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Kurdistan: We had only words and even
these....
1.2.2008
By Hardi Shafiq. Translated by Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli
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February 1, 2008
Kurdistan region 'Iraq': Hardi Shafiq
If a whole country is afflicted by administrative
and moral corruption, they can still find a remedy
for it if law and the authorities in that country
are not affected by that virus. And the opposite of
this hypothesis is also true. Don’t be surprised
when any individual in this country thinks about
getting a post or a position, they do not think of
it [as an opportunity] to serve their people but
they think of buying villas, pleasure and selfish
enjoyment. They will be happy to deprive poor
people, martyrs’ children and labourers from their
food and property in order to create paradise for
themselves and hells for others!
The way children get their education in their homes
and from their parents, it is the same in politics.
Then God save a people like ours, who learn to
honour promises from their leaders, who learn to
have conscience from them! That is why it is not
surprising to see the child that is born today will
become a duplicate of the officials who have power
today; those who have twenty air conditions in their
homes while people use old lamps and candles, whose
children study in the universities in US and Sweden,www.ekurd.net
while the children of
our people study in cold and the students stay in
their hostels without water, electricity and fuel.
They study in classes of 60 students and brave cold
and rain in the streets. Yet every year it is the
same story. The same promises with rounds of
applause and self-congratulations. The officials are
drowned in pleasures and our people have nothing but
prayers for them. They pray while shivering in cold,
they pray while market inflation bites them, they
pray for the leaders for making all these blessings
available for them!
But those who are enjoying pleasures in their
mansions, they do not have time to visit the poor
and deprived families and workers in their country
in order to let their consciences be hurt a bit. No
what they think of is corruption and keeping the
market prices high and pass a press law [to silence
people]. They take half a city’s house rents for
themselves but they pass a law to prohibit public
smoking! The smoke of some factories is smothering
the city but they think of improving the
checkpoints. Half of the people in the city have
salaries that are not sufficient for paying the rent
of a room, but they allocate two and three acres of
land to the officials, media people and artists
instead of building residential flats. And when such
flats are built they are more expensive than
ordinary houses.
It is this morality that has made it normal that
working for Kurdism [Kurdayati] in the city of
Kirkuk, that is supposed to be the heart and
Jerusalem of Kurdistan, becomes a fight over pieces
of coloured cloths (shara paro). In this
neighbourhood you read the name of a martyr written
in yellow [for KDP] , in the other the name of
another martyr written on a green cloth [for PUK].
In fact neither of these parties is concerned about
their martyrs. They are never prepared to put their
pieces of cloth away and introduce their martyrs as
the martyrs of Kurdistan and Kurdism, which is a
greater honour for the sacrifice of the martyr. But
here the interests of the parties require them to
behave in this way. That is why their officials are
the biggest merchants of our country. When Jacques
Chirac left the republican palace his country was at
the top in civilization and progress but he had no
personal property to move in. But when we compare
Kurdistan to France they say: they have had
government since old times. Then they claim that the
Arabs,www.ekurd.net
Turks and Persians are
the reason for all our setbacks. But we know that
politics is the art of winning bets and the trust of
people through creating prosperity and ensuring
freedoms and independence, not, as they do, owning
dozens of villas and companies.
In spite of this, no one listens to the complaints
and protests of our people who are exhausted,
breathless and hopeless, without services, and are
victims of the black hands of this and that country.
What we see is corruption, money laundering,
offering contracts as gifts, factionalisation,
insulting the authority of government, occupation of
seats of power, killing the sense of belonging and
spirit of a nation. Yet no one is made accountable
for all of this. Look! There is no law to put a
limit to any of these. Yet they still do not
tolerate the criticisms in newspapers at a time when
it is corruption that has put this country on the
road of destruction and desolation and not
criticism, news and reports.
In spite of all the fighting pens who are busy
repainting the majestic houses of officials in
white, at last the syndicate of the journalists
recreated themselves in the old 50/50 house. It is
sad that our officials are fixed on the same world
vision that when they reach the seat of power then
they must mummify people, never think of leaving
their chairs and kill all those voices that
criticise them, they always see only those people
whom they have brought up with their favours and
applaud them with hands and dollars not with their
hearts. They never see those people who should have
been the real shield for their pains.
No one in life is as sacred as a person who sees the
world from the angle of the suffering of all people.
It is time for our leaders to understand that crying
with tears and crying with hearts are different. It
is corruption that has endangered our national
security and not journalism!
It is time that they changed their own media instead
of changing the conditions in a way that they would
create elites and shower them with favours and
blessings. This will never be a solution because
history is written by the collective conscience of
people.
By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli, Published on
www.kurdistannet.info, 31 January 2008
The contents of this article reflect the author's
personal opinions
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