From: American Kurdish Information Network
Subject: "No Time Left" - Ozgur Politika editorial
No Time Left
Can you think of another people whose whole culture has
been shaped by pain, sorrow, and torment, and whose tragic
history is etched in its faces?
If only this people could tell its bitter story,
accumulated over the ages and generations, if only the world
could hear, if only all could hear...
Did they not say "its name is forbidden, its tongue is
banned"? Were they not pleased that "it got what it deserved".
Did they not condemn it, saying "it is buried, entombed in
concrete, never to rise again".
Of course there have been countless instances in history
of savagery, but very often just a single instance has shocked
the world and made it take notice.
Everyone should rake through history, sometimes each step
of the adventure of humanity, take note of all examples of
savagery and barbarism. We should then turn to Kurdistan and
investigate the history of the Kurds. But when doing this, we
must not forget to take along a projector, for the lights have
been turned off in Kurdistan and everywhere is pitch dark, an
entirely different world, an entirely different life. This has
been explained and interpreted on countless occasions, so that
the deaf and the blind would understand. Parties to the conflict
have a responsibility to listen, to see exactly what is going on.
In Kurdistan, which was the cradle of civilization,
people have been forced to eat excrement. Dead bodies have been
raped and then shot to ribbons. Human beings have been chopped to
bits, sometimes while still alive. Their brains have been spilled
out while soldiers posed by them.
We have done our best to denounce this to the world, but
the savagery has continued.
This monster will not be satiated. Now it has severed
Kurdish heads from their bodies and poses, grasping them by their
hair, greatly pleased by its "triumph". We ask all who call
themselves human: where, in the closing years of the twentieth
century, has such a thing occurred? Where are the defenders of
human rights, where the advocates of democracy, where the
champions of freedom?
In the west, animals are stunned before slaughter so they
feel no pain. Admirable! But when it comes to Kurds, everything
changes! Why do democratic laws not function, why are freedoms
forgotten, rights usurped? Who will have the courage to answer
these questions? This must be done and done immediately, because
humans are being treated in ways considered unacceptable for
animals.
We call on everyone who claims to be human. This return
to barbarism must be stopped immediately, because we have no time
to wait. Does humanity no longer care?
Let us not forget that this savagery is insatiable,
ruthless, and quite capable to destroying humanity. Therefore
humanity cannot stand idly by, but must act, do its utmost to
consign this savagery to the trash can of history.
So we say: may our heads not be severed from our bodies
and held aloft by dirty hands.
Ozgur Politika
January 13, 1996
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