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Editorial of march 2001 «Bioy, a bit of panic-striken, searched in the parts of index. He exhausted in vain all the imaginable lessons : Ukbar, Ucbar, Oocqbar, Oukbahr… Before leaving, he told me that it was a land in Irak or in Asia Minor. I own up that I nod with a certain embarassment. I surmised that this land without papers and this anonymous heresiarch was a fiction improvised by Bioy’s modesty for excusing a sentence. A unproductive examination of Justus Perthes’s atlas strenghened my doubts.» - Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius ; in Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges. From which place they come, these ghostly Kurds who had sunk by night in a sacrified she-boat and had disembarked by hundreds in our coasts, lost, shivering, having left everything but ignoring where they were, new pilgrims of a new May Flower ? Kurds… We were so persuaded to surround them. On the one hand, there were the Kurds in Turkey, neutralized, trapped between the « Anti-Terror » forces and a hand-bounded guerilla, tracked, no able to defend nor attack. Two few millions in Syria, totally ignored, Kurds in Iran about which nobody talk since the murder of their leaders, nothing, almost nothing… There were these of Irak, who had fled by millions in 91, saved from Irakien helicopters by the operation « Provide Comfort », and who stayed still if we except the continuous incursions by the Turkish army fighting with the PKK and various confrontations PDK-UPK, PDK-PKK, PKK-UPK. And now 900 Kurds disembarked with women, kids, parents… No semblance with these who slave away in « Greek » fast-food or Parisian clothing workshops, or who support, but more and more rarely, the monotonous and droning demonstrations of Apo’s fans. No, these Kurds are nothing but pure exotism : turbans, bouffant trousers, belt, coloured handkerchiefs… they speak about unknowned or quite forgotten places : Mosul, Sinjar… And what kind of religion are they supposed to practice ? Yezidism, you say ? Zoroatrism ? Still now ? Then it is still possible to write a «Kurds’ daily life under Saddam Hussein » even after Provide Comfort. Everybody believe they were either exterminated or preserved, in reserve ! This is the Kurdish problem. They always get out from where nobody wait them. In February 99, when Apo was kidnapped, the world observed with stupefaction their demonstrations. They were everywhere : Europa, Japan, Australia, USA… Each country realized that it has got its Kurds, suddenly trouble-makers, accusing, claiming… Indeed, should we feel ourselves responsible of that tragedy ? But all passed, when the Turkish Kurds were quite abandonned and duped bu their heroic, everything returned to normality. And now that boat-people ! Everyone punch himself, nobody can believe it, there is of course another explanation. It is of course a manipulation (from Turkey, US, or any else malevolent country, as you like it…). How is it possible to come from a so such unreal and enclosed country, go through Anatolia, Mediterranea, for sinking especially in our land ? There is no coincidence, it is a plot -in-ter-na-tio-nal plot, as recites the PKK ). Or if it is not the case, it means some others will come ? At the end, as the result of surprise and because they did not know how to react, our political leaders did not expulse them. Taking care of the public opinion, too : What people will think ? Though people were like them, benevolent because perplexed. These sort of Kurds don’t even provoke (or so slightly), the old reflexes against immigration. They are so strange, so puzzled ! Like these Indians who had been brought by boat for being showed to European people. Some naive natives let in nature and who have « eight days for putting their ask of political asylum and put their situation in order in the prefecture they choosed. » Good luck Happy Kurds ! Sandrine Alexie |