Our common Calamity And Hypocritica Humanity

By: Dr Kamal Mirawdeli

Jan 8, 2005

Rich and poor, young and old, of all colours and creeds, most people were violently swept off without a record of their passing." That is how the Times (December 31 2004) described the victims of the Asian tsunami, a tragedy that has shaken the depths of our humanity, exposed our fragile and frail existence, and focused our minds very sharply on our transitory place in the equations of nature and life. In the age of global visible media, we can see and hear, we can touch and feel, we can share the trauma of the greatest human tragedy unfolding in its grimmest details and dimensions. But we do not only share the sight, we share the severity of the disaster itself. The victims include not only Asians but also tourists from variety of nations. According to official Foreign Office figures (6/1/05) there are 407 confirmed deaths and 12,500 missing persons from 14 European and Western countries. This figure is expected to rise.  On the other hand, the environmental, economic, health, social and political consequences will also be far-reaching and long-term, affecting every country and community in the world.

While the response of governments and peoples around the world has been astoundingly outstanding, the ugly and cynical face of politics is unfortunately not absent from the scene.  In his initial response to this colossal calamity, the UN's Chief Mr Kofi Annan talked about "our common humanity" and Mr Gordon Brown talked about "our moral universe".  But is there really at long last a sense of common universal inclusive humanity that overrides WE/THEM dichotomies? Can certain human beings, namely racists, colonialists and chauvinist nationalists even at this moment of human fragility and transient triviality, allow themselves to feel humane and behave rationally? 

Governments, companies, businesses, communities and individuals can share their common horror of what is obviously a natural disaster: a disaster that is not man-made, and therefore not political and no one is to blame. So it is OK to establish such a spectacular international solidarity to respond to a natural catastrophe colossal enough in its scale and size to undermine our homocentric and egocentric view of universe and existence and even bring God into account if not doubt His existence

But when it's the political animal who creates carnages and mass graves, then solidarity disappears, mind gets numb, cynicism reigns, silence overwhelms and governments and media cartels do their best not only to hide the truth but also to distort it, trivialize it  and marginalize it. There will no be emergency measures, no international mobilization, no common human empathy, no feeling of guilt and remorse by the protagonists of crimes against humanity, no sustained media coverage, no generous giving to save certain deaths and prevent preventable human cruelties and inhumanity to fellow human beings. Just by virtue of being weak, de-powered, historically carved up by stronger imperialists interests, entire nations and communities have been disfranchised, marginalised, turned into permanent perpetually-oppressed minorities, repressed, raped, ravaged, without any one giving  a damn, without Mr Annan managing a feeble noise, without big world politicians taking the scene to compete in their generosity and express their sense of humanity as they do now regarding the Asian tsunami.

What is crueller and more inhumane? To be suddenly caught in an act of nature's wrath, washed away with waves of mass destruction or to have your entire villages and towns deliberately, systematically, and in the most dehumanising and humiliating way destroyed by human weapons of mass destruction? What is crueller to have a wave snatching away your baby from your parental arms as a fateful act of God or nature, or to have a knock at your door at midnight or early morning while all your children are asleep, then a herd of human beasts invade your home, your privacy, your gift of life and liberty and start picking up your children one by one and then you, mother and father, taking you away to be subjected to torture, rape, and then buried alive together in mass graves while you are embracing your babies? And this is done for no reason apart from you belonging to a different nation and culture.

I am not talking about a figment of imagination. I am not envisaging a scenario for a fiction. This is exactly what happened to us Kurds and not long ago. It did happen in 1988 to 182000 of our children and parents.  The Iraqi army would bomb the village with helicopter gunship and other warplanes, then attack with tanks and armoured vehicles. If the area was mountainous and difficult to occupy, then they would simply use chemical weapons to destroy the population en masse the way they did in Halabja on 16 March 1988 and many other small towns and villages.  4000 villages and towns were destroyed in this manner including the village I was born in and the town in which I studied for my secondary education and taught English for 8 years.  Neither am I talking about something hidden and forgotten. Since Saddam was toppled, 400 mass graves containing Kurds have been discovered. The last two ones were discovered in Sulaymani just a week ago.  So why don't the media, which is obsessed with death and murder, takes no interest in these bundled bodies of children, babies and parents lying with their clothes in these real man-made mass graves there? Why don't teams of scientists and forensic experts visit and examine the bodies?

I remember this now and want to remind everyone of it not to detract from the enormity of the present disaster, not to show any scepticism about the sincerity of the majority of sympathisers and donators. Of course what has been done so far is too little considering the total destruction the unfortunate communities in Aceh, Tamil Nadu and Thailand suffered.

