Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Politicization of Organized Religion

While our civilization reaches its peak, some group uses their organized religion to purposely destroy their society. If we look deep back in our world history, we will find many proof to support this theory. Through many centuries, mankind used any means of poor rationales to destroy the world and themselves. For example, the World War I and II were the manifestation of this destruction.

Everything after these wars, mankind devoted its full knowledge, skills, and power to produce the most dangerous and efficient weapons for so called “human protection”. So, the important question that every one of us need to ask ourselves is that, why do we need to put an end to life? Why do we need to destroy the only valuable thing we have? What happened to God’s rules and Commandments?

The previous and the current Iraqi government officials are operating on the ground of organized and polluted religious group. Religious hypocrisy is the means for a false appearance of virtue or goodness, while concealing its real character or inclinations, especially with respect to religious and moral beliefs. Religious hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another practices and believes.

According to a well known British political philosopher, David Runciman, “Other kinds of hypocritical deception include claims to knowledge that one lacks, claims to a consistency that one cannot sustain, claims to a loyalty that one does not possess, claims to an identity that one does not hold.” Religious hypocrisy is the mask that so called religious people or politicians use to fool the public and gain political benefit.

Religious hypocrisy has been the custom of the Iraqi governments and politicians from the beginnings of developing the Iraqi democratic government. Increasingly, it has also become the central of decision making, economics performance, and cultural practices.

According to the Islam faith, hypocrisy was considered a serious sickness, and our superb Qur’an book did rail against those who claim to be believers and peacemakers, thinking that they are fooling God and others, but they only fool themselves.

As a human being, we all seek for new revolution, creating an inner division, and seek to overthrow of the existing order, but we can not force these ideas upon our people and neighbors under the hypocritical cover of religion love and euphemisms for personal power. They do this for the advantage to have a full possession of other people’s thoughts and personalities at the very spot where they are most sensitive.

Organized religious enable some groups to find or make a reason for everything that they can set their mind to do. In everyday reasoning, our politicians and leaders do little when taking positions or making decisions, and do even less to get evidence for supporting their positions.

Instead, they tend to fabricate the facts often after the decisions had already been made, and they tend to interpret “evidence” that confirms what they already believe (the “confirmation bias”). Power and control magnifies these effects. People in power are more likely to commit infidelity and to condemn infidelity as well.

Organized religion is the mean for the current Iraqi leaders and government officials; because they believe it is necessary for their existence. If they were required, at all times, to live up to ideals of honesty, loyalty and compassion in their practices, there would be no benefits for them. Being a moral person in the government positions and social institutions, it is a struggle in which everyone of them repeatedly fails to do. Thus, in their mind, a just and peaceful society depends on hypocrites who ultimately refused to abandon the ideals they betray.

In fact, religion was created to help mankind to overcome its fears and negative aspects. But we as a human being, we would not be a human being if we did not alter our course. Our believes was merged to organize our religion, that has been moved away from individuals whom it belongs.

Politicization of organize religion has caused us major devastation and the eternal struggle for human separation. However, the human separation will never happened despite persuasions. Religion influence has been hidden inside our political systems, social institutions, school systems, health care policies, etc.

Despite its peaceful nature, organize religion has been modified through the centuries, and it has become one of the most dangerous reasons for human killing and destruction. If we look in our ancient history, we will find all the facts to supports this hypothesis that most if not all of these tribes had some form of organized religion.

Clearly, they had a need for one, because their life was very threatening and they felt that some of these treats came from some superior beings, some of whom is dwelt up in the sky.

Religion should not be mixed with politics both are different things like water and oil that the two can not mix with each other. Mixing religion with politic will create the ground for human destruction, because religion is faith but politics is power. Power should not be interfere in faith it may create a disaster.

Organized religion will serve the interest of a particular group of people and this will breaks our unity and it will create the ground for foreign entity to rule our country. Rising of such a practices may even cause loss to humanity and people may get discriminated on the basis of religion in the time of need.

Politics should always be kept different from religion. Mixing between politics and religion create a mess in the whole country. As religious morals are helpful in running politics as they show the way how to develop our country. But creating a mess in the country on the name of God is completely unbearable.

Religion is a person’s identity which defines one’s beliefs, ideologies and principles. Politics on the other hand consists of activities to govern a country or a region and its people.

Through politics we developed our nation. Through politics we elect different eligible leaders so that they work for us to develop our nation and control the human being. Our current Iraqi government is consisted of many leaders whom they stand up from different religion groups and many of them take the religion as vote bank.

Organized religion creates the ground for egotism to elect a leader from the same tribe simply as the member from the same religion, as a result, people tent to vote to the particular leader without showing any eligible characters for serving our nation. For that we can’t elect good, active leader for serving our nation. Dragging religion into politic will result into nothing more than destructive results for humanity.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2017 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part VIII appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Political Hypocrisy

Across Iraq, the roots of political hypocrisy have survived numerous regime changes and year after year, political pretense was passed on from generation to generation. In essence, this culture of political hypocrisy has kept many Iraqi regions trapped in a vortex of poverty, hardship, and struggle for the Iraqi populations and especially the Faili Kurds population.

For the last four decades, there are numerous examples where political and economic hypocrisy that led to mass atrocities cross the country. Perhaps the most stunning example of political hypocrisy was after the U. S. occupation of Iraq in 2003. This is where all the current corrupted Iraqi leaders who are in power today, came from outside Iraq with their absurd agenda to demolish Iraq’s society and history.

Almost all countries in the world have national or ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities within their societies. However, in Iraq’s society, there have been many violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of minority groups, especially the Faili Kurds people.

They are still up to date experiencing discrimination, racism and exclusion on the grounds of their ethnic, religious, national, or racial characteristics from both governments (the central Arab majority government and the regional Kurdistan government). Minority issues have been on the agenda of the current Iraqi government for more than 13 years, and still nothing was accomplished yet.

Accordance to the United Nations, “The promotion and protection of the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities are contributing to political and social stability and peace and enrich the cultural diversity and heritage of society”.

Faili Kurds were recognized as an Iraqi minority group, ethnically belonging to the Kurdish population. According to many figures, at least 22,000 Faili Kurds went missing during Saddam’s dictatorship. Faili Kurds continued to experience threats to their survival as a minority group even after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

There are many of direct and indirect pressure on the Faili Kurds people to take side either with the Iraqi central government or the Kurdish regional government. The influence that politics has upon our people is not generally acknowledged and accepted yet. These pressures shape the way that we perform everyday as well as act out our lives.

The Baath party had stigmatized the Faili Kurds community before legitimizing violence against them. Thus, the Faili Kurds genocide of 1980s was attributed to ethnic tensions, political/social segregation, and economic negligence that contributed to the supremacy of the Arab population.

It was the Baath party who ultimately encouraged the killing campaign against tens of thousands of Faili Kurds people. The Faili Kurds Genocide is the first of the 20th century where there has not been closure for over 40 years. Without an official acknowledgement, there will never be any discovery of the actual truth, the mass graves, and the release for the ones who are left behind their descendants.

Thus, the current roots of violence and discrimination against the Faili Kurds people can be traced back to the 1980s genocide, when the Arab leaders and authorities in Iraq consider the Faili Kurds people as a threat to their civilization. Consequently, beyond the walls of the Green Zone of Baghdad, the current Arab leaders continually demoralize the Faili Kurds concerns by placing a dark shade over their eyes.

