|
Fingers That Crush Each Other
27.5.2009
By Rauf Naqishbendi
|
|
|
May 27, 2009
I keep revisiting the book Fingers That Crush Each
Other (Panjakan Yaktry Ash Kenen) written in the
Kurdish language by Nawshirwan Mustafa Emin and
published in 1997 by Postfach Publishing, Germany. I
don’t remember when I acquired this book, but it has
been in my bookcase for a while. Hereafter, I will
refer to it as Panjakan. I value my small collection
of Kurdish literary and poetry books and keep
reading them. My beloved American wife told me more
than once that I keep reading the same books. They
are dear and special to me because they are about my
heritage, the country of my birth, the place of
pride and tragedies. Should in my deathbed just
before closing my eyes to the world turning leaves
of any book, it will be leaves of one of these.
I was always frustrated with the lack of a good and
genuine Kurdish history book, one written about
Kurds from Kurdish experience rather being based on
a foreign writer’s work. |
Rauf Naqishbendi |
It is too late for our forefathers to have
done so, not because of their own fault, but rather
because of the brutality of our occupiers and their
forbidding the mention of Kurd, let alone its
history.
I read Panjakan and greatly enjoyed the reading. It
is a four-year memoir of Nawshirwan's
struggle from 1979-1983. In reality it is not about
himself, but rather about that most important period
of history which subsequently destined the Kurdish
politics and struggle for generations to come.
Undoubtedly, the book is the view of one man in the
ranking leadership of a powerful player, the Kurdish
Patriotic Union (PUK), a man who wrote what one
needs to know about that period. Even though there
were many players in the political theater at that
time, at least we have a full account from one
player through Panjakan. It also tells us about
others through their interaction and confrontation
with the PUK.
Nawshirwan has been very objective in his writing.
In many places he humbly confesses the mistakes of
his party. Through this work one can understand
deeply and profoundly the Kurdish struggle’s ailing
defeat and disunity. Nawshirwan talks about a
crowded theater with many unharmonious players, many
of whom were attracted to the stage for their own
benefit,www.ekurd.netdisregarding the long-due Kurdish cause for
freedom and liberty. The book is not a complete
picture of the targeted period, yet it is the best
so far reflection upon it.
Panjakan not only describes four years’ of
Nawshirwan’s struggle, but also provides a brief
credible history of the Kurdish struggle in the
twentieth century, the political parties, and their
leaders. It explains in a nutshell what caused the
1961 Kurdish revolution, how it came about, its
virtues and vices. It briefly gives the motives and
personality of Mustafa Barzani and describes the
Barzani clan and their figureheads.
This book is not about Nawshirwan but the Kurdish
struggle during one of the most significant stages
of Kurdish history. Undeniably, Mr. Nawshirwan is a
qualified leader, a great speaker, and an eloquent
writer. Panjakan is a great reading in style, proper
in language, and rich in content. It added greatly
to my knowledge of modern Kurdish history, and I am
thankful to Mr. Nawshirwan Mustafa for his
contribution to the documentation of Kurdish
history.
Setting politics to the side and shedding a light on
Nawshirwan’s contribution to Kurdish history and
literature, I wholeheartedly
recommend this book. In the meantime, I will
continue to prize Panjakan and preserve it in my
bookcase in my small literary collection.
Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for
Kurdish Websites, American Chronicle ,
americanchronicle com and has written
Op/Ed pages for the Los Angeles Times. He has just
completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden Of The
Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his
experience and the subsequent 1988 bombing of his
hometown with chemical and biological weapons by
Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people's
suffering. Rauf Naqishbendi is a software engineer
in San Francisco Bay Area.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
Americanchronicle com
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
®
