Seydo and Hejar

 by Younes Bahram

It can happen in every Kurdish town what happened to me not long ago.

Who is sitting there in a heap on the bridge across the river Ceqceq? It is my friend Seydo who I knew as a wealthy farmer and cattle breeder. And now?

He looks poor and torn. His face has become skinny and deep furrows run through it.

What has happenend to him? I sit down beside him on the bricks of the bridge. Bit by bit I find out what happened since he belongs to the expatriated Kurds who only posses an identity card, a so called “Cow-Card”, and no other papers. The name “Cow-Card” evolved because the stock farmers get a card for each of their cattle that card is not much different from the cards the expatriated Kurds get.

What that meens can only be judged by the ones who have experienced this themselves. You are in your country, your town and from one moment to the other you are denaturalized because someone caught you speeking Kurdish and not Arabic. What language should a Kurd speak in his Kurdish town? Don’t ask that! Here it is declared a crime and you are punished for that. You are now a “Syrian foreigner”.

At the edge of the town Kamishli where the fields and lawns spread across the land was my friend Seydo’s property. His land was taken and he had to sell his cattle. How can you raise cattle without ground, without farming and fertile fields? He is not allowed to work and is not allowed to buy his food in a normal store for reasonable prices. How is he supposed to live? Him and his big family? The rulers don’t ask about that. Thousands have been reduced to poverty through actions like these. Who counts them? But how does Seydo make it through? He has become a beggar. But beeing this he shouldn’t let himself be caught either.

There are Kurds that have not been expatriated yet who help those that don’t know further anymore.

In the so called “flour-season”, according to a tradition, every believer is supposed to give the poorest of the poor a certain percentage of his crops. That is called Zakat, Islamic tax. So when the harvest has been brought in all the starving go to the villages to remind the believers of that tradition. How they survive twelve whole months with this, once a year happening, donation? There are not only friends among the farmers but also among the shop owners. It happens that the owner of a shoe store asks one of his poor friends to sell his shoes on the streets, mostly a bag full of beach shoes made from plastic. After acounting the temporary salesman can keep the minor profit. But it is no way of life not knowing what tomorrow brings, how send the children to school if you can’t pay the teachers? How can they learn a job and be the financial support of your old age? All important threads of life have been cut. You are a Kurd and the Arab can do with you whatever he wants.

Seydo sighs. And yet he smiles. He is happy that I am sitting beside him listening. Then he says: ”There are people who are much worse off than me. Do you see that shoeshine boy over there?”

He shows him to me. “ Oh, what a healthy, strong and intelligent person he used to be, he studied law abroad. When he got back to help his country with his knowledge, they imprisoned him. Look, there he comes. He must have noticed that we are talking about him.”

What kind of human beeing is that, that walks up to us with a box of shoe-cleaning things. A smashed face, a weak body, feet that don’t fit in anny shoes anymore may they be as big as they want. How did that happen? The whipping of ones foot soles, as told in ancient stories, is still done nowdays in penatentaries.

As he lays down his box to greet us, I see that there is a diploma attached to the front of the box, his diploma from law school. He sits beside us and starts to talk: “My name is Hejar, this means: the poor. You are Seydo’s friend so you are a friend of mine, too.I can tell you what happened. When I was able to flee and get out of the country to study somewhere, I had a dream. I wanted to return as a studied lawyer to fight the injust situation that burdens us Kurds with my knowledge. I wanted to help our brothers to their justice. I was so proud of my diploma, of which I could save this copy. But what is left of it? They always say that you can take away much from the people but you can’t take what is in their heads. One who says that does not know what all can be taken from you if the devils in prison get you. There is not one paragraph left in my beat up head, they destroyed everything. Do you know what they used to justify this? They said I was a spy, an agent for foreign countries, even for Israel. They said that were the reasons why I was abroad.

They needed a reason to arrest me and almost torture me to death, so I wouldn’t be of use here anymore. It is seldom that I can talk to someone like this. If I see a policeman, not one word leaves my mouth and my brain is like a wall of fog. And I wanted to…” He stops. He can’t talk anymore. His eyes stare into emptiness, dazed he picks up his box and goes back to his place.

Seydo looks around silently. Then he says: “You could go over there and have your shoes cleaned. I can see you want to help, but Hejar won’t accept anything, not even from a friend, without a favour in return. That is his pride, the only thing he has left.”