KurdistanObserver.com

How to prevent another Sheikh Zana?

By: Ara Alan

ara_1981@hotmail.com

July 26, 2005

As the series on Sheikh Zana’s terror aired on Kurdistan TV I was horrified at first. And like many others I started going through the stages of grief; first denying the existence of such cruelty among members of my nation, then anger and out rage at every one: at Sheikh Zana, his followers, and at our government and people. When the program was over we sat silently for few minutes and let it all sink in and realize the grouse reality of what has taken place. After convincing myself that such atrocities can also be found among Kurds the most important question that comes to mind is how to prevent another group like this from corrupting our next generations?

Seeing such images committed by these ill minded people made me loose part of my idealism on nobility of Kurds. It wrinkled the image in my mind of  Kurds being the perfect nation. We should be fair and not judge our entire nation by the action of those few nor entire religion of Islam. Seeing such program starts to create doubt in our mind on earnestness of our fellow country men. I grieved loss of my idealism. .

What can we do to stop this from reoccurring? We must stop what such groups were feeding on to pursue their goal of terror, and we should try to take away the loops in our society and government that they took advantage of and used it as their tools.

One of the major factors is the use of the mosque and the holey places as an initial recruiting tool. This method was used in Afghanistan as well. Through religious schools (Hujra) they brainwash many of the young people and bend their believe system at such a sensitive age (12-18). It is in this stage of their lives where the young are molding their character and will live most of their lives based on what they learned at this age.  

In the past parents took pride when their children were religious and went to religious schools, but recent use of Islam as a political tool must make us rethink sending our kids to such schools. Therefore we ask our governments to stop such schools from operating since we don’t have a checking system on them. It is true every one has the right to go to school of their choice and to focus on what they believe is important but such right is a privilege not a guarantee. If abused it must be taken away. There is also another alternative which the Kurdish government can open such facilities and their teachers and teachings must be monitored and approved just like it is in any other educational institute.

Corruption in the Kurdish government played a major roll in allowing examples of Sheikh Zana to exist. One should not be allowed to buy their way through the government. As we all heard Sheikh Zana has been able to go on pilgrimages to Mecca more than two times. Where the current standing rule by the Kurdish government clearly state one must be an elderly and such visit is limited to once in life time visit. Sheikh Zana is not an elderly and he visited Mecca more than twice. He was also able to send one of his men into our security forces and work with in.

Third factor is we must stop special privileges to those that belong to a tribe or big religious names. No one should be above the law. Our Laws must treat all citizens equally including our politicians, all those belonging to a tribe or not, all religions and all nationalities.

We must all be more aware and have our eyes open as the enemies of Kurdistan have filtered through our lines. We must stop them by closing all those loopholes that they took advantage of. Stopping another Sheikh Zana is the work of not only our governments but us as the people too.