Kurds must focus on Kurdistan, not Egypt!

By Osamah Golpy:

It has been quite a long time since the unrest began in Egypt and, ever since, politicians, TV channels and Facebook users – whoever has ears to hear, eyes to see and mouths to speak – has got involved in Egyptian politics. Every single move has had a rainbow of analysis; thanks for ideologies, we have pro and anti Morsi camps right here in Kurdistan. As if we have no other concerns; no dictator to depose or cause to fight.

Just yesterday, Kamal Sayid Qadir, a candidate for the presidential election, which have been cancelled by the ruling parties – much like in Egypt, called on people to meet him in the main public square in Erbil, the capital of the region, to talk about the law that gives the current president, Masoud Barzani, after two terms in office, the ‘right’ to continue as president for two more years without elections.

But here, unlike the Egyptians, according to the reports, people did not respond to his call; he was all alone in the square. To make it worse, he became the victim of an attack, presumably by some civilian people … as the government claims. The police went on to allege that the candidate was drunk and swearing to Islam, during the holy month of Ramadan, while he was in front of a mosque.

Now, which is more in need of demonstrations and support: ‪#Egypt or ‪#‎Kurdistan? The latter, whose citizen’s solidarity goes to ‪#‎Tahrir and ‪#‎Rabia square, has not seen even a single protest against the unlawful extension of the president’s term. So how come people from this part of world lead a ‘drone war’ of protest for Egypt in cyberspace!

There might be some people whose interest motivates them to buy into the government version of the story – that Mr. Qadir was in fact drunk – just as some people in Egypt bought the story that people attacked the Republican Guard HQ in Egypt while they were praying!

But, let’s give this story a chance to turn out true: then would the police confirm that the candidate was also drunk while he called on people to show up for this anti-government meeting? I guess the police would share this answer with his supporters, if any, and say “no, he was not”. But I would rather disagree and say he must have been drunk. Otherwise, why would a person ask people here to protest against a president who is the president of Kurdistan, and not the president of Egypt? He should have been known that people’s hearts and souls are in Egypt, not at home. So he might have better support next time if he appears in Tahrir or Rabia square, but on condition he quits drinking!

Osamah Hama Husen was born in 1985 as a refugee in Iran, and is from Halabja. He is a writer, in Kurdish and English, and an activist for democracy and green environment, a local coordinator for an international charity organization called Fida International, and he works as a translator for an NGO called National Center for Gender Research. He was a student of English Department in the Kurdish city of Duhok and, because of his critical writings and activism against the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party, he was dismissed for a year in his final grade; only to go back and graduate the following year in 2012. *Golpy is not the family name of the writer, as people in this part of the world rarely have one. People rather use a triple name, as the following: Osamah Mohammed Hama Husen; Golpy is his home village, a practice common in the region. E-mail: Osamagolpy@yahoo.com