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Anfal: Our 9/11 happened many times over (Free verse) by kawakurdi

I do not remember for whom I cried the last time I do not remember the last instance when I was with myself When I was with my self's sorrows When I was the lone friend of my lonely loneliness When I was the intimate mate of my desire-full inner soul When I was with myself for myself When I was my self's self, Was MYSELF. Oh, if only for one hour, one minute, one second, I could see myself in the clear mirror of my inner Self And if I could talk to myself with the pure words of Self If I could listen to those music-less melodies To those secrets of secret mysteries What colour they might be The colour of me without me What sound could they be The sound of my mute party What Existence could Absolute Idea be What Idea could Absolute Existence be What taste could the Soul have What Soul could the loneliness of solitary souls be? I do not remember the last time I said good-bye to you I do not remember the last time I missed you I do not remember the last time I upset you I do not remember your last meeting, last smile, last breath, last looks, Last sigh, last sorrow, last desire, last prayer, I do not remember when I forgot you How I forgot you But I remember how I wore you How my soul was dressed in your image How my sighs breathed you in How my eyes met a pair of eyes That opened the gates of an epic I remember when I became fond of you From beyond existence, I became the shadow of your existence, You became the shadow of my existence, My shy loneliness, My sad solitariness, Rested in your arms My heart dwelt in yours My soul was revived by yours. I do not remember when I was me, When I was with me for me, But I remember I was myself in your love, I could cry, I knew how to laugh, I was able to die, Time was in my hands, Place was on my shoulders, Life was a simple pain. Now away from you, dreams process my soul, I put my head on the mist of your breast, And listen to the withered whispers of your heart I travel to a world I have never seen before I have never passed through it even accidentally Nor heard of it by word of mouth Nor read about it in books and epics Where did this come from? This non-material phenomenon, This non-existential looks, What a wonderful world it is How unique and peerless it is It is dream, it is the Self's self, It is inner image, It is the root of rootless consciousness It is the beginning of no-beginning It is the First's First The non-existence of Existence The Existence of non-existence It is a grain of soil, A worm, A Universe A Mystery A Myth Who can catch shade? Who can hunt the sunrays? Who can chase the wind? Who can catch a dream, measure a dream, Jail a dream, hang a dream? Dream is man-in-God, Dream is God-in-Man It is I in you It is you in a me-less me. It is consciousness with no boundaries It is the infinity of sub-consciousness I do not remember the last time I forgot you But my thoughtlessness is your thought My selflessness is your self All my dreamlands are your home All my homes are your dreamland Are you an entity without identity? Are you an existence with no ingredients? Or are you eternity in ideas, Or are you ideas in eternity? Or just a fading memory In my trouble-ridden heart? Or a living twilight, In the remote sky of my then-town? Or a buried-alive woman of Anfal Or a heroine in the Zewa camp, Islamic butchers play with your body To make sandwiches for your kids? The bosses call you a a prostitute And their men set you a goal for their guns? What entity, what destiny are you, my heart? I do not remember the last time I cried for you. I do not remember for whom I cried last time, For Hiwa, for Hemin, for Hama, for Misto, For Chato, for Karwan, for Pari, for Shirin, for Kajal, for Gulala, for Jiyan, for Hero? For whom did I cry last time? For Azad, how many Azads, which Azad? For Mahabad, how many Mahabads, which Mahabad? For Farhad, how many Farhads, which Farhad? I do not know for whom I cried last time? Did I cry for all and in crying for all I cried for you? Or did I cry for you alone, and in crying for you I cried for all? Or did I collect the mud of the word, paste it on my face, And my head became hard clay? Then, I could cry no more, I lost energy to tremble, I had no breath to shout, I became a living shadow In a dead world? Really, why did I cry last time? Was it for Marga, for Kani Tu, For Sargalu, for Bargalu, For Halabja, for Sharazur, For Khalifan, for Mergasur, For Qaradagh, for Garmiyan, For Barwari, for Badinan? For which town, which townlet, Which morning, which dawn, which sunshine. Which mountain, which village, which meadow, Which orchard, which springwater, which oaktree? I do not know how many tears were left For my heart-town Qaladiza? I do not know for which lover I cried last time, The death of which baby shocked me, The coffin of which body stunned me, The name of which village unsettled my heart I do not know who extinguished the flame of my blood, Who read prayers of hatred on my body, And said to me. Now we have cut off all the roots of your life, We have destroyed everything that you loved, Die, man, die!! Or turn exile into the burden of death And carry it on your shoulders From this station to another, From this island to another. Outside world is a dry barren tree, Look for yourself in yourself, Remember your last time What you were, who you were, Where you were, Were you existent or non-existent Were you a one or a two Were you a bowl, or a magic Were you death or history?

