Kul wahid yihtajleh galub memdeshen

beatriz

"As my mother constantly says: Kul wahid yihtajleh galub memdeshen, or “every person [you listen to] requires a brand new heart.” This is usually said when anticipating a sad, frustrating story. Every story begins with a deep sigh and ends with an Allah kareem."

If you live in Australia it is easy to disconnect from the harsh reality we have imposed on others around the world. It is re-assuring to think of "them” and "us". They: the ignorant, the extremist the fundamentalist - all these prejudices easily confirmed by the images on TV. I was in Istanbul, a beautiful and sophisticated city, impregnated with layers of history and modernity, music and art. Whether or not women wearing scarf mean anything in relation to religion - some would say it is a cultural expression – only a small minority of women in Istanbul wear scarfs and no sign of burkas either. Nevertheless, when watching the BBC news covering the discussion around the acceptance of Turkey in the EU, every single photograph supposedly showing Istanbul, included women wearing scarfs around their heads - no one without! If I had never set foot in Turkey, I would have thought that this was a fair representation of the environment there. I felt doubly indignant; doubly because I had chosen BBC above CNN in the belief that I was going to get a less biased view on the topic. Most of my conversations with my Turkish colleagues, inadvertently included some heartbreaking accounts of humillations during airport checks. Terrorised/humiliated on daily basis, for no crime except wanting to visit their national German, UK, US’s relatives. I am not talking of fundamentalists of any kind - for sure not Christian fundamentalists. I am talking about university students, highly educated professionals, feminist academics - people who self- impose bans on the countries they will allow themselves to visit, as a passport stamped in Syria would most probably impede them access to the rest of Europe or the US. Our behaviour (that of the allies - to continue using US war terminology), is not only racist, ignorant and arrogant, it is plainly stupid and unsustainable. Nonetheless, “in the name of God”, Bush and his gang will continue the massacre in Iraq and/or any nation that qualifies as "East"… (note: God in this case does not mean religious fundamentalism

at all, as opposed to any other world or community leader, you don’t take Bush literally)


Below a link and extract from blog written by a young woman in Iraq. It is captivating in its humanity, presenting the opposite images to those that our regimes so successfully impose on us.

Baghdad Burning Riverbend
11 - 10 - 2005

“A little bit about myself: I’m female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That’s all you need to know. It’s all that matters these days anyway.” So begins Riverbend’s extraordinary blog, “Baghdad Burning” just a few months after the “end” of the Iraq war. Two years on, and now adapted into a book, the blog remains one of the most widely read accounts of post-Saddam Iraqi life.

continue reading: http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-Literature/riverbend_2911.jsp#one