Sitting in the corner of my quiet room, holding my shaking knees and rocking back and forth to the soothing melody of a music that sheds tears for a land far away, for a land unknown, unheard of, forgotten under the shadow of tragedy, I find my teary eyes weary. A clear voice begins to raise the weeping sounds of a yearning, a longing and sings passionately of the agony, of the misery:

Birndar kirim xerbiy,
Ez ji xwe re kustim xerbiy,
Min bese ji v eziyetiy,
Berm kete v beriy

Derde welat pir girana
Jre div jr zana
Mj ziman ew dermana
W xilaskin...

I use all of the strength in my fragile body to keep my eyes open but the weight is too heavy to carry and my eyelids surrender and a tear drops. Another tear and another tear, and a long repressed stream of aching tears follow in the same direction. I sit back in the darkness, in the stillness, in the vacuum, entangled in the silence, and with the music shed tears for a land I love, cherish, worship, have been exiled, banished from. I sit back in the comfort of my safe and secure room and wonder about the snowy mountains of a land I was forced to leave. I look in the mirror, and know that the girl staring back at me is absent, is not present in the warmth of this room, she is still in her birth place, walking amongst her people, wearing a long rosy dress, speaking in the sweet language of her mother’’s tongue. I envy her I close my eyes for the second time and I find myself not here, not in my room, not in this city, not in this country, and not in this end of the world. I find myself on the other side, on the other end, where death is the sun one lives under, where death is the air one breaths. I try to open my eyes, I try to escape the picture, the vivid film played so rapidly in my mind, but I’’m chained to it, imprisoned, infected, too deeply to break away from the plaque that sweeps through the formations of that
existence.

Picture after picture, horrific images stab my flesh and break my bones. Images of children torn to pieces, hungry animals digging through their freshly dissected organs, images of mine fields being cleared by innocent children who have just learned to walk, sand storms that carry chemical gases, dogged up mass graves of men and women who were buried alive, girls who were raped over and over and the pieces of their limbs emptied in trashcans after their bodies had fallen to pieces. But perhaps they were the lucky ones for those who remained alive witnessed all, picked up the remains, cleaned the bloodshed, carried the onus, the guilt, the shame, the pain. Perhaps they were the lucky ones, for the mothers of the disappeared sat day after day in the front yard of their shattered houses and cried, shouted, prayed, until their weary eyes made them silent.

Perhaps they were the lucky ones for the ones who lost their legs, were blinded, gave birth to children with three arms and no faces are those who suffer. Perhaps they were the lucky ones for the ones who remained carried the blame. Perhaps they were the lucky ones.

Unanswered, intolerable questions begin to haunt me, questions of the child within me who does not understand why she had to leave her grandparents and flee to a country where she does not belong, where she will always remain a stranger. What is it about loneliness that makes us so detached and small? I feel the anger within me rise, the anger of generations of suppressed people, the anger of not having the right to say who I am, be who I am, show the pride of my history, my heritage, my identity, my dignity, have a country, a home. What is it about anger that makes us so passionate and yet so helpless? What is it about freedom that we humans so desperately long for, need, desire, want, fight for, and die for? Why will they not set us free? I need an answer! Yet no one is willing to say a word.

I wonder if the filthy soldiers who bashed into the house in Kirkuk and raped the little 12 year old Kurdish girl in front of her 10 year old brother ever looked into the mirror. I wonder if the man who ordered the murders of the genocide of the Kurdish people ever stood up late at night and thought about pain. I wonder if the people who deport refugee families back to their graves ever wonder about the air they breathe.

What is it about cruelty that is so hard to grasp? Why can I not understand? How do they do it?

I lay there, curled up on the wooden floor of my furnished room and feel ashamed of being so comfortable, feel almost guilty. I lay there and cry or the little beautiful Kurdish children who have no shelter, who sleep on the ground, who shiver from the cold, who sweat from the heat, who are starving, who have been the witnesses of their family’’s murder. I ie there all night under a dim candle light and cry for the unbearable injustices, for the unfairness, for the torturous deeds done upon my people only and only because they were born Kurds. But self pity has never cured or healed anyones sickness, illness, madness, pain.

The colorful hues of the suns light rays announce the arrival of dawn, and looking out of the window at the passing street cars, I can not help but notice how beautiful this life is, how incredible one day ends and another begins. Our people are not victims, they are survivors, the world has tried to tear us, break us, drive us insane, yet we have only grown stronger. It has rained and snowed and haled on us, yet we are still
standing.

They say that we should let the world change us, so that we can change the world. The world has done its part, let’’s do our part to change it for the better, it is the responsibility of those of us who can to speak for the people whose voices do not reach beyond the borders. It is our turn...