 | ||||
Menu
April 16, 2008
News
The most admired Independent Kurdish Newspaper from the heart of Kurdistan.
For Kurdish Women’s Issues
1. rightness n a: accordance with conscience or morality b: appropriate conduct; doing the right thing c: conformity to fact or truth 2. truth n a: the state of being the case b: the body of real things, events, and facts
An Independent Online Kurdish-English Newspaper
A Kurdish Online Blogger
| ||||
Tibet and Kurdistan, Parallel Persecution
Kurdishaspect.com - By Peter Stitt
When China was awarded the right to stage the 2008 Summer Olympics the Chinese political elite started gleefully rubbing its hands together whilst contemplating the huge propaganda potential of such an international event. I suspect the Chinese authorities are rather less optimistic about their chances of gaining political mileage after recent successful protests staged by Tibetan people and their supporters whilst the world’s media was focussed on the disrupted events.
A significant factor in the above statement is the issue of “their supporters”. Unlike the Kurdish people, the Tibetans have successfully appealed to fair-minded people across the world. The reason the protest at the Athens torch-lighting ceremony was so successfully accomplished was because of a simultaneous protest by people from the Czech Republic that distracted the Greek security services and the large number of Chinese agents in attendance.
There is no doubt that there are pockets of support for Kurdish nationalism throughout Europe, America and in Russia but nothing like the support that exists for the Tibetan independence movement. Given the undeniable parallels in the sufferings of the Tibetan and Kurdish people, why is the international reaction to such suffering so different in each case?
Many Turkish nationalists appeal as “Muslim brothers” when they are trying to persuade Kurds to support the clearly racist Turkish nation. America and Britain are not “real friends” to Kurds, the Turks say, because America and Britain are not Muslim nations. They actually go further and accuse individuals from Britain and the US of being “anti-Muslim” purely because they are citizens of western countries. I was once accused of being “an agent of George Bush” by some fool on a Turkish website because I stated that I believe in an independent and united Kurdistan! I, who have lived within a Kurdish Muslim community for eight years, I am supposed to be an agent for a US President I have little respect for! That’s how desperate a Turk became when faced with an independent thinker who was neither Kurdish nor Turkish. Play the “religion card” to separate Kurds from their foreign supporters.
The “Muslim brother” approach is a cheap shot and is designed to push people away from dialogue with westerners (the infidels!) who truly understand democracy, not the Turkish form of “democracy” in which you have rights only if you have Turkish blood, but real, open, genuine democracy where leaders can be voted out of office unlike the Turkish military leadership. I know there is anti-Muslim sentiment within countries like France, the main nation standing in the way of Turkey’s European Union membership, but I can honestly say that the US and Britain definitely does not have any hidden anti-Muslim policy. The British people, a very independent lot who enjoy giving political leaders a hard time, certainly have no anti-Islamic tendencies.
So why is there so much support for Tibetan independence in the wider world whilst the issue of Kurdistan remains so well hidden in the international media? Let’s consider the image projected to the world by these two tormented nations. South Kurdistan achieved autonomy in 1991 and elections were held to determine the leadership of the fledgling state. Due to a 2% difference in the voting, a civil war broke out as family businesses greedily vied for power, happy to send young men to their deaths, causing splits within families as Kurd fought Kurd. Then we had the thorny issue of PKK with its battles against PUK and PDK, political assassinations and protection rackets (tax) throughout Europe. What did Tibet put “out there” for the international media to focus on? The Dalai Lama, a peace loving old man. So the Turks and the Arabs will tell you they are your brothers because they are Muslim and the West is against you because the West is Christian, what the hell are the Tibetans? Christian? No, they are Buddhist, a religion much further away from Christianity in theological terms than Islam. If there were a religious bias in Western hearts, it would favour Islam, not Buddhism, and yet Tibet has huge support so there is no evidence of religious bias. The Turks and Arabs find it convenient to play the religion card whenever they need the Kurdish people but, the rest of the time, they regard the Kurdish people as lesser human beings than themselves. History shows this hypocrisy clearly, repeated endlessly throughout the annals of time.
Yet again brothers and sisters, I think the fault lies at the door of your leaders. The image they have projected to the world is one of tribal empires (and that includes Mr Ocelan, despite his fine words which are dressed in Marxist jargon to “imply” that his organisation and vision is different to that of Barzani and Talabani). Tibet simply came across as a tortured peaceful people during the same period and that is why it receives so much support from individuals around the world. I think there are lessons to be learned from the Tibetan experience.
Hollywood Director, Steven Spielberg, is one of many high-profile celebrities who have withdrawn from involvement with the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese government must now be wishing that they had never applied to host the Olympics in the first place. Instead of the political triumph they envisioned, what they have now got is the world’s media focussed on an event that is going to be used mercilessly by the Tibetan movement to stage peaceful protests in order to highlight the fascist nature of the Chinese regime. The Tibetan resistance to Chinese oppression has been almost entirely peaceful and Tibet is winning. There are definitely lessons to be learned from the Tibetan experience.
I am not a pacifist, I know there is a time for fighting, but I spent most of my youth fighting pointless battles on the streets and in school and I gained nothing, I just hurt people and that made me feel bad. Even now, if anyone threatened the woman I plan to marry I would tear them to pieces but, in my adult life, I learned the value of talking and peaceful protest. It wins support when you are seen as the passive party, the aggrieved party, the party that is willing to talk. The Kurdish political elite needs to change its thinking and leave the ancient tribalism where it belongs, in the past. Only then will we realise the Kurdish nation. I pray for that day.
Reader comments
Comments containing threats, foul language or thinly disguised foul language will be deleted. Keep it civil, stay on topic and your posts will remain online. Terms of Use
___________________
| ||||
RECOMMENDED SITES
Sponsors
