretistic shrine where Islam and pagan Kurdish traditions meet. At the sources of the Munzur River, Alevi families hold a celebration, we are invited to lunch. My Alevi friend seems happy, remembering her childhood traditions. The third of us comes from a Sunni Muslim family, “this is very strange for me, too”.
Leftists always win the elections. Even ethnically, people from Dersim are different from the rest of the Kurds; they belong to the Zaza people. Their language, Zazaki, is not understood by the speakers of Kurmanji, the main Kurdish dialects. It seems to be closer to some dialects of the Caspian coast in Iran, as well as other remote regions of Kurdistan like Howraman. There are even people denying that Zazas are Kurds. A denial very much supported by Turkey, of course, even if this has never meant the slightest support for the Zazaki. But most people we talk to see themselves as Zaza Kurds. Which means being Kurd in their own way, that is, in their free Kurdish spirit.
In the mythical Kurdish cities (6th August)
Kurdish revolt is not limited to a lost corner of Turkey or a guerrilla acting at the Iran-Iraq border. Furthermore, it corresponds to a nation of 15 or 20 million people, from the more than 2 million Kurds living in Istanbul to the villages and cities of Kurdistan, where people struggles daily to keep their language alive. Our way has taken to two of these cities.
Night has fallen when we arrive to Cizre. At the bank of the river Zeki and their friend are waiting for me. Doctors, pharmacists, they belong to middle-high positions of the society, working or studying careers related to health. They make you feel comfortable: apart of the usual Kurdish hospitality they speak English, they know about Basques, they have interest about ETA, about autonomy, about our language or Batasuna. They ask about football, too, of course, like everywhere in the Middle East, if we enjoyed the Spanish victory or I like Barcelona or Real Madrid. We go back to their conversation, they talk in Kurdish. Diglossia has affected this group of friends like most Kurds, they have always studied in Turkish and Kurdish is merely the language used at home, with the family. However, they keep speaking Kurdish, even if they sometimes pass to Turkish for the strength of years of Turkish pressure. But they quickly change to Kurdish. “No Turkish spoken here”, we were told when we came last year from Diyarbakir to the autumn festival. Cizre is a special city, actually. Kurds have many mythical cities in their imaginary. Most of them have witnessed Kurds’ tragic history, but there are other reasons as well. Cizre, the historic Yazira, is a city in the heart of Kurdistan, in the actual province of Sirnak. It belongs to the Botan region, birthplace of the clan of the same name. The city has woken from the last decades’ sleepiness, since all the transport going to and coming from South Kurdistan passes through here. It is the only open border from Turkey to Iraq, and it has been useful to approach Kurds from the North and the South. The assimilation policies used for almost a century have left their mark in Cizre like everywhere else in Kurdistan, but here Kurdish is not only a language that everyone know, but also a tongue spoken by all.
Prison
The main road is always busy of lorries heading to Iraq. Botan is a warm region; Kurds went to the streets in the evening, to have dinner on the fields of the Tigris Riverbank. We have been served fish, salads, kebabs and mezes. There is an agreeably ambient at night; sometimes we might think we are in the autonomous Kurdistan. But the reality comes soon: Zeki apologizes because next morning we will have to wake up early, since he is going to visit his brother at Mardin prison. Zinar also comes home; they will go together to Mardin. His brother is the major of Cizre, in prison since last year. Since last December –and even before that – the Constitutional Court closed the Democratic Society Party (DTP), hundreds of party members, majors and councilors have been imprisoned. “My brother’s cell is so crowded they have to sleep in turns, with the heat of Mardin”. No comparison with the Kurdistan behind the border. But they have close relation. “Our uncle lives there” Faruk tells us. “You know there have been so many revolts and harassment here, and our uncle’s father had to exile there”. He, too, with his wife Leyla, is somehow exiled; they are living in Izmir, in western Turkey, because of the lack of infrastructures in Kurdistan, like millions of Kurds. “I still must stay for two years there, until I finish my medicine studies. Then we will come here, to Cizre, or to Hakkari, we don’t care where, but so far in Kurdistan”. We some shisha at a friend’s home, drink one beer, they thank my bottle of Rioja wine. I remember the house, last year so many people met here, some of them come from Europe, writers, journalists, language supporters, doctors. They are also the avant-garde of the future Kurdistan.
Cizre is not in many travel books, for most it is simply a stopover in the way to Iraq. It is true the city doesn’t hold much of the ancient splendor, when the Botan clan ruled in a great part of Kurdistan. But there is a special place: Mem and Zin’s grave. The 17th century writer Ehmede Xani used those two persons to build the Kurdish epic poem, being this still one of the references of the modern Kurds, with its sensuality, open Islam –wine is everywhere in the book– and, above all, the claim for independence and unity of the Kurds beyond the division of clans. Four centuries ago Xani took a couple related to different social classes; he not only wrote a Kurdish Romeo and Juliet but denounced the intertribal struggles and stressed the need to build their own nation. Mem and Zin also praises the Kurdish language, criticizing the authors that write in Arabic, Turkish or Persian and asking them to write in Kurdish.
