Back to Barbarism
Bakhtiyar Ali

March 29, 2006

What took place on March 16th in Halabja was anticipated and for it to reoccur is expected.The bullets from authorities to shoot their own citizen without a second thought were forth coming. The great division that has formed between the citizens and the Kurdish authorities is growing by leaps and bounds. Fake pretensions and rubbish dialog to get to the bottom of the issues will not work anymore. This is a realism that has no choice but is forced to go thru thepassage of bloodshed. The Kurdish authorities have come across a huge behavioral crisis that can not be hidden with a smile. There is a point in history of every authoritarian system, where going back is very difficult. It is a point between a calm collective system and a bloody chaotic system. It starts when the mirror of power is tested. At a point when one takes that first step to kill someone. When you take the knife in your hand and decide to use it. When you put killers on the street and call them security forces, from then on the whole system transforms. When self-annihilation starts stopping it is not easy.

All world dictators come into power with great speeches and colorful slogans, but once they have power they suppress and silence the speeches and slogans of the people that put them there. When all the manipulative options are exhausted, force becomes the tool of choice. Now we have come to that bloody point. A point were by ordinary people losing their lives to their government.

When the point of killing is reached, there are only two options: either the killer has to accept theresponsibility of his action, acknowledging fault and pay a heavy price for his mistake, or deciding to continue on a pass to word evil and distraction. There are no other choices than those two. Unfortunately all the indications point us toward the latter choice. In recent past the Kurdish politics has been silent on the major issues that have faced this nation. When we look at Dr Kamal, the attack on Islamic movement in Dhoke, to Halabja book and now the Halabja protest we see a pattern of political silence.

We have judges that sentence a writer to 30 years for writing an article. On the streets we have our police and security forces without adequate training, education and lack of discipline where at any giving moment are ready to use their guns without thinking about their actions. The behavioral crises of the Kurdish political system hit new peaks in Halabja. Now it is obvious the politicsof PUK and KDP is crossing a dangerous line. For the last fifteen years they have refused to face the truth, ignoring the problems as they arise and their quest for personal greed has brought them to a scary dead end.For fifteen years they have ignored pleas from friends and foes alike to a point were they have cornered themselves with no options left but to silencing people with force and violence ultimately becoming butchers of their own people. Their mistakes have led the Kurdish people toward unprecedented disaster and there is no use to have hogwash dialog on reform anymore. Now is the time for both political parties to acknowledge their mistakes that have led this nation toward catastrophe and a devastating dead end. The action of Halabja proves they are out of touch and no longer capable on address the key issues and problems that face this nation anymore. Their only answer to a modern democratic society is the use of force and nothing else. Their empty promises and laughable agendas will no longer be believable or acceptable by the masses. In the last fifteen years these two groups have not been able to solve the smallest problems of the Kurdish society. Yet they were able to become millionaires. Nowthey need to protect their status quo and the only way they know how to do it is by force. They have lost the bridge between them and the new generation and once you lose that connection with your new generation the future can only be a losing one.

My hope is they do not make a huge reckless decision by thinking that their militia will protect them. That has been tried before in history and that sort of power has never been able to defend that kind of system anywhere on this planet

For my last plea I hope the authorities will review history and learn from it. But I don't know how capable they are of understanding and learning from the past. I only ask you this: Who in their right mind thinks by breaking the video cameras and confiscating pictures of the news media will silence 5000 protesters in Halabja or anywhere? Only authorities who have lost touch withreality would have a plan as close minded as this one.

A true democratic political system will send its own cameras into the masses so they could hear the voices and understand the issues and face the grievances that challenge their people. That is why we have to ask them how long you are going to listen to phony voices instead of the true faces of the people. How could you not see that the shooting of protestors during Halabja ceremonies would stay in the minds of the people for generations to come?
This is when a political system is on its last leg hits a dead end and loses its credibility and existence.

After Halabja we can expect the enforcers to come back and visit us on any giving day because those who killed Halabja once again, are here with us and living among us