Roj Bash !

A few texts of ancient avestic religion were saved from fire of only dammaged by time and persecution… The remained books have been copied probably by memory a long time after their original writing. All the same, they are precious testimonies about religious and daily life of ancient Iranian believers…

The Shayest, Na-Shayest Book or “Of Pure and Impure has been translated in 1885 by E. W. West (Sacred Books of the East, volume 5, Oxford University Press, 1885). it is “a compilation of miscellaneous laws and customs regarding sin and impurity, and other memoranda about ceremonies and religious subjects in general.” and quotes many times from Avesta texts which are no longer extant.

The Treaty are readable on line on avesta.org.

The policy of the Presidency, the Government, and the political parties of the Kurdistan Region related to this issue can be summarized as follows:

1. We do not believe in the use of violence as a doctrine and method to achieve political objectives.

2. We do not accept in any way, based on our commitment to the Iraqi constitution, the use of Iraqi territories, including the territories of the Kurdistan Region, as a base to threaten the security of neighboring countries.

3. We call upon the PKK to eliminate violence and armed struggle as a mode of operation. The current problems should be solved through political and diplomatic methods. It is necessary to stop using other methods, which are useless, and we demand that the PKK remain committed to the cease fire and not resort to armed operations.

4. We condemn all terrorist activities from any party because the people of Kurdistan itself are victims of terrorism. We have always struggled for the sake of peace, democracy, development and stability for our people and peoples of the region. We are in fact in a bitter and continued state of struggle against terrorism.

We declare that these principles are the firm policies of the people of Kurdistan, we reiterate that we endeavor to build friendly relations with the people of the region and we share a commitment to good neighborly relations with all.

We have always called for peace and security and we believe that the outstanding problems can be solved only through dialogue and understanding.

Official spokesman of the Presidency of the Kurdistan Region.

source : krg.org.

The mollah Nuri Tanrikulu, who recitated the Mewlid prayer at Mehmed Uzun’s funeral has been arrested by the “Anti-terrorist” forces of Diyarbakir. His crime ? “Terrorist propaganda”.

For at the end of his Kurdish speech, Mollah Nuri told the Fatiha Surat “for the rest of Kurdish martyrs and Kurdistan”. (source avesta)

So were are very enjoying here to repeat after the mollah this “terrorist” prayer :

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.

copyright Sandrine Alexie.

Facing Turkish threatening, Southern Kurds, far from hiding themselves in a deep hole, are reay to fight and start demonstration in Erbil, by claiming “If Turkey attack, all of us are peshmergas !”

Radio Nawa made a census in whuch 88% are for resistance. The newspaper Hawlati published lower results : 70% are ready to fight, 20% think it is better to only watch operation, 10% think it would be good to help Turkey…

Concerning Turkmens, even if Ankara pretends to “protect them” from bad Kurds, they seem opposed also to any attack, as claims the Democrat Movement of Turkmens, which condemns Turkey and says that the only Turkmens’ party to support Abkara is the Turkmen Front. The representative adds that any Turkmen who is a patriot should not allow Turkey to attack.

These demonstrations are the repetition of 2003’s, when Turkish army had been asked by USA to enter in Kurdistan, only, officially, to fight against Saddam. Kurdistanî have protested in the same way.

The Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG) is concerned by the decision of the Turkish Parliament granting a one-year authorisation for the Turkish government to conduct military operations in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).

We appeal to our friend and neighbour Turkey to refrain from military action in Iraq. The KRG seeks no conflict with Turkey. We do not and will not allow our territory to be used by anyone to attack or undermine Turkey or any of our neighbours. We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey, and we expect the same in return.

The KRG condemns the killing of innocent people in Turkey and does not believe that violence solves any problem. The KRG supports a political process to achieve a comprehensive political solution to the problem of the PKK, which has lasted for 28 years. This problem will not be solved solely through military means. Indeed, a Turkish military attack on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq would make the situation worse, complicating the prospects for a political solution in Turkey and threatening the fragile progress that is being made in Iraq.

The KRG considers good relations with Turkey a top priority. The Turkish people are our friends and neighbours with whom we have much in common. Turkish trade and investment have been instrumental in our region’s economic growth. Any problems or disagreements between the KRG and Turkey should be solved through diplomacy and dialogue. The KRG welcomes direct dialogue with Ankara on all issues of common interest or concern, including the PKK. An incursion would be detrimental to all Iraq, to Turkey and the Middle East.

source : krg.org

“The Kurds, who number some 25 million people in the Middle East, have no country they can call their own. Long ignored by the West, Kurds are now highly visible actors on the world’s political stage. More than half of them live in Turkey, where the Kurdish struggle has gained new strength and attention since the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq.

Essential to understanding modern-day Kurds-and their continuing demands for an independent state-is understanding the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party. A guerilla force that was founded in 1978 by a small group of ex-Turkish university students, the PKK radicalized the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, becoming a tightly-organized, well-armed fighting force of some 15,000, with a 50,000-member civilian militia in Turkey and tens of thousands of active backers in Europe. The war they waged in Turkey through 1999 left nearly 40,000 people dead and drew in the neighboring states Iran, Iraq and Syria, which all sought to use the PKK for their own purposes. Since 2004, emboldened by Iraqi Kurds who have established a near-autonomous Kurdish land in the northernmost reaches of Iraq, the PKK has again turned to violence to meet its objectives.

