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January 13, 2010
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Gender, Memory, and Political Discourse
The case of Anfal surviving women
Kurdish Studies seminar at SOAS
Speaker: Dr. Choman Hardi
Date and time : 21rst January 2010,@7:00 pm
Venue: B111, Schoolof Oriental and African Studies, University of London(SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Organised by Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS) and Kurdish Studies and Students organisation
Seminar Abstract
Al-Anfal (The Spoils) was a series of military attacks launched by the Iraqi state against the Kurdish rural inhabitants in 1988. The offensive took place in 8 stages and it stretched over seven months (Feb- Sep 1988). During the campaign 281 locations were attacked with poison gas, more than 2600 villages were razed to the ground, and 100,000 civilians were disappeared.
This research was conceptualised in the early 2000s when I watched numerous documentaries about Anfal on the Kurdish satellite channels. I found that despite the fact many women were interviewed during these documentaries a large part of their experiences during and after Anfal remained unspoken about. Here I draw on interviews conducted during my research (2005-2008) and some of my work for the Kurdish Museum project (2008- 2009), collecting testimonies as part of a team involving cameraman, director and photographer. My aim was to get a general overview of the women's experiences who suffered during the different stages of Anfal and in the aftermath.
The sample included 59 women and 22 men for my research and I have also drawn on 16 interviews (13 women and 3 men) conducted for the Museum Project. This means a total of 70 women and 24 men have informed this research. Various others have contributed to this research through conversations and meetings that took place during fieldwork.
In my research I found that there were differences in how women and men remembered the genocide campaign and also they differed in what they remembered. Here I will discuss three factors that influenced Kurdish women's remembrances of the Anfal campaign, namely the gender expectations of how men and women should feel and behave in Kurdish society; the dominant Anfal narrative; and the social stigma around certain experiences. I will also speak about the consequences of the way women are represented in the official Anfal narrative for the women themselves and the community at large.
Dr. Choman Hardi
Born in Kurdistan and raised in Iraq and Iran, Choman Hardi came to the UK in 1993 where she was educated at Queens College Oxford, University College London, and University of Kent in Canterbury.
A poet, writer and academic researcher she was former Poet-In-Residence at Moniack Mhor Writers Centre (Scotland), Villa Hellebosch (Belgium), and Hedgebrook Women Writers' Retreat (USA). She has performed her work in the UK, Europe, USA, India, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
She has published three collections of poetry in Kurdish and her first English collection, Life for Us, was published by Bloodaxe in 2004 and reprinted eighteen months later. In 2006 she became one of the youngest poets whose work was displayed as part of 'Poems on the Underground' and 'Poems in the Waiting Room' programs.
Choman has facilitated poetry workshops for Exiled Writers Ink, Apples and Snakes, New Writing Partnerships, Spread the Word, Accademi, The South Bank, The Arvon Foundation and the British Council. In 2007 she facilitated a series of poetry workshops for the young people in Kurdistan through the Youth Culture Houses in different towns and cities.
In 2005 she was awarded a two year post-doctoral research scholarship by the Leverhulme Trust to research about the widows of genocide in Iraqi Kurdistan and during which she was associated with the Uppsala Program for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. She presented some of her findings at academic conferences in the UK, USA, Oslo, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Sarajevo.
She co-facilitated Gender and Mental Health training workshops with Dr Jennie Williams for women in Kurdistan in 2006 and 2007. She has also provided various seminars and workshops on Gender construction in Kurdish society and the position and experiences of the widows of Anfal in many Kurdish cities as well as for the Diaspora.
Further information www.ksso.org.uk or mc@ksso.org.uk
The UK Kurdish Studies & Student Organisation is a non-political body that strives to promote greater awareness of the Kurds, their political and cultural situation in the Middle East and as a significant minority community in the UK.
Email: mc@ksso.org.uk
Website: www.ksso.org.uk
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