The only time the Faili Kurds issues comes to existence during the election purposes, but once the election is over, the Faili Kurds issues go under the ground again.

The most important question that the Faili Kurds people can asks, which can never be answered by any Arab or Kurds politicians, and government’s officials, what will they do with the Faili Kurds genocide? And how would they attempt to address their sufferings? For example, the monument of the Faili Kurds people was unveiled in a ceremony at Beirut Yard in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The Iraqi Arab authorities did not allow the public to raise the Kurdish flag next to the Iraqi flag or sing the Kurdish national anthem during the ceremony.

The Faili Kurds officials were under pressure not to nationalize this important event, because the Shiite political groups within the Iraqi National Coalition, particularly the former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki party, prohibited any association of the Faili Kurds people with the Kurdistan Region or the Kurdish nation at the ceremony. No Kurdish MPs or authorities were invited to attend this important ceremony.

Thus the Faili Kurds people had no say in that important event and whom they can invite for their event. This ignorant act will motivates the violence, mass rapes, and the ethnic cleansing against the Faili Kurds people.

We need to emphasize that there is a need for humanity check in order to prevent the systematic persecution, ostracism, legitimization of cruel treatment to the Faili Kurds population, and the denial of wrong doing that does not allow closure for the victims and their close relatives and friends.

There were many children, men, and women had been separated by Saddam’s security forces. The men and the boys were taken away and never seen again. About 20,000 Faili Kurds youth were disappeared and have never been found yet, and the Iraqi officials (Arab and Kurds) takes this painful event for their sick and selfish principle to get their agenda cross.

On the demise of Saddam’s bloody regime back in 2003, and the hypocrisy of the current Iraqi government, we the Faili Kurds people, still experiencing discrimination, segregation, and humiliation on every day basis. We did pin a great deal of hope on what was then a potential turning point for us, but once again we were disappointed.

The families of disappeared Faili Kurds youths are still waking up to the everyday shocking discovery of the countless scattered mass graves and almost a decade has past where we once again are awoken to the harsh lack of justice that is the inability to prove the genocide internationally and receive our God given rights as humans and as Iraqis. However, sadly history seems to repeat itself and show a continual trend in the overlooking of our rights as citizens of this planet.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2017 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part VII appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

In-group and Out-Group approach

In Iraq, the current communal social and political institutions are characterized by exploitation, political exclusion, and unequal access to resources and services for out-group members (Faili Kurds).

These unappealing structural forces often create a system of winners and losers in which people become trapped in a particular social situation.

The Social and political structural segregation of the Faili Kurds people often results, in the form of power inequity, poverty, and the denial of basic human rights. This is when basic human needs go unmet, and the out-groups members (Faili Kurds) would suffer from inadequate access to resources and exclusion from institutional patterns of decision-making. Unjust structural forces and divisions also contribute to discrimination, lack of education, reduced equality of life, and inadequate employment opportunities.

Many Faili Kurds people in Iraq are still experiencing daily injustice and oppression by the established social and political structures of Baghdad and Kurdistan regional government. Still up to date, the Faili Kurds people are facing daily ethnic classifications/categorization (in-group and out-group members) from Iraq central and Kurdiston regional governments.

They tend to do that in order to segregate them from the existed social and political structures. The Faili Kurds people were considered for both groups in power (Arabs and Kurdish from the north) as out-group members and they were not socially and politically recognized and confronted with their issues and concerns. They were faced with many inequities in social, political, and economic power.

The governing group see the group to which they belong (the in-group) as being different and superior from the others (the out-group). Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups frame of mind.

Prejudiced views between ethnicity may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews and more recently, in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnians and Serbs. Therefore, they divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization/classification

In Iraq like else where, the Faili Kurds people are trapped between the four dreadful angles, the borders of Iraq and Iran states, Shiit religions, unique ethnic groups, and the corrupted political and social institutions. Currently, most Faili belong to a global Diasporas, many of whom are desperate to return home to Baghdad, but the bureaucratic roadblocks have contributed to the continual predicament of the Faili group following the liberation of Iraq.

As a result, the Faili Kurds community is scattered and unable to band together and establish its group representation which may help to resolve the most pressing issues, such as, their statelessness and the lack of the repayment of their funds which were illegally seized by the past government.

It is unlikely that the process within the Iraqi system can be effective in dealing with the injustice and inequality that the Faili Kurds are experiencing from the system fault. Because these processes are designed to support the dominant group (in-group)that are running the corrupt existing institution, thus, conflicts that stems from unmet human needs may be contained by the dishonest existing system and are unlikely to be resolved. As a result, there will be a protracted segregation and conflict until changes are made to these basic social structures. And in many cases, if social structural changes are not made, eventually change (oftentimes for the worse) will occur by means of violence.

Since instituting the fundamental social structural changes is extremely difficult to do, these structural and systemic problems are often the main cause of protracted, intractable conflicts. Indeed, any set of institutions and social relationships that have the propensity to deny identity, social recognition, autonomy, or preconditions for human development, creates an environment of conflict.

Structural conflict is likely to result whenever the patterned of social relationships fail to satisfy the basic needs or secure vital human interests. Any society that aspires to meet the needs of its citizens, deal with serious social problems and avoid violent conflict must address these issues.

Today, there is much conflict and corruption within the political and social structures in Iraq’s government that is characterized by a general breakdown of its government and parliamentary structure, as well as, its economic privation and civil strife. Its bad governance is a form of injustice and cruelty that was positioned on its citizens and particularly against the Faili Kurds population.

Thus, there is a need for state reform and democratization, and it must involve more than just the reorganization of its administrative system or its system of resource allocation. These social and political structural changes should contribute to the establishment of participatory nation-building processes by fostering democratic development, nonviolent and just dispute resolution systems, the participation of its all population, and rule of law.

Social and political structural changes are an integral part of transitioning to peace society, as well as addressing the injustice that may have fueled conflict in the first place. Indeed, peace building must involve systemic change that helps create and sustain a new social reality. An integral part of minimizing violent conflict is by transforming those structures and dynamics that govern social and political relations, as well as access to power and resources.

These sorts of systemic changes typically involve policy or institutional adjustments, as well as the creation of new institutions to meet basic political and socioeconomic needs of its people. These social structural reforms aim to ameliorate some of the conflict’s underlying causes and conditions and restructure the system of social relationships that has broken down.

Addressing the injustice that the Faili Kurds people are facing everyday in Iraq often requires far-reaching changes in the existing of political and social structures and institutions of its society. However, our existed political parties are chiefly concerned with their own agenda by altering the existing legal and political institutions for that purpose.

They have no interested in reforming the government social and political institutions to serve and protect the interest of all its population, by involving vigorous measures that are aimed at democratization and increased political participation. Our societies should strive to develop a “workable political system in which the multiple social groups and minority can participate to their satisfaction. This sort of state reform has the potential to mitigate and heal the effects of violent intrastate conflict, as well as prevent future conflict.

Strong civil society involves the participation of various sectors, including the business world, trade unions, women’s groups, warship places, and human rights activists.

In Iraq’s society, some citizens (Faili Kurds) are alienated from the institutions and practices of the governance body, and its public institutions are unable to solve their social problems. Community relationships and civic life either do not exist or have been disintegrated. When civil society is absent or inactive, it is a sign of an oppressive regime.

