Have you got questions, advices or messages to send ? Please, send a post to News forum or Travels forum.

Yedinci Gündem - 7th May 2002 

"Mem and Zîn has been translated in French. The famous work of the Kurdish writer and thinker Ahmedê Khanî has been translated in French by the French kurdologist Sandrine Alexie. Sandrine Alexie has explained that she is interested by Kurds for a long time, that she considers herself as a Kurd and that she has wanted to contribute to the Kurdish culture kurde, on her own level, by translating totally Ahmedê Khanî's work in French. Alexie has explains that she tkinks that her work will help the French society to understand the Kurds and she drews the attention on the importance for the Kurdish people that the great works of the Kurdish literature were been translated in another languages. The book of 332 pages has been printed by the publishing house L'Harmattan last March"(NDLR : october 2001 in fact)

Answer : 

Reacting to the article of 7th May 2002 published in Yedinci Gündem I would like to precise : Mem and Zin has been translated in French by Sandrine Alexie AND Akif Hasan, in an absolute common way, and I stretch to the point that I would never success in that hard works without Akif's knowledges in language. Then I think it is unwarranted to occult in a such way this fruitful collaboration (which far from beeing ended) for motives more ideological than flattering (NDLR : Akif Hasan who had left PKK, not without risks, is accused, as the other dissidents to take part of the international plot that is existing only in the totalitarian "minds" of the Party). I Am indeed interested byt the Kurdish civilisation for ten years, but I don't consider myself as a Kurd (as I wouldn't consider myself as a dinosaur (NDLR : PKK) if I study the Jurassic era). I am a French citizen and I made the work of a French scholar, who had wished to make know the real Kurdish culture and brought to French People the knowledge and the explanation of a great work. It is really necessary that the Kurdish writers, past and present would be known by a large public, and that Kurdish writers would be supported today for expressing themselves and freely in their own language. 

Sandrine Alexie

Message from M. SEL on 14/05/2002 

Sandrine, Roxane and others, are you payed by the Turkish state ? 

Answer : 

OFK is absolutely free, that it allows to reaport objectively what happens in reality. Even if we have had may proposals from the PKK... and these proposals were not all financial ! Why, do the truth make trouble ?

Message from Emel on 22/04/2002

I would like that all the world knows who are the KURDS and that they exist and will exist for ever ! I like your site very much !

Answer :

Answer : Thank you for your support.

Message on 19/04/2002

Bravo girls, you are genius (article A touché le fond, mais creuse encore). But indeed, it is a job for that I would have never courage.

See you

Answer :

Hey, did you doubt of it ?

By this letter I wish to say how much I tkan you...

Hi, my name is Hidir, I am from Dersim but unfortunately I coudn't stay there a long time. In fact I did stay there only until I was six years old then I emigrated in France beauce of the terror that ruled in it. For that reason I wish firstly to thank you for having make this site, and by doing it I am sure that many people -and I am among them- to discover their culture and their origin.

It could seem strange to tell but I don't know a lot about my own culture and mother language, that is Kurdish. I would like to congratulate you because of your courage : I know how much it is dangerous to go to Dersim.

And I would like to thank you for ever for having enlightened me about my culture and to show to the people who visit this site what happens really in Turkey, because as I told above, I left Dersim when I was six years old and since 13 years I only twice come back there.

Hello Hidir,

A first, we thank you for your message : Indeed it is difficult to enter in Dersim, but the Kurds are not aware that there, not like many regions where the situation did really improve.

We just came back from Diyarbakir where Newroz happened without any problems with authorities and we could watch for the first time that there was no hostility for foreginer people : at the contrary, police was polite and helpful, and it is a good sign for the future.

If all the problems are far from being resolved, we can hope that the efforts of Turkish authorities during Newroz will be follow by others and will allow to start a dialogue for improving the situation and to stop the emergency law.

Friendly,

Hello,

Thank you for your answer. I think that this topic is to sensible for closing it by one or two e-mail. I am conscious of out of line practices. But I think that a great solidarity exist between these people that could not be set by other structures especially in Europe. I repeat that I am not a PKK militant and I am against their blind policy but all the same I stay a Kurd.

Another thing, could you reference the site down on your WEB page ? it is the site of Merivan restaurant. It will make for you a small part of gastronomic Kurdish art. I have decided to make this site for I have eaten once in Merivan and I found it was very good and that it was a pity that they haven't get a site on internet. Thank you.

Friendly 

Answer :

Hello Wrya,

This topic is indeed too much complicated for being surrender by some mails, but it doesn't prevent us to distinguish solidarity and totalitarism ! "Many out of line pratices"(1) should be absolutely condemned from a party that claims Human's Rights and pretends to be a significative partner on political platforms.

Many Kurds are affected by the effects of this situation and could not denounce it, because until now the propaganda to European middles did mask its existence. As a Kurd, you could easily have a good idea of the question by talking with some of your compatriots who know the situation very well. You could for example to do it in the restaurant of which you liked the cooking : With the Kurdish clients who enjoy to come there and its managers, who are Kurds too, you could melt useful and pleasant things and making your opinion about the importance of the problem... while eating traditionnal meals.

