Kurdish region, the land of the broken heart people

13-11-2021 04:35
Kurdish Migrants at the Belarus-Poland border near Grodno, Belarus, on Monday. Photo: Leonid Shcheglov/Belta/The Associated Press

Karwan Ibrahim 

It will be very difficult to find someone who's his/her heart is not broken in this region, the Kurdish region of Iraq, that is why I can say that we are from the land of broken heart people, but why and how? 

There are people who are crying, wailing, and speaking about their broken heart every day in this region, for example, there are high school graduate students saying that they have got very high marks, but their name is nowhere, they say that they are from poor families, but the government asks money for studying, the government wants to reduce free education.

On another side you see the lectures of primary schools are on the streets and they ask for their rights, they are teaching at the schools but they have no rights as teachers, they have been working as volunteers for several years, but their heart has broken several times, how a broken heart teacher can teach his/her students the lessons of hope? The lessons of patriotism?

Then there are farmers, every year they feel that their efforts are wasted and they are just regretful. There is no support for them that makes them happy and feel safe economically. Every year some of them throw their products because they don't get enough money to cover their expenditure. How a broken heart farmer can create productive agriculture? 

And the young people, most of the young people has lost their hope to stay at this country, so many young people are leaving this region every day, they go to western countries, they are seeking for hope, for a job, for a better life, why they go? Because their heart has broken, their hope has been killed, their present life is full of injustice, and they see no bright future over here. Right now there are so many Kurdish people on the Belarus and Poland borders that want to cross the borders and enter the European countries. They are in a difficult situation over there, there are old women, and children, and they are just leaving their own homeland.

Nothing belongs to people over here, everything belongs to the political parties and the dominant families, from the security forces to the police, and military men, all of them have controlled by the dominant political parties, people are not feeling safe here, because there is no a national army, and national security, so kidnapping and killing people is very easy, because you do not know who is responsible for finding the murderer! Every year things like that happen, even though several journalists have been killed during the last ten years, but not any police or security forces took responsibility for finding the killers.

Kidnaping journalists, torturing them, and even some time killing them, and corruption and injustice in the Kurdistan region make people disappointed, most of the people have lost their hope to create a better life over here, while there are a lot of efforts and sacrificing for freedom and peace during Sadam’s regime, it is difficult to find a family who has not a martyr here in the Kurdish region of Iraq, then the Kurdish leaders got power but they forgot the sacrificing of so many people who fought for freedom, the authorities started to make themselves rich, and they sent their own children to the developed countries for studying.

During the last 30 years, whenever the Kurdish people protested the power and asked for their primary rights, the security forces confronted them with a gun, and just because of that, several people have been killed at the protests so far. I myself have been arrested and tortured three times because I was covering the protests as a journalist. There is no respect neither for protesters nor for reporters.

It is difficult to find someone that his/her heart is not broken, I am one of them, I feel that injustice is sinking me every day, I have my own story, each of us has our own story in the case of breaking heart. The political and social system, the injustice is breaking our hearts. Our demand is not answered, our right is not seen. 

It is more than a hundred years we have had the same story, the same story is repeating again and again, whether by foreign authorities or by domestic officials, after 1991 the Kurdish local government had to take responsibility to work for healing the broken hearts, but they did not, and the same policy is going on.

Karwan Ibrahim is editor-in-chief at NRT tv in Iraqi Kurdistan, and he has studied for a Master in Communication and Journalism in India. He can be reached by karwantree@gmail.com