One way to strengthening our community and civil society is by addressing the persistent social problems such as destructive injustice, poverty, violence, and environmental degradation. Strong civil society can promote dialogue and reconciliation, foster good governance, and build peace across cultures.

It can also foster the values of caring, tolerance, and cooperation, and encourage public discourse and broad participation in the construction of public policy. People who care about community are less likely to participate in mindless development, environmental pollution, and racial and economic segregation.

All the Faili Kurds people are asking for is a responsible government that can effectively manage and control its state and preserve justice and peace among all its citizens. As the state continually slides into sectarian turmoil, it is in the government’s best interest to redress the grievances of those Faili Kurds who suffered and continually are suffering from out-group category.

As well as, the return of their seized citizenship, rights, and funds to allow those individuals who have historically contributed to and developed the economy of Baghdad to again be in the position of power to invest.

Thus, the Iraqi government needs to repair its broken relationships with the Faili Kurds populations and stop the current corruption to further hinder the Faili Kurds community, who were and are still treated so brutally by the past and the current regime.

Minority groups such as the Faili Kurds people have been systematically isolated, silenced, or coerced to align themselves with the larger political entities under threat of force. The current corruption and bureaucratic red-tape that is currently ruling Baghdad’s government is muffling the treatment that endured by the Faili Kurds under the old regime,

All that can be accomplish through the process of democratization. The establishment of democratic institutions such as political parties, voting mechanisms, and court systems can provide the mechanisms for power sharing and the proper balancing of political and economic power.

Strengthening institutions might also involve judicial reform, the institution of free elections and the creation of a permanent human-rights ombudsman’s office. These institutions should carry out just and transparent procedures and promote open and participatory democratic processes. Such processes can lead to the transformation of power structures and increased involvement in political debate.

Social and political structures that preserve unequal power relationships often deny the out-groups members the opportunity to participate in the decision-making processes that affect them. Therefore, empowering the weaker parties to negotiate solutions to the deep-rooted structural problems is very beneficial. This process helps the minority group to clarify their grievances and successfully raise them with the authorities. Reallocations of power to the out-group members, gender, racial, or sexual discrimination and injustice can form part of structural change.

In general, social and political institutions sets the context for individual and group functions and behaviors and they are meant to provide the resources that the individuals need to survive in society. How people act and live is shaped in large part by the social and political structures in which they find themselves compelled to. To some extent, Social justice is a matter of ensuring that these structures and institutions do in fact satisfy basic human needs.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2016 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part VI appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Political and Social Genocide

Political and social genocide is the process of Elimination acts that the dominant groups have the propensity to embeds in their larger political contexts, practices, and goals.

The perpetrators therefore, tend to do things to their victims, by the process of annihilation, expulsion, or incarceration of their victims through political, social, economic, and cultural consequences.

This act will have the opinionated momentous facts that force people to lose their homes, social status, cultural identity, families, and lives. The perpetrators with their elimination programs tend to weaken people who would challenge their power.

The perpetrators will purposely aim to butcher the political, social, economic, and cultural spheres of their society in order to segregate or eliminate certain minority group for the purpose of power and control.

The goal is to destroy the victims’ cultural institutions, ethnic identity, language, history, objects, and artifacts in order to undermine them. Saddam and his Baath party purposely shelled the major cultural institutions in Iraq’s capital, to eliminate the Faili Kurds people from Iraq, but also to obliterate their communal and the foundation of their cultural existences.

The process of eliminations and exterminations agenda are the most profound of any political program that takes place within their extended time period, rivaling or exceeding even the effects of major economic growth.

The perpetrators will spread their dominance through the process of complete or partial annihilations to politically and socially homogenize their country.

The perpetrators often tend to destroy and expel people because they can not tolerate their cultural ideas and practices. This is particularly evident when religion is the impetus for one leadership and group to slaughter or eliminate another.

Social and Cultural genocide involves the eradication and the destruction of cultural artifacts, such as language, history, books, artworks, and structures, and the suppression of cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer’s notion of what is appropriate.

Their motives may include their religious, ethnicity, or nationality, as part of their campaign for ethnic cleansing to remove the evidence of a people from a locale or history, as part of an effort to delete the past, history, and its associated culture of a certain group. For example, the Faili Kurds people had a very positive and effective role in improving the economical, social, and political life in modern Iraq’s society.

For many years, the Faili Kurds were renowned for their business ethic and stature with great economical and commercial weight in Baghdad’s market, and also they have had a considerable capitals, companies, and factories in Iraq. The Faili Kurds people were part of the founders of Chamber of Commerce in Baghdad, which was one of the principle factors that made them a specific target of the Ba’ath Party.

All Faili Kurds members of the chamber were arrested in a carefully planned campaign for social and cultural genocide of the Faili Kurds population in 1980’s, which resulted in them being stripped of all of their documents, identity, businesses, community, and hasty deportation to Iran.

This represented the spark of a long campaign of intimidation, harassment and deportation process that was perpetrated against the Faili Kurds population over the following years. Thus, they are still not properly compensated for all the grief and loss that they endured, and many of their issues still going on without being addressed.

After the termination of Saddam’s regime in 2003, the Faili Kurds people pinned a great hope on the potential turning point of Iraq’s government and attitudes, in order to receive their God given rights as human-being and as Iraqi citizens.

Unfortunately, almost a decade that has past where the Faili Kurds people once again are influenced by the new government poor mentality and they were awoken to the harsh lack of justice to gain their rights and to prove their genocide internationally. Sadly today, history is repeating itself, and it seems to show a historical trend in the overlooking of our rights as citizens of this planet.

Fortunately, during the 2012 campaign, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court gave a ruling that ordered the Iraqi government to declare the crimes that was committed against the Faili Kurds people as Genocide with full assignment of its meaning. “Constructing the provisions of item (I) of Article (61), item (iii) of Article (73) of the Iraqi Constitution, the President of the Republic issued a Resolution No. (6) For the year 2012 on 8/2/2012” (UPF, 2016).

This advance movement and consolation holds a very little weight for what the Faili Kurds went through, if it fails to be internationally recognized, such as other more widely accepted genocides. Above all, an international effort is needed to recognize the experiences and the difficulties of the Faili Kurds and to help with the process of reinstating their assets and rights as a humans and Iraqi citizens.

The Faili Kurds, who follow the Shiit Islam, and who lived along the Iran/Iraq border and in Baghdad, were repressed as ‘Iranians’ under the Hussein regime, they are still targeted for ethnic and religious reasons. Still to this point, hundreds of Faili Kurds people are remaining stateless to this day; therefore, they are unable to access their basic rights and services.

After the removal of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein’s regime, there were many democratic measures have been put in place to benefit others in Iraq society, the Faili Kurds population did not have the opportunity yet to reap such benefits.

It is evident that the Faili Kurds people have once again been unjustly discriminated against, both in the redressing of crimes committed against their population and in the acknowledgement of their barefaced persecution and genocide.

The Faili Kurds people once again are facing despair in the lack of efforts that is allocated for locating and identifying those youths who were perished during the old regime and duly compensating their families. Thus, they were constantly being targeted and discriminated against in all aspects of life even during the current new government.

