Social fascism - the tragedy of women killings and deaths in Kurdistan Region: reality, reasons, solutions
Kurdishaspect.com - By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli
Part 1: Massacre of women in Kurdistan continues unabated
(1) The problem
The daily massacre of women in the Kurdistan Region, a routine reality created by the primitive totalitarian parties of Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, has reached a level that it is no exaggeration to call the phenomenon “femicide”. It is true that there is no one specific deliberate policy that encourages and sanctions feminicide of Kurdish women. The fact is that ALL the policies, practices, the structure of the so-called Kurdistan Region government , methods of controlling society’s wealth and health, and the mentality, selfishness, cruelty and irresponsibility of the officials of these two totalitarian parties directly contribute to the daily deaths of women in particular, and ordinary citizens n general.
The shocking thing is not just the continuing appalling deaths and the barbaric manner in which t they are perpetrated, but also the silence and increasingly fascist tolerance of the brutalised and dehumanised Kurdish society of this continuous tragedy of cruelty and murder. Not only do so-called Kurdish leaders ever say a word or express a sorrow about any of the daily deaths, but also no section of Kurdish society is campaigning or even raising their voice against this barbarism because in fact nothing in Kurdistan has been left that can be called normal society. The so-called women activists and party-controlled women organisations are as guilty and criminally-involved as others as they do no more than providing a conniving façade of allegedly defence of women’s rights . Also the so-called Kurdish intellectuals are increasingly becoming silent partners to these crimes. In fact the whole barbarised Region has developed a cowardly fascist socio-cultural and political consensus based on conspiracy of silence that victimises hundreds of women, girls, and children every month.
We can call this phenomenon 'Social fascism" and I mean by this "a minority in society monopolising wealth and power and using this for control and abuse of the weakened and de-powered majority and especially women as the largest group of the victims of social fascism without any access to justice and redress." The fact that this so-called "social problem' of massacre of women is only one aspect of the barbaric control of power and wealth by political parties is evidenced by the deterioration of all aspects of social life, lack of any sort independent judiciary or legal system, lack of freedoms, destruction of traditional Kurdish cultural and social structures, lack of services and total exclusion of ordinary people from access to power, wealth and organisation of social life. Increasing rates of diseases, children deaths and increasing phenomenon of child poverty, child labour and physical and sexual abuse of children, destruction of Kurdish countryside and local crafts and products, the isolation and misery of the elderly people, the alienation and migration of young people, increasing control over media and freedom of information, turning blind eye to daily bombardment and destruction of Kurdish villages and displaced of hundreds of families by Iranian and Turkish armies, etc , are other aspects of this complex phenomenon I call 'social fascism". These all happens when it is supposed that just for the year 2008, the budget allocated by Baghdad for the three provinces will amount to between 8-12 billion dollars while no one knows how , how much or if any of last year's budget (about 6 billion dollars) has been spent at all.
(2) The scale of the tragedy
In Kurdistan region there are no civilised or scientific ways to know anything about anything. In order to hide the degree of their totalitarian control and abuse of power the dominant parties have established tight control over property, wealth, Kurdistan’s budget, media, education, jobs and businesses, institutions and organisations and every aspect of Kurdish society even families and social relations and the movement of young people. These have prevented the development of any independent scientific mechanisms of knowledge and gathering information let alone transparency and accountability. Of course after 17 years in power one would have expected from even the most primitive sort of government to have set up by now a respectable effective National Statistics Office gathering and providing daily accurate data about any issue and aspect of life in Kurdistan region, along with tens of academic and other scientific centres of social and economic research and analysis. Reliable Statistical mechanisms should have also existed in every Ministry, Directorate and government institution. Kurdistan universities should have played the leading scientific, social and intellectual role in transferring Kurdish society to the modern democratic world through hundreds of academic and field studies and leading democratic political discourses, practices and institutions. Alas, the universities too have been abused and strangled by the primitive totalitarian political parties and the academics and university teachers have shamefully succumbed to this totalitarianism.
It is only thanks to some private sector and semi-independent sector newspapers and their diligent correspondents that hundreds of women victims can even make it to become passing daily items of news. Most of the incidents of murder and burning are reported in one line news items within the middle pages of the newspapers often without even mentioning the names of victims. Thus even in their death, most women victims remain faceless, nameless and voiceless. Even when the numbers are added up, usually of a week’s death toll, the impact is still zero in terms of any reaction by the so-called government (which does not exist as a moral institution or an administrative function accountable to any constitution, law, procedure, or anyone at all) , or by the so-called ‘Parliament’, or by intellectuals, who have ceased to exist as an independent thinking and reacting strata, or by society at large which is increasingly brutalised, fragmented, marginalised and replaced by the phenomenon of mafia-style political party affiliated tribal or factional groupings engaged in rivalry for wealth, businesses, land, jobs and privileges. The official media, mainly TV channels owned and controlled by the families controlling the political parties and government, do not even broadcast the news of daily killings, burnings and suicides of women. No death has ever become a story pursued by a TV programme. Instead, women are used in Ba’thist, Burmist or any fascist style party propaganda, as sexy faces and images to show how modern and Westernised the Kurdish society is and how happy any one is who calls himself KDP or PUK is in the paradise land of Barbaristan.
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June 11, 2008
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