But, am I courageous? Sometimes living here in Sulmaini I don't see any reason to require extra courage then I need to live in North Kildonan, Winnipeg. But then again as I expereinced live gunfire in the end of the demonstrations in April 2011, I certainly felt that any courage I had leaked out extremely quickly, turning me into a ball of mush.
But, then I see real examples of courage. This are ordinary people who can not or choose not to use their passports to leave the place where they are being oppressed. They head into each day knowing it is not easy to live their lives.
I met some of these people on the recent CPTdelegation that I co-lead from 5 - 17 October.
We began our journey in Diyarbakir, Turkey. This is an important place to start because unlike the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan who have a semi-autonomous government, the Kurds here are still expereincing pressure to to assimilate and to become good, nonresisitant citizens of the country within whose borders they are forced to live. Thousands of these Kurds are currently in prison, many just because they are activists, peaceful activists, who are considred to be members of the violent opposition.
One such activist asked us not to use her name. This was not for security reasons, but because she siad,"I am just one of many. I am not special. In fact I have it better because I have not received my sentence yet and I am free to live at home and walk the streets". She is 30 years old and is a social worker with women and children. On of the claims against her is that she speaks to international delegations. If the state has its way she will spend 18 years in jail for her activities in supporting her people.
The Turdish authorities would like her to leave, in fact they enourage her to do that. But she is insistant in staying where she was born, where her family is and where her people are who desperately need her skills.
We ate breakfast with I. at this Turkish restaurant. This is the server giving us tea. After she left, I. took over the tea pouring for awhile. So this picture symbolizes her.
The next group of brave people were the teachers and students of Sunneh school. I have written a couple of times about this school that was shelled in the summer of 2011. During the summer and autumn the villagers escaped to the Internally Displaced Persons camp that consisted of tents, water tamks and outhouse style toilets. Last summer CPT Iraqi Kurdistan put together a video of some of the children of the school telling about their village and how they felt when the shells rained on their homes.
Two weeks ago when the delegation visited Sunneh the children were prepared to greet them with a song. Then the delegates entertained them with group games and songs. Karzan the principal who has been at the school for 19 years said that he saw smiles on faces that he had seen as solemn anworried for many months.
The villagers have been OK this summer. For whatever reason they have not had to face leaving their homes. The Turksh planes have not dropped bombs and the shells have not been lobbed from the iranian outposts on the top ridges of the mountains. But when we asked them if they were feeling secure they said, "no, they can start again at any time and then we will have to leave again."
The third group of people we met was three families of the Sulaimani governate area. These families lost sons during the demonstrations of February to April 2011. The youngest one, was 11 years, the next 13 and the oldest one had just graduated from university. We heard the words of Germian's mother (the 11 year old)/ He had asked her what the demonstrations were all about and she did not want to tell him about the corrruption that the people were demonstrating about. She said that he had stood in front of the mirror and asked her to look at him.."Look mother, I am getting to be a man now." Those were the last words she heard him speak. He was on the edge of the crowd at the wrong time and a bullet ended his life.
Rezhwan's father told us how he has received visitor's from the government 14 times. They want the family to accept money to stop telling people about how security forces shot his son. But he has refused all 14 times. He wants the forces who shot innocent boys to be brought to justice, not a pay out.
These families face the fact that security forces from their government who supposedly has been voted in by the people shot their sons. They continue to live in this region. They can not leave.
So these are the stories of the courageous ones. I am here, as I am able, to walk alongside them and to amplify their voices.
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