For example, during the deportation process of the Faili Kurds in the 1980’s, the old regime illegally seized all their properties and documents and donating them to its loyalists group. The current Iraqi government failed to take the moral responsibility of giving them back what the old authorities confiscated from them, however, the present government have issued a series of laws stating the conflicts to be solved in civil courts, and failing to compensate them for the entire trauma they have gone through these long years.

Leaving them struggling through the current systematic and social barriers and paying a huge expenses only to have unsympathetic and unfair rulings that was made by Arab judges and politicians. This ridiculous process leaves them (the victims), having to ludicrously compensating the perpetrators for the crimes committed against them.

For instance, the Faili Kurds people who manage to cross back through the borders into Iraq, they were faced with the harsh reality of someone else being the owner and the occupier of their properties, and they are refusing to leave and let the original proprietor to reclaim what was originally theirs.

In conjunction, the systematic and the political barriers that purposely created for the reason to entangle the retrieval process of their rights with a dense litigation designed to make it extremely difficult if not impossible to take back what is duly and rightfully theirs.

Also the Faili Kurds people are still under represented on the ministerial or lower level of government with no group of people to represents the interests and the concerns of their population in government positions. Therefore, many Faili Kurds are still faced with many obstacles and roadblock that was created by the current government officials.

For example, the Faili Kurds people have to go under a numerous of scrutiny and obstacles for obtaining their nationality papers and documents such as Iraqi citizenship and passports that requires the production of the original documents that was confiscated from them at the time of deportation process by the Saddam Hussein regime. Thus, many of them still do not have any legal document to prove their nationality and to participate in any political movements.

In conclusion, the Faili Kurds people lost faith and trust in the current Iraqi government officials and political parties, thus, their Holocausts needs a solid international recognition, and it should be implemented on various levels of governments and social institutions, because without the international support and acknowledgment this mission will still be unaccomplished.

The Faili Kurds have been waiting a very long time for something of this magnitude to come to a resolution. This heinous act and the sorrow of an entire people is surely something that should at least be recognized if not addressed by the international community in order to bring closure to those that have suffered at the hands of this continuous persecution.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2016 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part V appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Eternal Legacy

Legacy is a bequest that is conveyed from one human being to another. It is something meaningful, teachable, inheritable, and descendible that can be transmitted, inherited, taught, or received from an ancestor.

The purpose of people carrying on with their legacy is to allow something that was experienced or originated from an ancestral source to be shared, taught, and spread between people or nations.

Often when people talk about their legacy, they tend to think that it’s something that is left behind after a person has passed. But legacy is more than that, it is about sharing what we have learned and experienced, not just what we have earned as material wealth.

A true and meaningful Legacy is when people make a significant and energizing contribution to humanity by serving a cause greater than their own. A legacy is when people tend to embrace their uniqueness, existence, resistance, etc, so that their bequest would be shared with all humanity and their new generation would take the responsibility to ensure that it would have a life beyond them and it would survive its time on earth.

Although, the legacy of the Faili Kurds Holocaust could be a burden or a gift for some of our new generation, and those youngsters who have accepted this ponderous legacy must know that they have the responsibility to keep it alive, and to share their experiences and feelings with others.

This is especially important for the third generation of the Faili Kurds Holocaust survivors. The Faili Kurds people must work diligently to make sure that their children do not forget the tragedies of their Holocaust, and to understand and to figure out the origins of their struggles and demons.

However, some of our people must understand both views, it is surely unreasonable to expect our children not to delve into their parents past, especially when it was declared by their parents as something is unthinkable, But our post-holocaust generations came across to justified that their parents’ history and experience also belongs to them.

The legacy of the Faili Kurds Holocaust surely will evolve our concord consciousness, which is an ongoing activity and it is what we do with it between now and eternity. The lens of legacy gives our new generation the view of their life, where they become aware of the desire to live beyond them, focused on making a difference in the lives of others and giving back to their community.

The legacy that our older generation leave is the life that our new generation should lead and therefore, a legacy is the residue of an experience, memories, practices, traditions, or a life that was well lived and managed. That everything we experienced, say, and do will be deposited into our eternal legacy.

Creating our legacy is a pathway resulting in a deep sense of significance, where true meaning is found somewhere beyond the pursuit of our challenges or successes, which results in a ripple effect that negatively or positively could impacts our community and society.

The Faili Kurds people need to remind themselves not to focus on their dreadful past and what they endured during the bloody Saddam’s time, instead, they should just keep looking at the world positively in order to move on in life and the strength will come.

For example, looking at what I have taken in from others and also what I have learned from my own life experiences has been a powerful exploration of who I am now and what I hope to leave behind. And I realized that in order to be that example, in order to pass on these beliefs and values to our new generations, I have to live them consciously and talk about them all the time in order to remind myself with my achievement.

My goal is to leave others with a belief in themselves and the goodness within their hart and the magic of the world outside their door. Because I know that there is beauty everywhere, you just need to open your eyes and take it in. We should remind ourselves to keep going when things get hard. If I learned anything through my own hardships and challenges, it’s that I became stronger than I ever thought.

Knowing the legacy that we want to leave behind helps us to stay focused on what we are doing in the present so that our goals are in line with that legacy. It offers a concrete sense of purpose in choosing what we are giving our energy to. The whole concept of legacy can be a deeply powerful way of connecting with others. Looking at your roots, ancestral, blood family, cultural, spiritual, or whatever avenue you choose to explore, connects you to those who have gone before you.

Planning the legacy that we are leaving behind connects us to those whose lives that we touch, and that they touch, and so on, potentially for generations to come. For us (Faili Kurds) staying silent about our past should not be an option. As a confident extrovert people, we should thrive on storytelling about our past and challenges. During our story telling, the focus should be on our Adventure, danger, feelings, and the strong personalities that our new generation came up with.

For example, my two sisters, my four brothers, and I start to realize that our parents’ history, experiences, and identity belong to us, And we need to talk about it. We should not be stillness about our past, because when we choose to be silence, we are detaching ourselves from obligations, yet, we need to put on a show for the world to see. The truth is, throughout our life, there were many times when the world was really quiet about our suffering and the only thing that was left for us was to listen to the beat of our own heart.

We have to be determined to remain positive. We have to understand that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness will be determined not by our circumstances, but by our attitude. A happy person is not a person who always lives in a good situation, but rather a person who always has a good attitude in every situation.

So we need to smile at those who often try to begrudge or hurt us; we need to show them what’s missing in their life and what they can’t take away from us. Doing so doesn’t mean forgetting or giving in; it means we choose happiness over hurt.

We cannot find peace and happiness by merely avoiding life. We all know that life spins with unexpected changes; so instead of avoiding it, we should take every change and experience as a challenge for personal growth. Either it will give us what we want, or it might teach us what the next step should be. And always remember, finding peace in life does not mean to be in a place where there is no pain, no noise, no challenges, and no hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things while remaining calm in your heart.

Not until we have endured soreness in this world, we will begin to find ourselves. Realizing that we were hart was the first step to live the life that we want. Making a big life change is pretty scary. I can tell you from my own life experience that I’ve found peace and love, but I lost it for a while, and then I found it once again. But each time what I found was more incredible than the last.

So we need to remember that everyone suffers in life at some point, and everyone feels lost sometimes too. But, the key for our happiness is using our experiences to grow. When we apply what we have learned from our legacy to our future choices and actions, we will move forward not backward, and we will be stronger and wiser.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2016 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part IV appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Psychological Effects On Children

Following the displacement of the Faili Kurds people to a new community without identity, employment, capitals, housing, and resources, they set forth on their new journey with many physical, emotional, and psychological challenges living under very dreadful conditions. They were on the quest for a new life, home, and family.

