The Kurdish Blogs-The 3 Week Update

I have been remiss in my duties to you, dear Global Voices readers, in not posting about the Kurdish Blogosphere for three weeks. Today I will try to catch you up in the ongoings of the Kurds in this new year. As to why I missed my articles, let's just say that planning a wedding is much more of a daunting task than I thought that it would be.

For mental ease on my part, we are going to go blog by blog instead of thematically. The Kurdistan Bloggers Union besides New Year's Greetings has two other posts of mild interest: One, about the media coverage of the bird flu and civil war rumors in Iraq, the comments on this post reveal more about the issues that the original post; the second post (which I admittedly wrote) is about an evening with former US Ambassador Joe Wilson and his comments on the Middle East.

Land of the Sun:Kurdistan has a post about the famous Van Cat, once you see pictures of this distinctive cat I am sure that you will remember seeing it in many places.

Sami from Iraqi Thoughts has returned and gives us his impressions of the December voting in Iraq:

What saddens me is that in my heart I know the best people capable of turning Iraq around are not popular inside of Iraq and the problem still lies in so many lists.

Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes writes about the Turkish schools in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan, and his hopes for a less corrupt government in Southern Kurdistan. He also has a fun post about a non-smoking Kurdish village.

Pearls of Iraq has Kurdish proverbs, part one and part two. She also continues to give us weekly updates on the reconstruction efforts in Southern Kurdistan, including part two, part three, and the weekly update for this week.

From Holland to Kurdistan writes about the importance of the recent conviction of Dutch businessman Van Anraat:

The main suppliers of deadly weapons will walk free. Frans van Anraat is only one of the guilty ones. Despite this; the court confirmed that other suspects that delivered chemicals to Saddam could face trial too. Something I missed in the short news items of news agencies.

Vladimir also posted several times about the bird flu in northern Kurdistan and how the Turkish health ministers are not handling the situation and letting it reach crisis proportions. Other posts include rumors of a movie to be made about Mustafa Barzani and the salon skincare craze of Kurdish men in Southern Kurdistan.

Roj Bash has a fabulous post detailing the defense at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, of Saywan Barzani's thesis in politicial science : The Iraqi Kurdistan Question, 1991-2005.

I find that I can't say enough about the work that Save Roj TV is doing and I just recommend that you make this blog a daily regular on your reading list.

If you want to know about the lastest updates on the bird flu in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan Rasti is the place to go, as he has multiple posts on this topic I will not link to all of them just his main page. Of course the bird flu is not all that Rasti has written about, for instance he has a great post about memories of Kurdish bread and false claims of Kurdish gangsters.

Last up on this short novel I am apparently writing is a reminder that on this weekly article I try to cover what is being written in the english Kurdish blogs, however an alternative project of mine Kurdistan Blog Count attempts to follow the Kurdish blogs in all languages. Also if you are interested there is also a Kurdish Blogs Aggregator that is regularly updated with each new Kurdish blog found.

5 comments

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  • One thing I am unhappy with is this so-called extra talk on ethnic minorities in Iran.

    I am upset that these good people have no rights and freedom but lets remember that in today Iran NO ONE has any civil rights, not just Kurds or Arabs.

    Even persian people are deprived of their basic rights, so whats the fuss about?

    in Iran under the rule of clerics, no one has any type of civil rights, so a discussion on how bad the status of Kurdish/Arab/Baluchi bloggers are, is out of line here.

    Thanks

  • Winston !
    There is no need to be unhappy about a very important and crucial fact as ethnic diversity in Iran.Even prior to establishment of so called Iran’s ” Nation-State” the diversity of Ethnic composition there was known by each ethnisity and by the rulers.
    With coming to the power of Pahlavi dinesty and imposion of “Modernity”
    from above the consept of national dominance and cultural preference
    of the new state is clearly evident.
    you write ” Even Persian People are deprived of their basic rights”
    This is a very vague and unrealistic pronuncement. Persian people are not deprived from cultural and linguistic rights, But Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, Beluchs, Turkemens, Arabs are denied their cultural rights. There is no official school or education in Azerbaijani Turkish or Kurdish. The none- persian children when they start schooling they are obliged to learn an imposed language which is persian.
    To give information about that it is not making “Fuss”.
    There are other aspects of National Oppression and not equal treatment of none-persian population in Iran , that I am more than happy to discuss that with you.
    Take Care,
    Hejar

  • I am surprised by the lack of any Kurdish websites/blogs giving information about the increasingly dirty war in Turkey against the Kurdish people.

    Please find updates and information on Hevallo:

    http://hevallo.blogspot.com

    Please could anyone who sees this add this as a link.

    Thank you.

  • Nick

    Dear friends,

    I recently had a paper presented on my behalf at the 2008 Conference on Kurdish Genocide in Erbil, Kurdistan-Iraq. The title is, “The PKK and Revolutionary Nonviolence: Transforming Struggle for Kurdish Freedom in Turkey.” I also asked and (ask) for much prayer that this paper would reach the hearts of the leaders and members of the PKK. It is now published at the new Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence at James Madison University. Dr. Sushil Mittal, director of the Center, requested that I send the following site to my friends and any who may be interested. If you are interested, the url address for the paper is http://www.jmu.edu/gandhicenter/workingpapers.shtml Feedback is welcome!

    Thank you.

    Truly,
    Nick Patler
    nickpatler@hotmail.com

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