November 27,2006
Cultural renaissance
By Aram Eissa
Soma
Every culture is rich and varied in its own right, however, whether or not that fact is acknowledged by its neighbors or the world at large is another thing. Unfortunately Kurdish culture is one of those that is not widely acknowledged or well known outside of the Kurdish region. This was one of the factors that encouraged the renowned Kurdish poet Sherko Bekas to found the Sardam Publishing House.
“When I stepped down as minister of culture for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and left the country for a while, I began thinking of founding a press and publishing house in Slemani, with the help of other writers and artists,” says Bekas. Once the idea was made firm Bekas took his proposal to the KRG, who agreed to help with founding the project.
“The publishing house has two main objectives, the first being to publish Kurdish literature, arts and language and the second to introduce foreign languages, literature and arts to Kurdish culture,” enthuses Bekas. Bekas says that they achieve these aims through publishing six different magazines which include: Aynda a magazine for Kurdish culture and literature, Sardam magazine for translating literature, critiques and philosophy into Kurdish, Zanisti-Sardam a scientific periodical, Rakhnay Sardam a critical magazine for whom a number of our educated and talented young writers contribute to, such as Bakhtyar Ali, Mariwan Qanee, and Rebeen Hardi.
One area in which Bekas thinks that it is very important for Sardam to succeed is in translating Kurdish texts into other languages. “It is a very good way to increase the awareness of Kurdish culture in the Middle East and beyond, but at the moment our resources our limited and it is difficult, the concept is something the KRG should get involved, they must do more,” Bekas says. Sardam does however publish one of its magazines in Arabic, which Bekas credits to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani: “It was Mam Jalal’s idea; he thought that it would be a good way to introduce Kurdish culture to the wider region through the Arabic language.” “And I agreed because we, the Kurds, are one of the oldest peoples of the Middle East yet the Arabs in general know very little about Kurdish culture.”
The publishing house is also currently working a project that Bekas refers to as a ‘pocket book’ for translating the small yet important texts into the Kurdish language. Other areas in which the publishing house is looking to expand are children’s literature and sports and the expansion is likely to be in the form of two further magazines. “Unfortunately, distributing the magazines to a wide (and to a non-Kurdish) audience have not been all that easy,” says Bekas.
“Up until now, we have published more than 400 books, but unfortunately, we could not publish all of these books and magazine abroad, especially the Arabic language Sardam Al Arabi magazine, since we do not have a proper postal system at the moment,” he said.
The publishing house has recently moved to state of the art new offices, whose foundation stone was laid by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and opened on 26 October by President Talabani. Despite receiving much of its funding from the KRG, Bekas is keen to impress that the publishing house is independent:
“Yes, the KRG funded Sardam but we work independently and we do not have any obligation to follow the government’s wishes,” he says. In order to make this independence more credible, Bekas intends to utilize the new premises to their full potential. “The ground floor of our office building will be rented as retail space, we also have another building nearby that we will turn into a cinema and cafeteria, these commercial enterprises should allow us to become pretty much self sufficient,” says Bekas.
The new building is certainly impressive and draws many admiring glances from passersby and Bekas is certainly pleased with it, because it has space for a small art gallery to exhibit the many pieces of art that Sardam has received over the years.
Printed with permission. From Soma
Kurdish poet Sherko Bekas discusses his lofty ambitions after the opening of Sardam’s swanky new headquarters.