Often they suppressed the trauma they sustained during the Holocaust, pushing it to the backs of their minds, distancing themselves from the terror and the grief to embrace their new lives. Despite their best efforts to “move on,” however, for many this shroud of wellness eventually gave way to a host of emotional and psychological difficulties. Their inability to mourn or to acknowledge their own suffering led them to exhibit a variety of symptoms.

In the refugee Displacement, the Faili Kurds parents found themselves to be confronted by a culture that was essentially different from theirs. The Faili Kurds youths and children found themselves to be caught between the simultaneous impacts of their parents trying to impose their old way of living, and the new demands of the world around them.

The dilemma of the Faili Kurds youths and children that their parents’ demands and prescriptions were inappropriate in the new world; on the other hand, adherence to the demands of the new culture precipitated their displeasure and disapproval of their parents. Thus, the youths and children were caught between the two worlds, and they had difficulty giving their fidelity to either.

As a result, the survivors have experienced few identity and communication problems between parent and child. The parents were over protected for their children, especially the first born, who were seen as the ultimate in the continuation of life as well as the resurrection of lost loved ones. Children, in turn, protected their parents by avoiding asking them questions about their past.

Some Psychologists have classified the post-genocides families into four major categories, such as, “the Victim Families, the Fighter Families, the Numb Families, and the families of “Those Who Made It.”

The Victim Families refer to the family who has been characterized by having a pervasive depression, worry, mistrust, and fear of the outside world. The traumatic event that the Faili Kurds people endured for the last 40 years, made their children to stick so closely to their families.

The children of these families became so concerned and preoccupied with their survival that they would hoard food and money in case another genocide could occur. Children of such families were often trained to be survivors of future Holocausts. These Faili Kurds children were admonished by their parents to keep their low profile, and they were taught not to stand out in the crowd.

These Children often leave their parents’ homes at later age than other young adults, and they remained in close contact with their parents. Many children in this type of family were extraordinarily driven to succeed academically and professionally in order to make it big for their parents.

The Fighter Families refer to the families who their children hunt for success and they are normally became high achiever in life. The traumatic events that the Faili Kurds people experienced during their refugee displacement made their children to be fighters. They managed to convey their physical ability and their spiritual roles during their process of recovery, to counteract the image of victimized Faili Kurds.

At their home atmosphere, their home environment was permeated with an intense drive to build and achieve. They believed in the notion, “The only one who can do it for me is me.” They tend to dislike relaxation and pleasurable feelings because they viewed it to be a waste of time. Confidence and self-assertiveness, the ability to withstand stress and to overcome obstacles were highly encouraged and praised. They have the propensity to encourage aggression against outsiders.

The Numb Families refers to the families who always lived in their state of shock and resignation. Rarely did their children know the specific details of their parents’ life histories, yet they had the feeling their parents were marked by the past. In most numb families, the parents protected each other and the children protected the parents.

While clinging to each other and never fighting with each other, the parents not only excluded their children, but also often neglected them. The children often viewed the parents as old, distant, and withdrawn. The children frequently adopted outside authorities and peers as family in an attempt to seek identification models and to learn how to live.

And “Those Who made it”, refer to those families who their children moved on with their horrors and they accomplished lots in their lives. Most of their children grew up to become successful. They overcame the pain and the nightmares. Today they are lawyers, teachers, physicians, philanthropists, and professors.

The Sons and daughters of the Faili Kurds survivors are among the nation’s high achievers academically and in the professions. Many of these children have chosen human service careers as a response to the inhumanity suffered by their people and a wish to help other victims of injustice and oppression.

Other Psychologist talked about The Four Phases of Refugee stressful experiences that are surrounding the children and youths during their escape phase are anticipation, devastating events, survival, and adjustment (March, Amaya, Murray, & Schult, 1998).

These reactions can fit within the three phases of the Faili Kurds refugee experiences such as, pre-flight, flight, and the resettlement phase. The pre-flight phase refers to the time that was prior to the refugee’s escape from their country of origin, that either was occurred as a result of political violence and/or war. During the pre-flight phase, refugee’s children are faced with many social upheaval and increasing chaos in their region. This can include their limited access to schools that might disrupt their education and social development.

At the family and the individual levels, refugees are often faced with many threats to their safety and their family members as well. Prior to flight phase, refugees try to cope with devastating events (March, Amaya, Murray, & Schult, 1998). Refugee youth may witness violence, or even engage in it.

During flight phase, the refugees face great uncertainty about their future, and surviving the displacement from their homes and their transitional placement (refugee camp). They are often at the mercy of external sources such as the united nation, to meet their basic needs.

At those times, many children are born into this phase, and they might endure some psychological development during this transition period, and the separation from their parents and caregivers is very common. At the Resettlement phase, the new belief systems, values, and mores of the host country will challenge the refugee’s adjustment (March, Amaya, Murray, & Schult, 1998).

Also, a large number of studies have documented a wide range of symptoms experienced by traumatized refugee children, including anxiety, recurring nightmares, insomnia, secondary enuresis, introversion, anxiety and depressive symptoms, relationship problems, behavioral problems, academic difficulties, anorexia, and somatic problems (Martinez, & Richters, 1993).

These studies linked the presence of these symptoms to exposure to trauma prior to migration. With high prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms among refugee children reported to be between 50-90% (Lustig et al., 2004). The flight phase appears to be particularly stressful for refugee youths, due to its instability and unpredictability. This phase can be very distressing on young refugees, by the process of separation from their families, the refugee camps, and their networking system.

The slow or delay of the refugees adaptation process, can lead to Lack of Psychological adaptation that may cause anxiety, depression and other symptoms, that can impact self-esteem and well-being of refugee youths. This in return can impact their Socio-cultural adaptation process that includes school adjustment and a lack of behavioral problems such as delinquency, truancy, rebellion, etc. refugee youths can experience a great number of stressors throughout their pre-migration phase, flight phase, and the resettlement phase that can impact on their psychological well being.

Refugee youths can experience trauma resulting from war and political violence in their countries of origin prior to migration, as well as during flight phase or in refugee camps. These multiple stressors include direct exposure to war time violence and combat experience, displacement and loss of home, malnutrition, separation from caregivers, detention and torture and a multitude of other traumatic circumstances affecting the children’s health, mental health and general well being (Eisenbruch, 1988).

The Faili Kurds holocaust made the Faili Kurds parents to hold a high hopes and ambivalent feelings towards their children. They tend to think that the world became a dangerous place for children, and especially for Faili Kurds children. For the Faili Kurds survivors, their intense personal war continued in which their ultimate victory would be obtained through the success and survival of their children.

The second generation children of the Faili Kurds people are now parents themselves. They considered themselves to be the legatees to the Faili Kurds Holocaust and the bridge between the two worlds. Many of them today are bearing the names of their loved ones, whom they have never met. For the second generation, the Faili Kurds Holocaust is their historical phenomenon, their past, their parent’s lives, and their grandparents and relatives deaths.

Following the displacement and the war, Faili Kurds immigrants who were able to leave the refugee camp in Iran and migrated to Europe were strongly encouraged by their relatives who lived there before them to abandon their trauma and to suppress their memory of their experiences and to move on. They were encouraged to look to the future because this was more important than the past.

