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1.
Your beginnings were with poetry. In your poems,
Kurdistani women rise with the scent of their roses
and the clouds embrace the rocks on your pages. Do
you believe that poetry if for poetry as the notion
of art for art sake or you believe that it should
carry the beat of people's pains and bleed for their
wounds?
• Some poetry is for poetry sake, but not all of it,
as much of it, especially by Kurdish poets that come
from the region plagued with occupation, torture,
oppression and humiliation at the hands of regimes
that are dividing the body of the great Kurdistan,
is beating with the pains of the people, as I said,
breathing their oppression and bleeding their
injuries. This is the fate of the Kurdish poets.
Yet, when you read for western poets, you find that
they write for fun, as they drink for fun. They have
nothing to disturb them to the extent that poetry
for them became a type of play and fun; poetry
became for poetry sake. As for us, we could not yet
get rid of the curse of politics. This disability
that we, the Kurds, have been born with. Therefore,
you find the Kurdish poets connected to the pains of
their people, no matter how geographically remote
they might be.
2. How do you evaluate the changes that occurred to
the reality of Kurdish women under the local Kurdish
administration? Are Kurdish women ready to give up
some of their gains during the former era, under the
new Iraqi constitution?
• Kurdish women have taken serious and studied steps
towards gaining more humanitarian, social and
political rights in the Kurdish community. They have
achieved noticeable progress in their social
standard through changing and amending many civil
affairs laws for their interest, including the law
for polygamy, heritage and other laws.
Nevertheless, the new Iraqi constitution sets a new
challenge for Kurdish women and puts them in a hard
situation in a significant stage of their struggle
for progress and moving toward more gains and not to
make more concessions. This is actually what makes
me worry as it is impossible to imagine that after
tasting freedom and gaining many rights that they
practiced in reality, Kurdish women would be
satisfied at what the new Iraqi constitution would
allow them. Kurdish women in the liberated part of
Kurdistan should be well aware of the seriousness of
this stage for them and to deal with the new
political data with more cautiousness, awareness and
responsibility to guarantee another type of future,
not the one that is decided for them on behalf of
the men in power. Nevertheless, this should be the
future that they are seeking and the situation that
they aim at, within a period in which we are
supposed to move forward and not retreat, a time
that we obtain more rights, not give up any.
3. Do you believe in the worthiness of the
centesimal representation of women in the parliament
(quota), especially as the representation of such
women would be under the custody and number of men?
• Personally, I am against the system of 'quotas',
which is the poorest one, as designating the
percentage of political representation in the
decision making centers, governmental positions and
representation in the parliament limits the movement
of women and does not grant them more rights. I do
not consider the quota as an achievement or gain for
women in Iraq, especially for Kurdish women. On the
contrary, it is humiliation and establishment of the
male custody over the political and social women's
movements in all fields of life, as when women
practiced their political rights and gained seats at
the Kurdistani parliament they were worthy of such
right, not for a certain quota. I do not believe
that Kurdish women would be satisfied with that, as
in case they did, they would be committing an awful
mistake.
4. The clear contradiction between the status of the
Kurdish enlightened women and the regular women is a
distinguished characteristic of the four sections of
the Kurdish community, in addition to some feudal
communities, as it is the case in Bangladesh, for
instance, where women managed to be in power.
Nevertheless, the conditions of women are generally
bad. What are the reasons for this phenomenon in
general and how can we overcome it, in your opinion?
• This issue is certainly very significant and
worthy of discussion. I believe that this status
exists in the communities that are suffering from
political and economic disturbances, in specific,
such as the Bangladeshian community that you
mentioned, or the communities that are controlled by
religious trends or Islamic trends, in specific.
Despite the liberation in Kurdistan, the Kurdistani
community is still somehow deteriorated due to the
control of the old religious and social traditions
over many of the aspects of life and their control
over the minds of men, in specific. Until now,
Kurdistan is suffering from political disturbances
and hardships between the two parties in power, in
addition to the political instability. This has
negative effect on many aspects of life, especially
those relating to the situation of women in the
community. In general, the community pays more
attention to the daily matters, issues and hardships
that are relating to its daily life and neglects the
prominent aspect of awareness in all fields. The
Kurdistani community needs political, social and
cultural awareness. Even the women, who gained seats
in the parliament lack awareness of their duties as
parliament members. This is the least to say.
As for Iraq in general, the situation is clear for
everyone. There is a big gap between the power on
top and the people in the bottom. The former regime
has left social and political problems that need
long years for the community to get rid of their
passive effects on the minds.
5. Venus Fa'eq is a reporter, a poet, a syndicate
figure and supporter of women's rights, who writes
political articles, etc. How can you manage to
perform all of these together and how do you prove
yourself more?
• I find myself when I hold the pen and write,
whether a press report, or press interview, or a
poem, or even participate in an activity for women.
I was made for that. I do not imagine myself for one
second away from this world that I was made for.
Only death might be the only answer for my quitting
of all of that. I worthless without the world of
writing, journalism, literature and poetry, in
specific. As regards how I manage to do all of that,
I don't know as everything happens on time without
planning. I write the article when I want to and
write poetry on time. There is no planning. I do not
think much about harmony. I just let it go as I
enjoy all of that and find myself within it.
6. What is the message that you would like to
address to Kurdish women?
• The message I would like to address to Kurdish
women is that we, Kurdish women, are different from
all the women in the region. Kurdish women are very
smart, but intelligence by itself is useless unless
we know how to implement it. The most significant
thing is that we implement intelligence in serving
the Kurdish case, first of all. This would happen by
practicing our political rights, not demanding for
them. We, Kurdish women, are note demanding for our
political rights but we are supposed to practice
them, rightaway. I would also like to say that if we
are hand in hand we would achieve what men are
incapable of accomplishing. Women are stronger than
all the men, who believe that a woman is a weak
creature.
By: Dr. Media Mahmoud
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