If Kurds are your business and their neighbors your concerns, this book is your meat. What some Kurds do in several of his stories will infuriate you. You won’t be wrong to call them the incipient cancer cells of Kurdistan. Continue reading
Somewhere in the bowels of a miserable Turkish prison, a duly elected Kurdish member of the Turkish parliament lies dying. She has been on a hunger strike for more than two months now in Amed, Kurdistan, Turkey. Leyla Guven may be the next Kurdish martyr joining the ranks of Kemal Pir, Mehmet Hayri Durmuş, Akif… Continue reading
When International Mathematical Union awarded its 2018 Fields Medal (the Nobel Prize for Mathematicians) to one of our own, Chaucer Birkar, we were all elated. Our joy was doubled when Mr. Birkar proclaimed, “I’m hoping this news will put a smile on the faces of 40 million people.” It did! It also briefly spotlighted Kurds… Continue reading
Your average Iraqi is 19 years old—so many were not even born when two devastating earthquakes ravaged their country in 1991. The first exploded when the Iraqi Army was routed from Kuwait. In the second, millions of Kurds abandoned their homes and dashed to the borders of Turkey and Iran to escape deadly chemical and… Continue reading
Something strange happened in New York last month. President Erdogan of Turkey met with two daughters of Malcom X, Ilyasha and Qubilah. The meeting was short, but its meaning will long reverberate through the ages for Kurds as well as the students of Malcolm X. Ilyasha Shabazz compared the Turkish leader to her late father… Continue reading
Both men grew up in the same country, Turkey. One was a Turk, the other a Kurd. The Turk wanted to become a journalist. The Kurd hoped to be a lawyer. Both accomplished their goals, and both lucked out in their choice of wives, marrying their sweethearts who added luster to their lives. The Turkish… Continue reading
The four letters, K.U.R.D, that cause insomnia in four Middle Eastern capitals delighted Mr. Trump. He began to sing our praises. Rahim Rashidi, a reporter for Kurdistan TV, was there and couldn’t believe his eyes or ears. Continue reading
Let me first express my heartfelt gratitude to Munawar Laghari of Save Our Sindh (SOS) coalition here in Washington for taking up the cause of forced disappearances around the globe. It highlights his splendid humanity towards our unfortunate brothers and sisters. It underscores his dedicated desire to stop the disgraceful practice of kidnapping dissidents by… Continue reading
If you take a walk in downtown Hawler and ask random Kurds if they know of Ben Rhodes, you will likely get blank stares and, “Nope, never heard of him.” If you were to do the same thing in Shengal, the Yezidi town in Kurdistan-Iraq, you should get grateful acknowledgements like: “Ben Rhodes is a… Continue reading
Fighting between Turks and Kurds is nothing new. But the latest assault by the Turkish army on the Kurdish province of Afrin inside Syria bodes ill for the region—just when things appeared to be looking up for the peoples of Syria. As Kurds who had played a decisive role in the demise of the Islamic… Continue reading