Our new generation took the responsibility to make sure that the Faili Kurds Holocaust will be remembered for ever. They set it down in an unprecedented volume of journal testimonies, news articles, and oral histories.

Whatever we report, write, and document should be a public record for our generation to come. Because, for many years, the Faili Kurds people were considered to be a hazardous community to Iraq’s social structure and they needed to be eliminated from Iraq’s culture. Thus, the Faili Kurds people were subject to massive and inhumane deportation and immense execution, and they had no escape from it.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2015 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part III appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Multiple Stresses of Exile

The settlement process into a new country is a long journey and an endless process involving both adaptation and acceptance. It usually takes the individual years to adapt into his or her new living environment.

Many Faili Kurds refugees gradually try to rebuild their life in Iran and become relatively successful in their new country. Yet, some of them, particularly the older people, keep struggling for the rest of their lives because they do not have the skills, experience, and flexibility to cope with the major changes.

To be accepted into the new society, normally refugees need to change their thinking, behavior, habits, social norms, and their former way of life. However, this was a very difficult task for the Faili Kurds people, because they left behind them in Iraq all their life time earning and belonging.

The displacement of the Faili Kurds to a new country was a companied with many challenges and stresses. They were faced with multiple strains, dealing with their grief and loss, have no money or income, have no place to live, and no government or institution to advocate for them. The young Faili Kurds were faced with learning a new language, adapting to a new set of cultural norms and values, and being oriented to many new systems such as employment, health, and schooling system.

The experiences of being a refugee in a foreign country, created ongoing traumas for the Faili Kurds young people such as, fear about their future and not coping, isolation and the sense of not belonging in the new culture, injustice, exposure to ignorance and lack of understanding, racial prejudice and new humiliations. For the Faili Kurds youths refugees, their ethnic identity and nationality were very important to them.

A number of Psychological studies have found that the strong sense of ethnic identity is related to higher self-esteem, fine self confident, and good self expression. However, refugee youths who experience discrimination, humiliation, isolation, and injustice will have a compromised sense of pride in their culture of origin and limit their aspirations and achievements.

The process of identity formation may be challenging for refugee Faili youths because they are trying to learn a new language, dealing with a new culture, negotiating with new sets of rules and norms, and relating to peers.

Our displacement to Iran placed a huge stress on us (Faili youths) and on our personality. During that process, there was a change in our family role and responsibility. Because we were able to master the Farsi language faster than our parents, thus, we were forced to work and support our families.

In my case, I had no father to support me and my family, because he was still incarcerated in Iraq, thus, my four brothers and myself were forced to work in order to support 17 people in my family including three of my ants with their children. We used to work ten hours a day in a sewing company with less than a minimal wage. We were unable to go to school, because we had to support our family.

We (youths and children) encounter many challenges and obstacles during the process of integration into our host society. The severity of our struggles was often dependent on our age of arrival to Iran. That the older refugees youth were when they arrive in Iran, the more difficult it was for them to integrate into society. The level of proficiency in both their Kurdish language and the Farsi language pronunciation had a strong impact on their social role and settlement process.

When we lived in Iran, we were forced to adjust to a new culture and language, as well as new surroundings and peer expectations. However, this was very difficult for us (Faili youths) to achieve it without family stability and economic security, which we did not have at that time.

Our inability to adapt successfully to the norms of society, often results in us having problems at our work places, at our social gatherings, at our neighborhoods settings, and at our school surroundings. This situation created a greater risk for us in terms of delinquency and behavioral problem. In my case for example, I had a lot of rage and mixed feelings about the whole situation.

I used to get into fights with Iranian guys almost every day. I had to join Martial Art classes to get rid of the anger and the frustration that I was experiencing at that time. My level of irritation and frustration was so high, that I used to work-out at the Jim four hours a day after my work and two hours a day at home.

Within six years of working-out, I was able to obtain my third Degree Black Belt in Karate, and brown Belt in Jujitsu. However, when I lived in Iraq, I was a very peaceful person and very kind, but the stress of incarceration and the refugee displacement changed all that.

In addition to our living challenges, schools were also a source of potential acculturative stress for refugee Faili Kurds children and adolescents. While parents are struggling with meeting their basic family needs, Faili Kurds children were confronted with negotiating a new school environment and integrating into new peer networks.

Faili Children and adolescents who were struggling with identity formation were experiencing psychological difficulties in the context of dual cultural membership, particularly those who were discriminated against and were receiving negative messages about their race and nationality.

Faili Kurds Refugees were discriminated against because of their language limitations, their racial origins, their ethnic background or cultural practices. Faili Kurds females tend to experience fewer incidents of discrimination and humiliation in school than the Faili males do.

But they were often more easily accepted by Iranian female’s students and teachers, and they normally perform better academically than the boys. Faili Males, on the other hand, report more racial incidents in terms of bullying and violence.

Many of the Faili Kurds students encounter significant challenges coping with the school system. Some of them performed poorly in class, suffer from behavioral problems, or drop out of school altogether. Some of the principal factors underlying these problems include school policies and the discriminatory attitudes of teachers. This environment has proven to be a negative one for Faili refugee’s students.

It has led to their poor attendance, fostered feelings of hostility towards school and other students, and produced an increase in their delinquent behavior. Also their vulnerability to violent attacks at school had a detrimental effect on their school climate, which can affect the students’ readiness and ability to learn and undermine their relationships with peers and teachers.

These stressors complicated the Faili Kurds students’ adjustment to new schools and community settings, taxing even the most robust Faili refugee’s adolescents’ coping capacities and leaving them vulnerable to academic failure.

As a result, a large segment of the Faili Kurds refugee youths dropped out from school and they joined Al-Bader militia and they went to war against Iraq and many of them died in that war. My youngest brother who was 14 years old at that time was one of them.

One day he went to school in the morning and he never came back home that day. My mother and I, we were very worried about him, and we were looking for him everywhere, but one of his friends came to our house and told us that he joined Al-Bader Militia and he went to war. After being in the war for three years, he was severely injured and harmed his left hand for ever.

the experience of the refugees Faili Kurds youths in the school system often includes discrimination from other students and teachers, daily hassles related to language inadequacies, and peer related hassles to intergroup issues such as friendship and etc. Furthermore, the parental pressure on their children to succeed academically in school can inadvertently heighten their anxiety about school success.

Prejudice and discrimination were detrimental factors that affected the settlement of Faili Kurds refugees. The stereotypes of any kind that tend to label individuals as a sort or kind, without allowing them an opportunity to be themselves. Negative stereotypes were especially injurious because they can be demeaning and hurtful.

Discrimination can occur on many levels and in many ways. Often it results from the intentional exclusion and singling out of certain groups from the mainstream society; at other times it can be caused by a basic lack of understanding and ignorance on the part of those who are prejudiced.

All forms of discrimination, intentional or otherwise, can negatively affect the settlement, and integration process of the Faili Kurds refugee’s into society. I remember one day going to the bakery to buy some bread for my family, the store owner gave me the damaged bread, but I refused to take them, then he said “You guys eat anything so take it”.

At that time, I got so angry and wanted to smash his face, but I controlled myself and walked away after I took my good bread and I told him few bad things about himself and his race.