Zeki and Zinar have left to Mardin. Alongside with Midyat, the skyline of both cities is dominated by the profiles of churches. Tur Abdin was the region inhabited by important Christian communities until 1915. The Armenian genocide is not usually a mainstream topic in actual journalism, but much less the Assyrian Christians that suffered their same fate. Their offspring don’t live far away, some in South Kurdistan, others beyond the border in Syria. For instance, in Qamishli. It will be our next stop.
What does Dersim have?
It is not on the map, but Dersim is in the hearts of every Kurd. The actual official name is Tunceli, changed after the massacres of 1937 and 1938. Giving back the original name was one of the steps announced by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) when they presented their Kurdish Initiative, one more in the list of promised never fulfilled by the government.
Dersim reminds rebelliousness. And somehow, they spread this rebel and free character to everyone going there. The Kurdish movement has used for a long time a well calculated speech in order to show its real will to solve the conflict. During the recent festival of Dersim, however, Diyarbakir major Osman Baydemir voiced what most Kurds have in mind: the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Turkey. “Why not have, beside the Turkish flag, our red, yellow and green”? He made a well prepared speech, in line with the issue of the “democratic autonomy” presented last month by some BDP majors. Baydemir said that the proposal was “an expression of the willingness and unity of the Kurds. AKP talks about national unity and brotherhood. Here you have our project of national unity and brotherhood”. Baydemir stressed that the project should end the tears and conflicts of the 21st century. “There will be a Parliament of Turkey, the Turkish anthem will be song and the Turkish flag will be waved. But each region will have also its Parliament, there will be one in Marmara, and also the Kurdistan Parliament. And the Kurdish flag will be also waved”. The project of the democratic autonomy should be compared with some local governments that already exist in Europe. “Autonomy is misunderstood in Turkey. It is not secession but a project to live together. In Europe there are countries that enjoy autonomy, being their population less than 2 million. And our autonomous region is bigger than any other in Europe”.
The prosecutor in Dersim ordered an investigation after this speech. The Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek also spoke against Baydemir, in a nationalistic speech full of insults.
Rebel and victim
The Kurdish guerrillas have fought hardly in this region, too, even if it is far away from South Kurdistan. Army’s reprisals were hard, too, there have been accusations of using white phosphorus, just the same Ankara blames on Israel. “The army always knew they don’t have friends here, and they committed many atrocities. In the 90’s there was a famous torturer, a pure sadist. Among other brutalities he tied a boy to a tree and burnt him alive. But he paid for it, too: after he retired to a Turkish coast town, he was executed by some guerrillas” says Baris, a local man. We speak about the similarities with the Basque town Gernika: the year of the tragedy, the place of both towns in the people’s memory. It would be nice to develop some twinning project.
This rebel character of Dersim has had a high toll, including the massacre of 1937 and 1938 that many claim as genocide. Local BDP members invite us to a visit up the Munzur valley. Although it is a national park, dams that will destroy the whole region are being built. The beauty of the area hides the tragedy with which the Turkish Republic imposed itself: “tens of followers and relatives of Seyid Reza were thrown over that cliff”, points Baris. It is forbidden to go to the nearby caves, which “still contain the bones of thousands of men, women and children massacred”. The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey. It happened during the last years of life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, while imposing his Republican, secular and monoethnic project. Students learn that Ataturk’s adopted daughter Sabiha Gokcen was the first aviatrix in Turkey. “But we don’t forget that she bombed Dersim from her planes”.
Local people have always been rebel to the power, to the religion, to the language. The big mosque in the town “is one of the gifts of the AKP government, no local people goes there” says Baris. Locals are Alevis, a very special branch of Islam, they don’t fast like the rest during Ramadan, you can find alcohol everywhere and no woman covers her head here. Our friends put some candles in special syncretistic shrine where Islam and pagan Kurdish traditions meet. At the sources of the Munzur River, Alevi families hold a celebration, we are invited to lunch. My Alevi friend seems happy, remembering her childhood traditions. The third of us comes from a Sunni Muslim family, “this is very strange for me, too”.
Leftists always win the elections. Even ethnically, people from Dersim are different from the rest of the Kurds; they belong to the Zaza people. Their language, Zazaki, is not understood by the speakers of Kurmanji, the main Kurdish dialects. It seems to be closer to some dialects of the Caspian coast in Iran, as well as other remote regions of Kurdistan like Howraman. There are even people denying that Zazas are Kurds. A denial very much supported by Turkey, of course, even if this has never meant the slightest support for the Zazaki. But most people we talk to see themselves as Zaza Kurds. Which means being Kurd in their own way, that is, in their free Kurdish spirit.
