Iraqi Kurdistan is a post-genocidal society

Photo: Chamachamal the 13th April 2010.

In April Kurdistan was mourning the anniversary of the Anfal. There were ceremonies in many places, for example in Chamchamal and in Kalar. In these ceremonies and in mass media the symbol of the Anfal was pictures of Anfal widows, women in black clothes with a permanent sorrow on their face.

Their destiny is horrible. But when news about the Anfal are always visualised by pictures of Anfal families, it gives audience a false idea that the Anfal affected only those families who lost their members. A genocide affects the whole society for a very long time, for many generations. The pain of mother whose child disappeared is easy to see. But the wider effects of the Anfal are hidden. They have an impact on all Kurds. Kurdistan is a post-genocidal society.

182 000 Kurds were murdered in the Anfal campaign. Their destiny is a crime which must be surveyed in criminal investigations. Effects of the Anfal on the Kurdish society is another issue. Mass media shows the Anfal usually as the dissappearance of a huge amount of people but it is also other atrocities. Many villages were burnt in spring 1988. Villagers who survived the Anfal, were forced to leave their homes. They were deported to towns.

They are also victims of the Anfal. Their situation must be understood. I do not mean "that the KRG must help them" as people here in Kurdistan say about every problem. When Kurdish villages were destroyed, a huge amount of Kurdish culture and knowledge disappeared.

Until the end of 1980s Kurds were active producers. Kurdish villages were self-sufficient, they could produce everything by methods which had been passed from generation to generation for decades, maybe for centuries. Knowledge which was suitable especially to Kurdistan's conditions.

Autoritarian regimes want to make people passive and dependent of the state. Also the Baath regime behaved this way. When Saddam deported Kurds to central villages his target was to prevent Kurds producing their food themselves and make them dependent of the government.

The Ba'ath regime is gone, but Kurds have not become self-sufficient. They are dependent of another government, the KRG. Active producer society has turned into a passive consumer society and food is imported from abroad.

How to change the situation?

People demand help from KRG to every problem. But this way of thinking is not the solution, it is part of the problem. People must solve the problems by themselves, not wait that some one provides ready solutions.

I know this is huge task. And it is not the fault of Kurds that Baath regime destroyed their production systems and society.

There is need for wide perspective research about the effects of the Anfal, not only documentation of the atrocities. It is the only way to understand all effects of the Anfal. It is the first step in searching solutions to problems of a post-genocidal society.