Friendly,

(1) threatening, injuries, prohibition of any individual freedoms, meeting of self-confession and publical humiliation, imprisonments, murderings...

Hello,

I have just visited your site, and I have red particularly the answer that you makes to a PKK militant, and I don't understand your position about this party. It is a paradoxe because reading we could have another idea about it.

I met often "ordinary PKK members and I can tell you that they are not submit to any kind of pressures.

Alice

Hello Alice,

Our position about this party is simple : It happens sometimes that what was it at first a movement of resistance becomes, by its totalitarism and its stupid bureaucracy, more harmful to the people which they claim defend than their ennemies. As in all totalitarian society (the PKK has invented nothing), the law of silence applied by everyone protects the system, and that predominant rule face to foreign people is very effective to mask problems...

We know very well the PKK and its militants for many years. Much of them (and especially the one who should go away for saving their life) are our friends and we have worked a long time with them. We are not sure that "ordinary members" stiil in activity had tlaked with you about extra-legal executions (as the one of this two handicaped people in Bremen that have been recently condemened in Germany), assemblies of self-criticizm and collective humiliation, the terror that has been set by a system that stand on delation, psychological pressures, the prohibition (under penalty of death) of any kind of private relation... no more than rackets and beating up, and the law of silence that oppresses the Kurdish community.

This history is the one of any totalitarian party, as Chinese Cultural Revolution, Sovietic system, former Albanian and Rumanian regimes etc. : cult of personnality, destruction of any private life and self-dignity, obligation to separate members of their roots, family, past, reeducation in camps, psychological devastation... And if we consider the last political choices of the PKK, we could doubt of its efficiency in the defences of the Kurdish rights.

Friendly

My intervention concerns the editorial of your WEB page.

Hello,

A very shocking article and full of revelations. After having reading it, I put on myself the badge of naivety ! You seem very aware about what 's happen in these circles and I imagine that you have written it with honnesty and subjectivity. What are the averages of these who practice these awfulities ?( from translator : I just tried to keep the flavour of this gracious French neologism). All the same, I hope that some of them are working with dignity ?

Friendly,

Wrya

Answer :

Hello Wrya,

It seems not easy to mention averages about some pratices and we don't thing it would have nice effects. But what is important is to denounce some problems concerning the rights of thousands persons who could not themselves take the risk to do it, and by this fact they find rarely a foreign support.

We reassure you : yes, there are some politicians who work with dignity and attempt to be heard, but their task is not easy in that context. Let's wish that a collective awakening allows them to reach their aims...

Friendly

Message from Sultan on 15/01/2002

Text about Hasankeyf : congratulation for this description that stresses the dangers of a dam for the city of Hasankeyf. Arte has presented a reportage about this topic.

Salutations.

Message from Stéphane on 31/12/2001

Hi...

I have just red your page on Hasankeyf, that was very useful for me. I am translator and nowadays busy to translate a documentary about the question of Hasankeyf and the Ilsu dam. It will be possible to see this documentary on Arte soonly.

Firendly salutations from Strasbourg - Stéphane

Message from Hüseyin on 26/12/2001

I would like firstly to congratulate you, for I have surfed on your site and I think that it is very well-done. However I seek for books in French about the Kurdish history, their religion etc. or encyclopedia. If you could help me, it will be nice of you.

Huseyin (Swiss)

Bye. 

Answer :

Hello Hüseyin,

I advise to consult the page "Kurdish Library" in the Kurdistan-Nameh site. You will find a very complete bibliography with books classified by topics : history, religion... See you and Happy New Year.

Message from MJemoApo on 06/11/2001

Hello,

I've flipped through our site and I find it wonderful, especially concerning the Kurds. Good bye.

Answer : 

Message from Choupigo on 05/11/2001

I made a walk yesterday in the Père Lachaise cemetery and I saw there three graves of Kurdish people, on which it is written "fallen on 17th September 1992 in Berlin". Could you explain in which circumstances ? Thank you.

Answer :

You mention probably the KDPI (Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran) leaders, who had been murdered by the Iranian secret services, as had been murdered in a same way their former leader, Ghassemlu, killed by the same services but in Vienna, in 89. Ghassemlu's tomb is in this cemetery too, low, no far from the Kurdish cineast Yilmaz Güney. Sincerely.  

Message from Nese on 13/10/2001

My name is Nese and I am Kurd. I live in France but I am from Dersim. I have seen your site and the pictures of my town and I want especially to congratulate you, for publishing pictures of Dersim in your site, and it is not the case for many people, for there are not much persons who know this town, and for informing the people on what is Dersim. Moreover, I want to ask you : how did you know this town and how did you go there ? 