Blood and Belief combines reportage and scholarship to give the first, in-depth account of the PKK. Aliza Marcus, one of the first Western reporters to meet with PKK rebels, wrote about their war for many years for a variety of prominent publications before being put on trial in Turkey for her reporting. Based on her interviews with PKK rebels and their supporters and opponents throughout the world-including the Palestinians who trained them, the intelligence services that tracked them, and the dissidents who tried to break them up-Marcus provides an in-depth account of this influential radical group.”

About the Author
Aliza Marcus is formerly an international correspondent for The Boston Globe and lives in Washington, D.C. She covered the PKK for more than eight years, first as a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and later as a staff writer for Reuters, receiving a National Press Club Award for her reporting. She is also a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant for her work.

# Hardcover: 368 pages
# Publisher: NYU Press (August 1, 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0814757111
# ISBN-13: 978-0814757116
# Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches

Karl May, borned in 1842 and died in 1912 is one the best selling German writers and perhaps the mroe popular. His most famous novels were about imaginary adventures in the Wild West and in Middle-East. As for the “Ottoman adventures”, they concern Kara Ben Nemsi aka Karl a German, and his local guide Hadschi Halef Omar. One of them is “Durch wilde Kurdistan”, or “Through Wild Kurdistan”, written in 1882.

Many of Karl May’s stories have been used for scenarii movie, and a movie version of Durch wilde Kurdistan has been shot in 1965. On this site you can follow the main story if you are a German speaker, or just watch the funny pictures of a fantastic “Ottoman Empire”.

Listen to them here

Ibn Hawqal, on Xth century, described Luristan and Fars as the main settling region of Kurds, Lurs and Beluches, which he considered as relatives each others. Sheref Khan of Bitlis, on XVIthe century, still included Lur dynasties in his Kurdish Princes history. It is only at the XXth century that linguists have separated Lur from Kurdish languages, and moreover Lurs and Bakhtyars consider themselves as Kurds’ cousins more than their brothers.

However, one or two milleniums of narrow neighboring and osmosis, adding to a probable common ancestor-language, make that the folk songs of Luristan and Fars should not be ignored when we study Kurdish music. Recorded in 1974, 5 years before the Islamic Revolution, these musics are unvaluable testimonies of nomadic culture in South-Western Iran, and awsome beautiful songs also.

The Nobel price for Literature has been given this year to an… English Kermanshanî.

For Doris Lessing is borned in 1919 in this Kurdish City, where his father worked as a bank employeer.

“Herkes dimire; bira û birazî, yar û evindar, hêval û dost, hogir û rêger, nêz û nas… hêmû dimirin. Dora min jî hat. Niha jî dora min e…”

Mehmed Uzun died this morning in Diyarbekir. He was 54 years old and suffered of a stomach cancer.

Mehmed Uzun is one of the first authors borned in Turkey who wrote and published in Kurdish and for that reason, he faced a lot of judiciary troubles. On March 21th 1976 (Happy Newroz !) he was arrested and imprisonned in Ankara. He was judged in July 1976. The prosecutor pretending that there is no Kurds, no Kurdish language, Mehmed Uzun had to argue the cotnrary. Logically, if a crime is unreal, the punishment should be also. But Turkey was a Kafkaland where you could be condemned at 8 months for writing in an unreal language and pretending you belong to an unreal people. In 1977, he left Turkey for Sweden, and in 1981, Turkish state deprived him officially of his “Turkish” nationality.

Fortunately, Sweden was a shelter for political refugees. Mehmed Uzun received even funds to work on Kurdish language and folklore. In the aim to read classical Kurdish poets, he learnt arabic alphabet. He collected also the first Kurdish magazines, published in 20s and collaborated to the linguistic review Kurmancî.

His first novel Tu (You), was published in 1985, followed by many other publications, novels or essays.

In 1992, Turkey gave him back his nationality and in 2002 he was discharged in 2002 by the court of Diyarbakir, for an ultimate charge of separatism. In July 2005, he came back in Turkey for linving in Istanbul.ut retourner vivre en Turquie et s’installa à Istanbul. Then happened the “Black List” case. A Turkish newspaper, Aksiyon, stated that Mehmed Uzun, with 250 Kurdish intellectuals, was on a Dead list of the PKK. At this time, Mehmed Uzun criticized as so well violence and oppression from Turkish state against the Kurds as the violence of the PKK. But the former denied absolutely the fact and accused Turkish services. At the end of August, Mehmed Uzun left Istanbul to Stockholm, explaining that Aksyon was “an nationalist, islamist newspaper and had links with Safety Forces” (…) “In a country like Turkey, where political murders are committed all the time, there is always a serious motive when the name of a well-known author becomes a target” (AFP).

In December 2005, the Kurdish Regional Government awarded him for his work and his actions in favor of Kurdish language and literature. In May 2006, he knews that he had a cancer and few months to live. So he decided to come back in Diyarbakir for dying in the capitale of Northern Kurdistan. He died today, at morning and will be burried in the city next saturday. (source AFP).