Gulan: Women writers conference

Dalmira Tilepbergenova (left) and Bahtinisa Abdurehim. Dalmira is the chairman of The Central Asian PEN.

The text in Kurdish.

The PEN of Finland arranged one week ago in Helsinki a conference for Central Asian women writers. When I started writing columns to Gulan I decided to write about different topics. But during the summer I have written only about the political situation. When I plan to write something else there is always an acute crisis which needs to be commented immediately. But this time I decided to tell about culture and the Central Asian literature conference.

There were eight women artists from Kyrgystan and Kazakstan. Some other participants told for example about the situation in Tibet and East Turkmenistan. Both Tibetan and Uyghur people suffer under the Chinese rule in a same way as Kurds in Turkey. Even their language is threatened.

Unfortunately there were no Kurdish writers in the conference. It would have been interesting for them to hear the experiences of other writers. There is one thing which connects Central Asia, Kurdistan, Tibet, East Turkmenistan and many other countries: the Silk Road. Lots of items has been transported via it from east to west. But the travellers have transported also stories, legends, oral and written culture. The culture around the Silk Road has been especially rich for centuries. And Silk Road is not only history, there is much traffic even nowadays.

In the films of Dalmira Tilepbergenova from Kyrgystan the traditions are very strong. Traditional culture and history of own nation are sources of strength when the people search new values in the Post Soviet society. Islam and even Islamic extremism replace the communist values after the collapse of Soviet Union. What it means for women writers? They stay at home and tell fairy tales to their children instead of writing for a bigger audience. The strengthening of Islamic values means for many women writers that their husbands do not like that their wives get attention from other people. Not even comments to a written story. Of course telling fairy tales to children is very important. It is the way how the oral traditions have been transformed for the next generation for centuries. But why not do both: tell fairy tales at home and write them down?

After the cultural week-end it was quite a shock for me to open internet and look what is going on Kurdistan: Turkey and Iran plan a joint military attack to South Kurdistan. Turkish Daily News writes that Masoud Barzani accuses Turkey being engaged in intelligence activities via its Consulate in Mosul. And according to The New Anatolian KDP claims that Turkish and Syrian intelligence services were involved in the bomb attacks against Yezidi Kurds in Sinjar. So I was wrong last week when I wondered whether al Qaeda was behind this atrocity. But al Qaeda has been active in Iraq in other places even during last days.

So next week I return to political issues. It takes lots of time to understand what is going on. And when it will be peace in Kurdistan - Kurdish writers will write big epics about this war.

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Antology of the seminar Kyltymätön uuni - naiskirjailijat ja sensuuri is published by LIKE and The PEN of Finland. It is both in Finnish and in English, and can be ordered from LIKE also to abroad. The title means An oven which is always hungry - women writers and cencorship.

LIKE is also my publisher. We are now making the lay out of my next book Serhildan.

By the way, the name LIKE has nothing to do the English word like. First the name of publishing house was Lieke, which is old Finnish language and means fire. There happened to be one family whose name is Lieke and for some reason they did not like the publishing house to have same name as they have. So the company took one letter away from the name and became LIKE.