Kurdistance · Global Voices
Deborah Ann Dilley

I choose to begin this week's article with a disclaimer which is spawned in response to comments I received on last week's edition of Kurdistance: the contents of my articles are not of my own opinion, but rather the opinions of the bloggers that I cover. I try to remain neutral and objective in my article reporting: I take no sides, I will not withhold information and I will not skew what was said by someone else. The bloggers that I cover are not objective and it is my job to show you what their point of view on current events is.
Now with that out of the way, let's get down to business.
Both From Holland to Kurdistan and Rasti discuss this week the increase of political activism that can be found on YouTube. The debate has begun in response to an audio file posted of comedian/activist Mark Thomas talking about stories of Turkish torture against the Kurds of Turkey. As later explained by the fellow who originally posted the file on YouTube, his posting of this information was an attempt to bring the ideals of pacisim and political activism to a larger audience. Based on the amount of comments that this posting has resulted in, the young gentleman deemed this a good start for promoting the protection of human rights by increasing the scope of exposure.
Rasti had this to say about Mark Thomas's work:
There's more on all this in an interview with Mark Thomas. Although there is no date on the interview, it is in reference to the campaign. If you read the interview, you will get a frame of reference for the audio, and an idea of what life has been like for Kurds under Turkish occupation–the same thing that makes self-confessed pacifist, Mark Thomas, “enraged.”
I don't suffer from the disease of pacifism, and the reality always enrages me. For Thomas to admit that he could have killed the “golfers” (his term for the Turkish security forces), then he was seriously affected by the reality of the people of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.
Let's continue on with the theme of activism, but this time adding education into the mix. Pearls of Iraq announced this week the beginning of a children's book drive sponsered by Kurdistan Save the Children and the University of Sulaimaniya. Please check out her link if you want to participate.
Onnik Krikorian from Oneworld Multimedia has again revisited the topic the Yezidi Kurds in Armenia this time covering more of the aspects of the difficulties in minority language instruction. Books presented for use in these minority communities have been printed in Cyrillic script whereas the common print used is Latin. The books were refused and as Onnik shows us, no one really wants to take responsibility.
Hiwa writes about a recent verbal attack from the Palestinian President against the Kurdish peshmerga and comments about how current events with the world worried about nuclear proliferation might lead to a withdrawl in Iraq.
Save RojTV talks about how Turkish General Buyukanit is not happy about freedom of expression in Turkey. And Mizgin from Rasti writes about the error of referring to Kurds as “good” or “bad”.