kawakurdi 12-Sep-02/10:12 AM
I think it is too harsh to say that choosing this title brings the author to "the dishonorable status of slanderer". That is what I call a cultural attitude. It shows the arrogance that people everywhere hate about America and the Americans. In fact the poem is very old, written in 1988 when Saddam was gassing my people and US was a great supporter of him and providing him together with other Western countries and [not surprisingly for us] the Soviet Union then, with all weapons of mass destruction. I did not add the other title with the intention of being a slanderer or reducing from the magnitutude and uniqueness of 9/11. We very much feel the pain of the people who lost their dear ones. I simply wnated this title to provoke some interest in other similar targedies which adily afflict other human peoples in many parts of the world, especailly in Kurdistan. But I see it as sheer arogance to challenge a poet the right to choose a title because "your tragedy cannot be like ours". It is always this us/them dichotomy which creates jsutification for murder, torture and oppression. Also I meant by cultural context sepcific individual and collective experiences. The names in the poem of course do not mean much to you. You would feel different if the names were Colorado, California, Hawai, Florida, Manhatan, etc. And this is natural. So for an American reader of course the poem loses the cultural and emotional conetnt and history associated with these names. So it is not critisizing or attacking or defending when mentioning this fact.

For me one of the names Marga is my village where I was born. It was a very beautiful mountain village in a vallay of orchards farms and natural forest. Only 150 families lived there. The whole village together with 4000 other villages were obliterated either with napalm bombing, bulldozing or if these did not do the trick, Western-supplied chemical weapons. When I went back in 1992 my village did not exist. The town in which I I studied my econdary education and then taught there as a teacher of English, did not exist anymore. No villages at all existed And there were 200,000 less people, women, youn people and children taken by Sdadm to Arab deserts of South Iraq near Saudi and Jordanian borders for experimenting the effectiveness of his biological and chemical weapons. This means at least seven 9/11s in terms of the number of victims. But I am sure this comparison again makes you angry: How can you compare the death of invisible Kurds to the death of bankers, engineers, technicains or simply American males and females?

So again in terms of culture, poetry also has a different mission in different context. But I stopped writing poetry for many years after Anfal because I became depressed, desperate and disillusioned about human nature. Can all poetry of the world stop the killing of a chid by a dictatorial regime? Another thing: I never approach culture in terms of East versus West, Us versus the world. In the poem there is reference to Islamic butchers. Yes, those who carried out Anfal they did it in the name of Islam in the same way they did 9/11 atrocities in the name of Islam. Anfal itself is a word taken from the Quran which refers to the right of Muslims to kill, rob, rape, and destroy Kafirs {infifdels] once they were conquered by Muslim hordes. So Saddam used this Quranic order to perpetrate his genocide. And non of the Muslim countries and peoples in any part of the world, thsoe who fill the world with wails and cries to defend Paletenians, ever raised a voice to defend the Kurds or even to recognise their pain and suffering. Althou the greatest Muslim leader ever was the Kurdsih Salah-al-Din who fought the crusaders and I think still the West has not forgotten this when dealing with the Kurds.

{ I have to go. Maybe I'll continue later}




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