The Kurds Journey Towards Political Selfhood

O those who listen to history when it speaks, and to geography when its frontlines flare with fire—come, let us hear the tale of a people whose land was never barren of struggle, but was always the eternal womb of hope, even when the cords of birth were severed time and again.

From Mahabad, the dream was born, naked save for the honor of its idea: a republic forged from the jasmine of rifles and the clarity of the martyr-judge, Qazi Muhammad, who wrote the document of existence in ink and blood together. Yet it fell, as flowers fall when the stream dries up, after the Soviet bear shut off the tap of protection, and Iran crept forward with the sword of the state and the claw of oil. The tribes, too, were silent, as though they had not heard the mountain’s call. And so the entity died, yet its name remains alive on the lips of longing.

Then the ink was renewed, and Barzani returned, placing his rifle on the table in Baghdad in 1970, asking for justice to be born from understanding. But Iraq wanted Kirkuk only in its house of obedience, stoking the fire of Arabization until the war flared again, as if geography could only be written in the language desired by the ruler, not in the language spoken by the stones.

In 1992, after the dictator in Baghdad bowed to the desert storm, the Kurds breathed the air of federalism in northern Iraq, under the wings of protecting international planes. There, they wrote a constitution for identity and played an anthem in the parliament. Yet, the flag of independence was not raised-;- it hung between the wind and diplomacy, caught in a tug of war.

Today, the road still remains littered with thorns, cultivated by the hands of both the foreign and the local. Turkey and Iran fear the birth of a Kurdish nation that might give birth to brothers on their lands, and they respond to the dream with the daggers of geography. Meanwhile, inside, the disputes among brothers weaken the house and tempt the greedy with the illusion of a fragile roof. Added to this is the curse of oil—the black gold that shines only in the pockets of the center and does not illuminate the darkness of independence.

And if international support is scarce, it is because the world sees no Kurdish blood as a project worthy of care—unless it runs through the pipes of gas and corporate interests. For the world does not love free poetry-;- it prefers texts subject to market censorship.

But when will independence come? In the coming age?´-or-in an age we create ourselves?
Independence is not a date marked on the calendar of nations, but the fruit of a tree watered by unity, it blooms through clever alliances, and it is harvested when the thrones of despots weaken and the maps of iron and fire crumble.

So, O Kurdish dreamer, do not return to the notebooks of despair-;- instead, write on the next page:

“We are not a people searching for a state-;- we are a memory searching for its voice, an identity yearning to emerge from the noise of the world to its own melody.”

Independence, my friends, is not a decision signed, but a spirit that manifests when the land reconciles with its children, and history with its tears.
And no dream is lost when a people insists on walking, even with feet wounded by a thousand betrayals

Rate the article
Bad	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Very good
Result : 100%							Participated in the vote : 1