We salute you Layla Zana!
KurdishMedia.com - By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli11/06/2004 00:00:00

[On the occasion of her freedom]


We salute you Layla

We salute you dear sister

We salute you real leader

We salute our Nelson Mandela

Though the world is too hypocritical to recognise

We salute your courage, your conviction, your steadfastness

We salute your endurance, your resistance, your resilience

You are and have always been one of us

A simple Kurd from Bache embodying great Kurdishness

As simple, as real and as great as a Kurdistan mountain

With a modern mission to the world of oppression:

We will conquer you with our steadfastness

We will defeat you with our principles

We will overcome with our pride


We salute you Layla Zana

We salute your husband Mahdi Zana

An ordinary extraordinary couple

The long time inmates of fascists jails

Which could never, can never, imprison your spirit

And you never left our heart

The hearts of the simple people of Kurdistan

Who can identify with Layla and Mahdi

Who can feel Layla every minute of their lives

Through the pain of occupation, the cruelty of colonisation,

The inhumanity of injustice.


You are a national leader Layla

But not the Great leader

Not the eternal sole leader

You are a simple leader

An ordinary self-made leader

A peoples leader

Like Nelson Mandela

You are a Kurdish woman

Born in the small village of Bache

You conquered cruelty

With powers of womanhood and Kurdishness

You were not born into a tribe

You did not inherit power and privilege

You did not lead through parties and borrowed ideologies

You were just a Kurd

And found unnatural to be denied Kurdishness

You did not fall in the trap of nave feminists or leftists

You did not hate your husband or men, though forced to marrying him at 15

You realised it is not him, it is not your family,

It is not even society as such

But it is colonial occupation which enslaves your people,

Underdevelops your society,

Deprives you even from speech

From having a name

Living your history

Breathing in freedom.


So you relied on your instinct

On your natural resources of womanhood and Kurdishness

And you learned from your husband

And you shared his suffering

And experienced his jails

And joined his struggle for identity

And his dream for freedom

But that was enough, for the people of the jungle,

To brand you a traitor!

And even consider capital punishment for you and your colleagues

You wrote in Washington Post on 5 December 1994

What crimes have we committed to warrant such punishment?

From a court established by the military dictatorship in 1980?

Just one: bearing witness to the Kurdish peoples immense tragedy in Turkey.


But you were not just a witness dear Layla

You were also a voice

No, you were the voice of the people who elected you

Freely, democratically, in October 1991to represent them.

You were not only the voice of 41,000 women and men who voted for you, But the voice of all your oppressed, voiceless people

You were the voice, the colour, the symbol, the sacrifice:

Here comes the Kurdish MP Here comes the daughter of Bache

Here comes the comrade of Mahdi Here comes the courageous conscience of Kurdistan

And in this parliament, on this platform,

Where once Kamal Ataturk, deceitfully said in 1922,

This Assembly belongs to two nations: the Turks and the Kurds

Here Layla reclaims history and exposes the lie of Turkish democracy.

Here comes Layla.

Wearing a Kurdish flag-coloured shawl and speaking in the language of his people Saying in a loud proud Kurdish tongue:

I am taking this oath in the name of Kurdistan

For the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples."

And here is another testimony from your State Prosecutor

"That the defendant Leyla Zana on 18 October 1991

did wear clothes and accessories in yellow, green, red

[colours associated with Kurdish flag] while addressing the people of Cizre on 18 October 1991.]

You knew the enemy, you knew the risk But you were a proud Kurd Who naturally took every opportunity To demonstrate her Kurdishness To express her Kurdish cause. If it were you, Zana, not Zebari!

You would have done the same at the UN

You would have shaken UN establishment

With the dignified rhythm of Kurdish language

With the cry of Kurdish tragedy springing from the depths of history

You would have talked on behalf of 40 million Kurdistanis

And 250,000 martyrs

And you would have never ever contemplated

[You would not have had reason to contemplate in the first place)

Whether you would lose a job as an official of your occupiers

And as the voice of your enemies against your own people

Voice of the oppressors against the oppressed

Voice of the perpetrators of Anfal against the martyrs of anfal

Voice for enemies state, Kurdish statelessness

Voice for Arabs sovereignty, Kurds slavery


But Layla, dear sister

Layla, dear leader

How happy I am you are free today

You brought a light of hope to a day of national darkness

Created by our own slave-leaders

Those who exchange our martyrs for money

Our pride for personal power

Our national dignity for tribal dynasty

Our blood for foreign bribes

Those who are a disgrace to our nation

An enduring shame for generations to come

Layla, let me tell you the terrible tragedy:

After Azhdahak was defeated

And we were at last free

And the mountains started to celebrate

And the orphans started to smile

And the mothers started to sense justice

And the whole nation was united in determination

And the enemies were weak and withdrawn

And the triangle of hell was broken to pieces

And we were powerful and proud

They did not let Kawa declare his kingdom

They did not let a Kurd to be a sovereign

The tribe went to Baghdad

Not to liberate the people of anfal and retribute anfalists

No they went to look for the jallads

To find them and kneel in front them

To tell them: they could never live without them

Without the swords of Omar and Ali

Without the mass graves of Saddam and Ali

Without the decrees of Faysal and Alawi

Without the fatwas of Sadr and Sistani

Layla, Can you believe this?