For immigrant and refugee youths, social relations can provide them with a variety of protective functions, such as, a sense of belonging, emotional support, tangible assistance and information, cognitive guidance, and positive feedback, but we did not had any of that. The relationships that we had in the community, work places, faith institutions, and in the school system played a crucial role in promoting our socially positive, negative, or competent behavior in our community settings.

In conclusion, numerous elements, such as depravation, discrimination, humiliation, economic inequality, and institutional barrier or systemic discrimination, acted as obstructions for Faili Kurds refugees. Living in low-income households did not provide the environment that is conducive to our growth and learning, since many of the Faili Kurds families consume less income earning than the dominant group.

For the record, the Iraqi institution which called Majlis Al-Alaa under the leadership of Mohammad Baqare Al-Hakeem that was established in Tehran around 1982, did not offer any support to the Iraqi refugee and particularly to the Faili Kurds refugees living in Tehran and other parts of Iran.

Basically, we (Faili Kurds and Arab refugees) were left along to our fate and we were neglected, but others such as religious figures had a good living condition and they were enjoying the money and the resources that was issued to Iraqi refugees.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2015 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post Survival of Abu-Ghraib Jail – Part X appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

World’s Conspiracy

The implementation of the mass deportation and the execution of the Faili Kurds population was the world’s plan against this group of inhabitants, as well as, it was the superior strategy of the Baath regime against the Kurdish people.

The purpose of this action was to deprive the Faili Kurds of Iraq from all their rights and privileges and drive them from all their geographically strategic areas for the reason of ethnic cleansing.

Their plan began by crushing the Kurds’ nationality, characteristics, ethnicity, and economic dominance at the center of power in Baghdad through unfair deportation and ethnic cleansing procedures.

During the 1980’s deportations of the Faili Kurds people, many thousands of adult youths between the ages of 17-35 years old were separated from their families and they were incarcerated at Abu-Ghraib Jail without any legal procedures. Saddam’s Interior Ministry issued a policy on 10 April 1980, stating that “all youths aged between 18 and 28 are exempt from deportation and must be held at detention centers until further notice”.

Most of those young men and women who were affected by this order were Faili Kurds youths, and none of their families ever saw their loved ones again. Those detainees’ youths were used for chemical experiments and they were all killed during those experiments in gas and chemical warfare centers in Iraq.

The detentions of the Faili Kurds youths began before the September 1980’s invasion of Iran, there were at least 13,000 Faili Kurds youths, vanished into a thin air just like that. As always in elsewhere in the world, there is no solid proof for that.

Few months before Saddam’s invasion of Iran during September 1980’s, tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers were killed an appalling death by gas burns and blisters that was experimented on the Faili young men and women who were used for experiments in gas and biological warfare agents whose ingredients were originally supplied by the United States and other Western countries.

According to an Iraqi protester whom refuses to ally himself to the Iraqi opposition, stated that “a large number of young Faili Kurds detainees may have perished as a result of being used as guinea pigs for Saddam Hussein’s research programs at various chemical, biological and nuclear warfare laboratories”. The same source shared that, the Iraqi scientists who used to work on those experiments and later on they became fugitive at Urabe, did verify those biological warfare testing programs.

As well as, another report by an Iraqi Kurdish refugee whom settles in Lebanon shared that the Western intelligence had the complete knowledge about the fate of the thousands of the young detainees, but they kept those information confidential.

He also mentioned, “During the war with Iran many of the young detainees were taken to secret laboratories in different locations in Iraq and were exposed to intense doses of chemical and biological substances in a myriad of conditions and situations.

With every military setback at the front causing panic in Baghdad, these experiments had to be speeded up – which meant more detainees were needed to be sent to the laboratories, which had to test VX nerve gas, mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, Aflatoxin, Gas Gangrene and Anthrax.”(biphome.spray.se/faili.kurd, October, 2015)

Not one of those facts and accusations were used against Saddam Hussein and his regime by United State or Urabe, and no one around the world had the courage to speak about those missing thousands of the Faili Kurds young people who were detained by Iraq just before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. The purpose of this cover-up due to the Westerns embarrassment for its support for Saddam’s chemical programs during that war.

It was also an attempt to avoid any inquiry for how President Saddam and his scientist obtained the means to wage chemical warfare against his people and opponents. As well as, the Arab and Muslim states, media, politicians and international media, and organizations did indeed keep a deafening silence on these tragic events and some of them did indeed support these measures openly or tacitly.

Because during that time, Saddam Hussein and his regime was considered to be the hero of the Arab nation and he was backed politically, militarily, and financially, and was summoned for defending and safeguarding the Eastern Gate from the Persian enemy.

This large-scale slaughters and brutal ethnic cleansing of the Faili Kurds citizens was taking place openly in the face and before the eyes of the world and no one had the courage to stop it or talk about it. But they let Saddam to continue murdering his people and they provided him with all the means to do that.

So my puzzling question is, “Why did the World allow Saddam and his Baath regime to treat the Faili Kurds so ruthlessly”? And “Why didn’t the World take any serious measures to stop this madness”? This type of ruthless treatment from arbitrary arrests of the Faili Kurds youths, to the use of chemical weapons against them was well known to the World and it was documented as well. It was a reflection of the Nazi and Stalinist ideology and Arab ultra-nationalism superiority which was intolerant to the minority’s rights, and the World allowed it to happen.

The question that begs every Faili Kurd person today is, “What did really happen to those Faili Kurds youths”? “Have they actually been executed”? “If yes, then, where were they buried”? And “Where are their graves”? The questions are many but the answers are no where to be found.

In fact, no one really knows what has happened to those detainees of the Faili Kurds youths, although some documents have been found on a number of them stating that they have been executed, but it doesn’t indicate the nature and the location of their execution.

Only God knows what really happened to those thousands of Faili Kurds young detainees and their whereabouts, and their fate and their graves. Thousands of Faili Kurds families are still looking for clues about their loved ones and their graves.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2015 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part II appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Hazardous to civilization

For the past 35 years that Iraq was ruled by Saddam and his Baath Party, a general ill principle was existed in Iraq’s society that The Faili Kurds people were considered to be a dangerous people to their social order and they needed to be eliminated from Iraq’s culture.

Thus, the Faili Kurds were subject to massive and inhumane deportation and immense execution, and they had no escape from it.

No action they would take, no change in their behavior or their beliefs, would made the slightest difference regarding their exile and death warrant.

At every stage of the Faili Kurds lives, Saddam used his security intelligence and military superiority to crush and terrorize them. Also the threat of the Faili Kurds massive payback from the regime, Saddam ordered his Security Intelligent unit to execute several Thousands of their youths and their bodies were hitting away in mass graves, and their families were pushed away at the Iraqi/Iranian boarders.

Thousands of Saddam’s security intelligence unit and their accomplices combed the cities of Iraq to sniff out Faili Kurds people, and trapping every one who tried to slip through their fingers. This was a goal to which Saddam and his Baath Party devoted themselves to with the greatest efficiency.

The Faili Kurds people were generally abandoned by their society, neighbors, and the free world. They had no nationality status that they could rely on, no country of their own to which they could turn to; and they had no means of self defense. The Jewish and the Faili Kurds Holocaust were the most horrible massacres in human history. Never in history had the world witnessed such a campaign of expulsion and extermination.