Answer : 

Hello Nese, 

We went to Dersim (Tunceli and Ovacik especially) this year, in Apris and August. It is right that the region is very bad knowned, for it is still on emergency law and forbiden to Europen people for a long time, it is probably why there are so few pictures. It is very difficult to reach it (but more to stay in it) and taking pictures is forbide, of course : all the place is a military area and guerilla is still present. We have knowned this region by some friends of ours, who are originated from there, and because we would like to discover it by ourselves. For we know very well the Turkish and Syrian Kurdistan, but because of political problems, we have had few informations about this region. Dersim is a very nice place, that had been ecologically preserved, not like the other parts of South-Eastern Turkey, and in spite of a constant oppression, people were wonderful. If you are present in Paris and if you wish to see another pictures and talking about Dersim, don't hesitate to visit us : we can not publish everything on the site, but we have more than 1000 pictures of the region... See you soon !

Message from the Centre d'Information du Kurdistan on 10/10/2001

The third place given by the American Foreign Office to our Party with the list of terrorist organisations  is in total contradiction with the current realiy and encourages undoubtedly the powers that practice really terrorism. This decision taken after the Turkish minister of foreign policy 's visit is a way to see more clearly the reality. Moreover we know pertinently that Turkey tries to make pressure with the same way on European Union. This eagerness is synonymous of a new offensive of reactionnary powers against our Party and through against our people, whose Turkey would be the center.

Nobody ignores that, since more than 2 years, our Party, having stooped the war carried out for a pacifist resolution pacifist and carries on in its pacifist line, fights with heat and in every fronts against violence and the chaos that follows it. By its efforts our Party had opened the way to the democratization of Turkey and to the political resolution of the problem. Many times we have announced to be ready to collaborate with everybody and we have tried by our own ways to to arrive righht now at such solution. The other reality well knowned by eberybody is that, during this time, in spite of the clearness of our position and our decided practice, no power to start with Turkey and the system of USA to which it is linked does not take the least step in the way of the resolution of the Kurdish problem and then consequently these efforts stay only onesided. Then the decision of the government of the United States does not reflect any realities and at the contrary it hides the real executants of terror by giving an acceptable colour to violence. This decision synonymous of a standpoint against the Kurdish people by d’une prise de position contre le Peuple kurde through our Party disappoints enormously our people and the diverse democratic circles.

Moreover it makes more to think that this decision has been taken after the attacks of the 11th September. If we consider that the United States have proclaimed a third World War against terrorism, then we could say that this decision is a serious and has a great importance. We pass a period where the largest democratic alliance should concretize for fighting against a violence that is interesting just for rentier gangs. So it is a bad mistake to classify some political organisations as terrorist, for it can only to lead to a dead end those who commit this mistake.

For that reason We call the concerned forces to change their attitude and to get rid of their ancient errors and We ask to all the democratic circles to be more attentive facing this agressive and threatening attitude and to carry on the struggle for making progress peace, democracy and justice. 

The PKK Council of Presidency - 06/10/2001 

Answer : PKK is not terrorist ???

"our Party (...) carries on in its pacifist line, fights with heat and in every fronts against violence and the chaos that follows it..." 

...and considering probably that the end justifies the means, does not hesitate to execute its own opponents, to use blackmail and menace against its own members who would like to stop their adhesion to its deviant ideology.

"By its efforts our Party had opened the way to the democratization of Turkey..."

Democracy : "political regime by which people exerces its own sovereignty, without the intermediairy of a representantive organ (direct democracy) or by representatives (representative democracy)." "Le petit Larousse" édition 1998.

The Petit Larousse precises clearly PEOPLE EXERCES, and no OBLIGING PEOPLE...

"Turkey and the system of USA to which it is linked does not take the least step in the way of the resolution of the Kurdish problem and then consequently these efforts stay only onesided"

It is evident that NEITHER Turkey NOR USA make confusion between Kurdish people and PKK !

"For that reason We call the concerned forces to change their attitude and to get rid of their ancient errors and We ask to all the democratic circles to be more attentive facing this agressive and threatening attitude and to carry on the struggle for making progress peace, democracy and justice."

Photo Roxane - Dersim - August 2001
"Minibus and taxi that had been burnt by the PKK as reprisals against their owners who refused to be racketeered ... no comment !"

Message from Yalco on 04/10/2001

According to some opinions, a group would have migrated from Dersim  to  Kurecik of the town of Meleti, 400 years ago and would have set here. Indeed, Kurecik and Dersim have many traditions and customs in common, and amongst these populations, we can constate a great proximity.

As for as we know, the historical Dersim was not only surrounded in the current border of Tunceli, but was geographically larger. Many linguistic scholars have dertermined that the borders of Dersim reach the qeza of Gimgim (Varto) and some groups of Kurecik and Cewlike (Dogansehir) to the Western-North of the Melati vilayet.

a) Nuri Dersimi «Di Diroka Kurdistanê di Dersim»

b) Some links to know more : search !

http://www.kurecik.de

Summary