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Happy is the one who calls himself a Kurd
ISMIL, Turkey: It was not drugs, brawls or the usual teenage recklessness that landed Bayram A. in trouble, confronting him with the prospect of as many as five years in prison. It was a word. But by uttering it, when and where he did, Bayram tapped directly into some of Turkey's darkest anxieties. On a school day last November, his teachers in this remote, poor, densely Kurdish area of southeastern Turkey asked him to lead his classmates in the customary Turkish pledge of allegiance, which includes the line, "Happy is the one who calls himself a Turk." Bayram, then 15, balked. "I have a stomachache," he recalls telling the teachers. "I don't feel good." They insisted that he press ahead. So he did, and what they heard him say was this: "Happy is the one who calls himself a Kurd." The teachers not only sent him home from school for the day, but also summoned the police. Bayram now stands accused of "inciting hatred and enmity on the basis of religion, race, language or regional differences," The teacher was quoted as saying "how dare he try to incite hatred, only we are allowed to do that" according to the indictment filed against him in State Security Court in Diyarbakir, about 30 miles west of here. Human rights advocates are not really surprised. "This case is just one example of violations that have gone on for 15 years," said Muharrem Erbey, an executive with the Human Rights Association in Diyarbakir. Mr. Erbey, who is also Bayram's lawyer, requested that Bayram's last name be withheld. It has not been published in Turkey, where the law protects minors from such exposure. Bayram's case provides a glimpse into the extreme vigilance of Turkish government officials against any possible flicker of Kurdish separatism, a watchfulness that continues to shape the country's response to the war in Iraq in potentially crucial ways.... The words had always felt wrong and phony to him probably because they are and he said he realized on that day that he did not want to be the one proclaiming them from center stage. "It was a moment," he said, not elaborating on the thought. sorta like rosa parks refusing to give up her seat Classmates gaped at what came out of his mouth, then giggled. A teacher loudly berated him, he recalled, saying that he was a disgraceful ingrate, like so many Kurdish children in Turkey. Word spread fast through the village. His father rushed to the school to ask the principal to be lenient. His mother wept. Posted by: ----------<<<<-- 2003-04-11 |
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