The Faili Kurds genocide was very heartbreaking and terrible in its overt planning, in its systematic execution, and the absence of the emotional element and the pity of exterminating everyone. It is very important to acknowledge that the Faili Kurds genocide was aimed not only at the destruction of the Faili Kurds Community, but also at the Faili Kurds seed itself. It was an act not only against the Faili Kurds racial existence, but also against the Faili Kurds social and economical expansion.

The Faili Kurds people had suffered torture, degradation, and humiliation that were inflicted on them by Saddam and his followers in order to break them down, to rob them of the last shred of their human dignity, and to deprive them of any strength to resist and the desire to live.

They had no authority that they could appeal to for the redress of their injustice; no government that they could ask protection and punishment for their murderers; no neighbor on whose gate to knock and ask for shelter and refuge, and no deity to whom to beg for help and mercy.

The entire Faili Kurds population was handed over by a legal government to a professional murderers who were organized by the Iraqi authorities and trained to hunt and kill, with one single provision, that the entire Faili Kurds people either be extradited or murdered, men and women, old and young, healthy, sick, and children.

For many years, the Faili Kurds people had deep ties to their motherland Iraq. They had lived there for centuries and they were part of Iraq’s economical and social growth. In Iraq, nearly two-thirds of the Faili Kurds people were engaged in trade and commerce, some of them worked in industry, and a good number of them were in the public service.

Prior to Iraq’s and Iran’s war, the Faili Kurds socioeconomic position was overwhelmingly middle and upper class. The Faili Kurds people did not see themselves as a separate national minority within the community in which they lived. They claimed to differ from other Iraqi citizens only in respect to their distinctive ethnic background and their desire was always for the same full and equal rights as the rest of the populations.

They felt they were an integral part of the community in terms of nationality and shared faith and culture. But the bloody Saddam and his followers made a prejudice decision to extradite and slay them in a very inhumane way.

It took the Faili Kurds people nearly forty years before their survivors began to talk about their genocide. It took time for the Faili Kurds people to open-up and to speak of the horror they endured and saw during Saddam’s time. It took them a long time to start trusting other people and share their sorrow with them.

Our old generation is beginning to speak about their experiences and horrors for the benefit of educating their children and their grandchildren. The victims of the Faili Kurds Holocaust are engaged in massive efforts to leave public records for their community and the whole world.

Our new generation has the responsibility to make sure that the Faili Kurds Holocaust will be remembered for ever. They must set it down in an unprecedented volume of journal testimonies, news articles, and oral histories. Whatever we report, write, and document should be a public record for our generation to come.

Because, for many years, the Faili Kurds people were considered to be a hazardous community to Iraq’s social structure and they needed to be eliminated from Iraq’s culture. Thus, the Faili Kurds were subject to massive and inhumane deportation and immense execution, and they had no escape from it.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2015 iKurd.net. All rights reserved

The post The Absurd Cause For The Faili Kurds Holocausts – Part I appeared first on iKurd News.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Grief and Loss

The Faili Kurds adult and youths who were forced to abandon their motherland Iraq and flee persecution and resettle in another country, often endure great physical and mental challenges during displacement.

They also suffered a continuing hardships and poverty following their obligatory journey in a new community. Most of these Faili Kurds refugees came from a stable homes and a wealthier background, but they faced a long period of turbulence and uncertainty in their refugee displacement. They endured huge social, cultural, and linguistic difficulties in their new setting.

The exposure to the adverse events during the incarceration at Abu-Ghraib Jail had a huge psychological and emotional impact on the Faili Kurd’s settlement process. The degree of perceived personal threats and humiliations during their traumatic exposures was the cause for their generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After their entry into their host country, their behavior was associated with a range of broad negative psychological problems in their refugee displacement. As well as, the parental exposures are more strongly associated with children’s mental health problems than are children’s own exposures, particularly if parents have been tortured, or are missing.

The liberation of the Faili Kurds youths from Abu-Ghraib Jail to the Iranian boarder was the beginning of something frightening and unknown, disturbing, and painful for them. At age 16, I was positioned at the Iraqi and the Iranian’s boarders, and I was lost and confused.

I didn’t know who I was, what I am, where all my family and loved ones were. I felt Longley and lost. I didn’t know who I belong to, and what should I do and where should I go, and where could I find a place to call home. The level of stress and anxiety was so high, and I felt so numb and I did not know what side to turn to, Iraq or Iran.

The level of stress and anger was so high even among those families that were at the boarder with us. I believe that I wasn’t the only one thinking and feeling that way, there were so many Faili Kurds people who are fighting the same exact emotional battle. We were all in this together. So no matter how embarrassed or pathetic that I felt about my own situation at that time, I already know that there were others out there who are experiencing the same shocking emotions with me.

We were all standing at the boarder and we didn’t know what to do and where to go. There were no instructions giving to us, other than being shot if we were to go back to Iraq. It was a cloudy and a chili day and we weren’t dressed accurately to the weather. I did witness many women and children feeling hopeless and they sat on the ground and they were crying at the boarder.

I didn’t like the level of stress and anxiety that I was experiencing, thus, I decided to move along by myself and cross the Iranian boarder. I placed my things on my back and I walked to the Iranian side with some level of fear. I wasn’t sure what the Iranians would think about a young guy crossing their boarders. I did walk for a long time and I came near their gate and it was open and there was no one there.

Once I went through their gate, I kept on walking and not too long, I saw a man and he asked me in his Kurdish language, “Is there any families there too”? I said, yes there are many families and children. Then, he told me to sit at this “Chy-Khana” (which means Tee place). Once I entered “Chy-Khana”, I asked the person who was there, “Where am I”? He told me you are at Kasirshereen. Then, I saw many busses going toward the boarder to pick-up those families and youths.

I sat there for almost one hour until all those people arrived to Kasershereen. Not too long, they placed us all in those busses and we were headed to Browgerd camp where all the Iraqi refugees settle at that time.

Once I arrived to Browgerd camp, I was still inside the buss, I saw a girl whom I didn’t know calling my name, and I said to her “that is me”, and she told me that your mother is looking for you and I will tell her that you arrived. Then, I saw my mother talking to one of the camp’s guard and she told him that is my son. The guard told me you can go with your mother now.

Once I walked out of the buss, I hugged my mother so tight and asked her about my father and my grandfather if they were there with her, but she replied with sad voice no they are still hostage in Iraq. I was so disappointed to hear that, and I was hopeful to see my dad with my family.

Then, she holds my hand and she told me to go home with her. When I got to her place, I saw my mother and my middle brother living under a tent. I asked my mother where are my other brothers and sisters, she told me they all went to Tehran and I refused to go because of you.

When I looked around, I saw many Faili Kurds people living under those tents and that was the most painful and very sad scenery to see my family and community living under that dreadful condition and we left behind in Baghdad a beautiful large houses with expensive and comfort furniture’s.

This was the beginning of the Faili Kurds hardship and misery because they were forced to abandon their motherland Iraq and flee persecution and resettle in another country, and they endured great physical and mental challenges during their displacement.

They had a hard time coping with the grief and loss and they suffered a huge hardships and poverty following their obligatory journey in a new community. Most of these Faili Kurds refugees came from a stable homes and a wealthy background, but they faced a long period of turbulence and uncertainty in their refugee displacement. We all endured huge settlement, adaptation, social, cultural shocks, and linguistic difficulties in our new setting.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

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