The independence poll for the Kurdish north was supported by voters but opposed by Iran, Turkey, Baghdad and the EU and the USA, which fear it will deepen instability. Every regional power, backed by the USA and EU countries has betrayed the Kurds. No one in these countries wants to know what it is like today to be an ordinary, honest, decent Kurd caught up in an ordinary, dishonest, vicious wars and ruled by a group of spiteful governments.
They expect the Kurds to fight for them, but will not support their right to nationhood. The Kurdish archives and history speaks for itself: a nation that has not permitted to exist.
A lot of so called activists and intellectuals do not recognize the national aspirations of Kurds. For them asking for independence is a crime and not a political choice. There is this preference between land and territorial integrity over humanity.
Despite threats and warnings from the international community, Iraqi Kurds turned out in large numbers to cast their votes in an independence referendum. The UN expressed concern about the vote’s destabilizing effects. But today, who cares about UN’s concerns?
The government of the Islamic Republic couldn’t care less about the godforsaken part of the country that shelters Kurds. The Pahlavi had no affection for the Kurds, Reza Shah ill-treated them, Mohammad-Reza Shah used and misused them. The ayatollahs loathe them; His Holiness, the light of Islam, our first Führer Khomeiny, violently repressed Kurds in the name of Allah, in summer 1979[92]. And the present Supreme Guide, the Second F!uhrer in line, persists in ill-treatment and repression.
The list of Middle-Eastern governments that dislike Kurds is long.
See:
- In-Pictures: High turn out for independence referendum in Kirkuk
- Susan Meiselas, Kurdistan, 2008, University of Chicago Press.