They left Kirkuk and Khanaqin

They left Mosul and Singar

They paralysed parliament and people

They left the whole Kurdistan in limbo

They extinguished the fire of Babagurgur

They put out the flames of Nawroz 2004

They stopped songs of liberation

They redivided us as tribes, clans, and dynastic families

They hurried to Halaj in Baghdad

And said to him:

Now we have full power over our people

We will use it in your service

To extinguish their foolish desire for freedom

We will give you back everything

They took in the name of freedom

But we need your swords to return them to your slaughter houses

And we need contracts and dollars to keep them in check

They told the people of Halaj and Yazid

We want to be your servants and slaves for ever

They told them: We see you are weak now, we are strong

But we will give up all our strength to make you stronger again

Then we will worship you as our masters.

Layla, do you know what they did:

They sold the bones of the victims of Anfal

They went to Cairo to pledge loyalty to Arabism

To those who bought our little daughters

To use as prostitutes in their brothels.

They sold our blood

They gave up our currency

They gave up our entity

They gave up our international status

Security Council resolutions 688 and 986

They gave up our independence

They disgraced our parliament

They degraded our government

They auctioned our honour on international arenas

They felt ashamed to mention Kurds and Kurdistan

They insulted our flag

They identified themselves with our oppressors

And became deluded power maniacs

Dreaming the dreams of Harun al-Rashid

They became more Arabist than Arabs

More Saddamist than Saddam

They controlled media, schools and institutions

They taught little children and school students to say they are Iraqis

They tell them to sing of the Iraq of peace of freedom

And Kurdistan of colonialism and slavery

They have divided Kurdistan into two fiefdoms

They have imposed their idiotic kids and kins as two despotic dynasties

They have distributed all land among their families

Even hills, cemeteries and forests

They have monopolised all jobs for their party people

From school cleaners to party-made colonels

They have turned old noble proud Peshmargas

Into petty selfish servant mini-capitalists

And instead of following the murderers of anfal

The way, after 60 years, the proud Jews and Europeans chase the Nazis,

They invite them to our Capital, organise conferences for them

And ask their forgiveness for killing us

And beg them to have mercy on us, reconcile with us,

And not deprive us of their benevolence

Layla, do you know?

I inserted the words mass graves to search the internet

I saw thousands of Saddams victims

With locations, photographs, dates, events, records

But none were Kurds

They were all Shias

The Shias have done this for their victims

Just in few months

And they do not have a government

And they do not have billion dollars stolen from people

And they dont rule at their expense

But I saw nothing, absolutely nothing, about our 200,000 sisters and brothers

Lying in many discovered mass graves


Layla, I do not understand who these people are anymore.

I do not understand what these people represent any more

I just tried to shut my eyes for a while

To shut my mind for a while

To dream of poetry, beauty, children, flowers and birds

Of Kurdistans times of innocence

Then I heard the news of your freedom

I saw all the beauty of the world

All the meaningfulness of struggle for liberation

I became imbued with your inspiration

Guided by your example.



I salute you sister

I salute Hatip, Orhan, and Selim

Do you remember the last time I met you

At a Kurdistani rally at Halkavi in Hackney

You were just yourself

A simple woman, an ordinary extraordinary Kurdish woman

And you were talking for all Kurdistan

North, South, West, East

One land, one people,

One civilization, one history

One wound, one bleeding

And you told me:

What are you doing here in London?

Come to Kurdistan, there is a lot of opportunity to struggle there.

You did not think that I, being from South,

Should work for South only

Kurdistan is one nation, on cause, one roadmap,

And you knew the risk, the threat

The reality of imprisonment (from Mahdi and all your people)

And the shadow of death stalking you

But you were adamant you would go back

And keep on struggling inside

With your people, for your people.


I salute you sister

I salute you leader

You are a simple, great leader,

Our Nelson Mandela

Leading by example not ideology

With the essential ingredients of great leadership:

Principle, personality, national pride.

With all these together you are the embodiment

Of Kurdish womanhood

Female Kurdishness

Kurdish Kurdishness

You are the epitome of Kurdish pride

You never gave up your principle:

You said: I am in prison for a cause which I will never give up.

You said you were only moved from a big prison which is your colonized Kurdistan

To a smaller Layla Zanas confinement.

You said you would never beg for clemency

Never accept release for pity

You said you were only one individual belonging to a nation denied

A whole people whose homeland has been turned into in a big prison.


No pressure ever weakened your powerful personality

No threat diminished your determination


I salute you sister

I salute you leader

You have the strength of simple sincerity

The power of national pride

The credibility of uncompromising principles

The beauty of a popular personality.


I salute you sister

I love you sister

You are the leader of our nation

You are our still-young Nelson Mandela

Stay the course. We are with you.

Until self-determination

For every Kurd

Every woman and child

Every worker and peasant

Every individualized individual

Free to think, to say, to sing, and to act

According to their wish and consciousness

In harmony with the music of freedom and democracy.


I salute you my sister

You are our national leader

Our still-struggling Nelson Mandela

Stay the course our sister.

Stay the course.

Our Kurdsitani people will join you

We will be guided by your example, principle and national pride

We need you sister.

Struggle on for freedom and peace.

Be a bridge between Europe and Turkey

Between Turkey and Kurdistan

Tell them borders are in peoples minds

But freedom and democracy do not know borders

They bring people together

They create culture of tolerance and comradeship

But there is no peace without freedom

No brotherhood without equal reciprocal recognition of identity and status

Be the voice of peace and freedom, sister

The voice of peaceful struggle for freedom

For peace at home, peace abroad, peace in the world.


I salute you our sister

I salute you leader

You are our national hero

Our Nelson Mandela
KurdishMedia.com - By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli11/06/2004 00:00:00