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Kurdish man walks from Germany to
Kurdistan in “Demonstration for Peace”
23.6.2012 |
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Ismael Atay, 45, decided to walk the 4,000
kilometers home instead of going by plane or car.
Photo Rudaw. •
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June 23, 2012
COLOGNE,
Germany, — A Kurdish citizen living in Cologne,
Germany, is planning to make the journey home to
İslahiye in Turkey’s Gaziantep province – by foot.
Ismael Atay, 45, decided to walk the 4,000
kilometers home instead of going by plane or car.
His journey is to take four months.
Bypassing the Rhine River, Atay will head to south
to the Balkan Mountains and the Turkish border. From
there, he will continue onto Saxarat, the village of
his forefathers.
Atay – who introduces himself as Lo Smaylo Saxarat –
has been living in Cologne for 25 years. He was
married to a German woman, but declined to become a
citizen. He does not carry a Turkish passport
either.
Now single, and with no children, Atay gave away all
of his belongings to friends before starting out on
his journey. He has decided not to return to
Germany. There is a chance, however, that he may
face imprisonment in Turkey as he never fulfilled
his military conscription.
On June 3, in front of a church in Cologne, Atay
took the first step of his trip surrounded by his
friends and family members. It was raining. He
carried an umbrella, along with his backpack, a
small tent, some clothes, a laptop and a cell phone.
He wrote a farewell letter and explained the goal of
his journey to Kurdistan. “This is a demonstration
for peace,” read the letter. “I have already made up
my mind and have reached this decision on my own. I
do not want anyone to accompany me. It’s the
fundamental right of anyone to live with dignity,
wherever he was born.”
Rudaw met up with Atay just over a week into his
journey, in Frankfurt. “The first day, both of my
feet swelled up. I was very tired,” Atay said.
“Wounds appeared on my body.”
Atay mostly sticks to the main roads. He carries a
map and, when stopping for a break, he taps his
route into Google. Via Facebook and Twitter, Atay is
keeping his friends and family updated.
The idea of making this journey by foot first came
to him two years ago. “I was a waiter in a
restaurant,” Atay said, describing how he trained
himself before setting off. “I would stand on my
feet for 12 hours every day, and walk to and from
work. I avoided eating sweet and salty food … and
reduced my meals to one bowl of soup per day.”
His backpack weighs 15 kilograms. After the first
day, Atay was grateful for getting his body into
shape. “Fifteen kilograms might not seem like much,”
he said,www.ekurd.net
“but when you have a long trip, even one kilogram
can cause difficulties.”
Atay was feeling confident about his personal
safety, and had not alerted the media or police
about his route. He said, “I trust humans. I’ve been
meeting a lot of people on my trip and they greet
me. I don’t think I will have any problems.”
No organization sponsored the journey, and Atay
denied that any political party had encouraged him,
saying he was simply a peaceful Kurdish Alevi and
against militarism.
“I do not want to provoke any sensitivities with
this trip of mine,” Atay claimed. “But I do want to
be a voice for events that are taking place in
Kurdistan. I want to be a voice for peace.”
He added, “It is, indeed, difficult. We, the Kurds,
exist but are denied the right to existence.”
Frankfurt proved difficult for Atay due to the size
of the city, and he had resolved to head towards
Austria and Hungary directly instead of passing
through Munich. Before leaving, he said, “Farewell
to you all and greetings to those I am about to
visit. You will always stay in my heart.”
It was still another 3,800 kilometers to Kurdistan.
By Mehmet Sabtali
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