|
Kurds Away
30.11.2006
By Sarah Jessee |
|
|
|
Sheinei Saleem is a
Kurdish JMU student who grew up in Iraq before
fleeing to escape Saddam Hussein
November 30, 2006
The young woman’s face takes on a saddened look
as she tells about her childhood growing up as a
Kurd in Iraq.
“I remember learning to wet a towel for protection
against chemical weapons,” said Sheinei Saleem, a
22-year-old Kurdish student at JMU. “I have had a
gun pointed at my face and I discovered dead bodies
on my way home from school.”
Saleem and her family were some of many who fled
Southern Kurdistan to escape the atrocities of
Saddam Hussein during the late 1990s. |
Photo: Breeze, eKurd.net |
“Despite the hardships, Kurdistan is my home, and to
this day, I can’t think of anywhere else I would
rather be,” Saleem said. “Experiencing what I have
has shaped me to be a more appreciative and stronger
individual.”
Saleem serves as a regional director for the Kurdish
American Youth Organization, which is one of several
organizations in the United States devoted to
educating people about Kurdistan.
The obstacles facing KAYO and other Kurdish-American
organizations are the lack of knowledge and interest
by Americans toward Kurdistan. As a result, Kurdish
youth have taken it upon themselves to educate their
peers.
KAYO is hosting their first ever Kurdish-American
Youth Conference in Nashville, Tenn., next February.
Nashville is home to one of the largest populations
of Kurdish youth in America.
“A voice in the U.S. that consisted of both
Kurdish-Americans and Americans would be very
powerful in helping get the Kurdish problem the
proper attention it needs,” said KAYO president
Goran Sadjadi. “It would also help promote awareness
and gain further support from more people in the
U.S. and across the world.”
When Sadjadi says the “Kurdish problem,” he means
the issue of Kurdistan becoming an independent state
in the Middle East.
Kurdistan is a geographic and cultural region in the
Middle East that consists of areas in Turkey, Syria,
Iraq and Iran.
During the 1970s and 1980s, several attempts by
various Kurdish activist groups tried to gain
autonomy for the Kurds but were unsuccessful. By the
1980s, Kurds found themselves in the middle of the
war between Iraq and Iran.
“I was born at the beginning of the Iraqi-Iran War,”
said Ara Alan, a regional director of KAYO from
Atlanta who grew up in Sulaimianiyah in Southern
(Iraqi) Kurdistan. “I lived all of my childhood in
their war zone. I played my games around the sounds
of bombs falling out of the sky.”
In 1988, Hussein launched the “Al-Anfal” Campaign.
Kurds were alienated, thousands were executed, and
thousands of their villages were destroyed. There
were numerous chemical bombings and Kurds were
forced from their homes.
In 1991, a “no-fly-zone” was created by the United
States and United Kingdom for most of Southern
Kurdistan, which gave power to Kurdish leaders in
this region. In the following years, the Kurds
experienced some internal disputes between the two
major Kurdish political parties, but soon they
turned to defending Kurdistan against Hussein.
Hussein’s brutality in the late 1990s and many
families fled to the United States. Before they
found ways to escape, many Kurdish families were
forced to live in hiding.
“My family hid for three months,” Saleem said. “Each
morning my mother stuffed bread into my and my
siblings’ pockets, told us she loved us and reminded
us to keep quiet if we saw any soldiers.”
Saleem’s family was relocated to the United States
in 1997 after a journey from Iraqi Kurdistan to
Turkey to Guam. During her first years in America,
Saleem found it very difficult to assimilate and
said she wondered what was happening back in
Kurdistan and if her family members had survived.
By 2003, the United States began Operation Iraqi
Freedom, and with the help of the Kurds, overthrew
Hussein’s regime. Since 2005, Southern Kurds have
taken part in the new Iraqi government and created a
Kurdistan Alliance, but Kurdistan still yearns for
total independence and recognition as an autonomous
nation.
“It is difficult for me not to raise awareness, as I
believe everything about me screams Kurdistan,”
Saleem said. “From my Kurdish music ringtones and
Kurdish translated jokes to just always taking the
opportunity to let someone know where I’m from.”
thebreeze org
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 