I remember what happened to our people because I know what has been happening in Aceh, Tamil Nadu and in particular what is happening NOW in Darfur whose news as "the greatest man-made catastrophe of our time" , in the words of Kofi Annan, is being sidelined and submerged by the tides of the Asian tsunami.
In both Aceh and Tamil Nadu the devastation caused by the Tsunami waves of mass destruction exacerbated the sufferings of these two peoples who have been denied their right of self determination and subjected to the worst forms of oppression and abuse by their dominating states for many decades supported by arms traders and countries and companies interested only in oil, gas and tarde. Being discriminated against and deliberately underdeveloped, these two countries had never had any reasonable infrastructure. And once the tsunami washed away roads, bridges, schools, farms and homes the devastation was complete.  Neither Indonesian Government nor Sri Lanka is serious about rescuing the peoples of Aceh and Tamil Nadu or reconstructing their communities. They would rather use this disaster to get rid of them altogether. The reality of this situation can be clearly understood when we compare relief and reconstruction efforts in Thailand to those in these two countries. Thailand has mobilised its entire mainstream military and civilian resources to help, save and reconstruct. A ruined school has been reconstructed in just two days and the children are already back to their desks. Every possible area and corner at sea and land is searched and scanned to look for survivors and bodies. But Indonesia has from the very beginning gave up even counting the dead and has already rejected Britain's offer to send soldiers to help. Sri Lanka is similarly reluctant to facilitate rescue and relief operations. Thailand does this fantastic job because it considers the victims as its own people. But Indonesia and Sri Lanka are viewing the Aceh and Tamil peoples as enemies just because they are different ethnic groups and are rightly asking for their legitimate inalienable right of self-determination. And those civilised people who are giving so generously for a natural disaster now have never had any qualms in contributing to the perpetuation of these man-made political cruelties. The media has no problem in unreservedly using racist terminology in its description of those people who fight for their rights and humanity as rebels, separatists, outlaws and even terrorists.
But I am even more concerned about Darfur because I know from my own experience that what is happening there now is exactly what happened to us Kurds for decades while the world was blind, deaf and dumb. In the same issue of the Times (0f 31 December 2004) in which many graphic pages are rightly devoted to the tsunami disaster which caused about 150000 casualties, there is a news report on page 33 entitled "Darfur refugees face starvation as violence halts aid". The first paragraph of the report by Xan Rice in Nairobi reads, "HUNDREDS of thousands of people in Sudan's Darfur region will go hungry over the New Year period after renewed violence forced the UN to suspend food deliveries…The World Food Programme (WFP) said that it had halted three convoys of trucks carrying more than 1,300 tonnes of food destined for thousands of people in camps in West and South Darfur.
In a statement, the organisation said that the increased violence meant that the UN and non-governmental organisations were effectively blocked from having overland access between central Sudan and Darfur. As a result 260,000 people would not receive their December rations….More than 1.85 million people have been forced from their homes in Darfur since February 2003, when the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against Khartoum to fight for a greater share of resources and political recognition. The Government responded by arming and backing an Arab militia, known as the Janjawid, which embarked on a brutal course of murder, looting and rape against the mainly African farmers. More than 70,000 civilians are estimated to have died. …. The UN Security Council has failed to take any stringent action against Sudan. Any threat of sanctions has been blocked by China, which has extensive oil interests in the country. The Security Council may be forced to adopt a different tack next year, particularly if peace talks between the Government and the rebels, which will resume in Nigeria next month, fail to stop the killing."

The people of Darfur are deliberately targeted because they do not wish to be controlled by Arab colonialists who are definitely supported by all those with vested interests in their land. There are vast oil reserves in Darfur. For this the central government must be empowered to subjugate and even eliminate the non-Arab population, although they are Muslims, so that contracts are signed without trouble and long-term profits at the expense of human dignity and lives of millions of disfranchised and oppressed people, are ensured.  We talk about hundreds of thousands being harassed, starved, raped, subjected to slavery and humanity. Compare this Darfur's Sudanami to the Asian tsunami and please try to contemplate and understand our common human hypocrisy.
It would be a travesty of humanity and human international solidarity if all this outbidding war to grab headlines regarding nations' generosity to the victims of the Asian tsunami would end up only serving to hide the more hideous political crimes perpetrated against dispossessed and oppressed nations.

mirawdeli@kurdisatnreferendum.org