Delivered by Shwan Shwani
KNC-NA 23rd Annual Conference,
April 30, 2011, Calgary, Canada
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good Afternoon. We as GORRAN movement, we are happily participating in the 23rd conference of the Kurdish National Congress and reiterate our presence in North America.
It’s obvious, the presence of Kurdish organizations and Kurdish entities abroad are very important to support the Kurdish lobby. We as Gorran movement Lobbying is one of our principle and part of our political agenda believe that lobbying is a necessity and a contemporary approach to advocate the Kurdish cause rather than the conventional political strive that the Kurdish parties routed. We completely support the lobbying concept and hope that the KNC will bring all the Kurdish talents together to further corroborate the Kurdish issues.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Kurdish nation is a wounded nation, some of these wounds are made by the enemies of the Kurds, while, some of the other wounds made by Kurds ourselves. Kurds get hung up by Iranian regime everyday. Journalists get beaten up and terrorized by Kurdish authorities. Guerrillas are getting killed by Turkish regime everyday. Kurds are getting tortured and poisoned by Syrian regime. Civilian Kurdish protesters are getting killed in Sulaymaniyah by Kurds. Today more than one force is wounding the Kurdish body and detaching the Kurds from each other based on territories, dialects, tribes and others. One of our deepest wound is our shattered national identity that was forced on us after the First World War who divided us into four pieces as of today. Since then our national identity has been chiseled by the nationality of the countries we are linked to, therefore; the Kurdism may have different contour from one part to another part of Kurdistan.
As you may all know that southern Kurdistan has different situations than other parts of Kurdistan, it has been under the Kurdish self ruling for over two decades, but unfortunately the Kurdish ruling period is as dark as the time of the former dictatorships. Today in Kurdistan, life, business, market even individuals are monopolized in the interest of the Kurdish ruling parties. Today nepotism and favoritism is ruling in Kurdistan, every single articulate of the government and society is filled with affiliation to the Kurdish ruling parties, people disgusting the Kurdism and the Kurdish self ruling.
But, Fortunately, Gorran rises in the arena of the Kurdish strive to reincarnate the Kurdism into the Kurdish bodies, to save the government and community from nepotism and favouritism, to bring back the sense of brotherhood with the Kurds from other parts of Kurdistan, to aid every single Kurd to live in freedom on every span of Kurdish land and put an end to the tyranny Kurds facing wherever they are.
Ladies and Gentlemen; Gorran works for the above mentioned goals through these strategies:
- Gorrna has become the pioneer of opposition in southern Kurdistan that can invigilate the Kurdish ruling parties and stop them overlooking the Kurdish people’s demands.
- Pushing off the new generations from the standpattism imposed by the older generations as its number one obstacle in front of progression of the Kurdish community.
- The two above mentioned points leads to breakthrough two important barriers, the first one is Nostalgia, which makes people stick to the past and prevent them from getting out of the stagnant life style imposed of them, the second one is the fear, fear of losing interests, fear of losing prestige.
- Rotation of power, changing the faces who take power, in order not to develop the sense of emotional attachment and sense of loyalty to one leader which develops corruption.
- psychologic alteration and boosting self esteem of the kurdish individuals which bring up independent Kurdish and individuals and more developed Kurdish society.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Kurdish people in southern Kurdistan are asking for change. They came to the street protesting in a civilized way, but unfortunately they were answered by bullets. Now Kurdistan is militarized, all Kurdish cities especially Sulaymaniyah have become military shuttered cities, it seems that Kurdish authorities have no other projects to bring on than abstract military solutions, nothing other than besieging the Kurdish cities with non – Kurdish Iraqi forces, oppressing the free Kurdish voice and killing the underage Kurdish protesters which are same stale methods tried by the all the dictators in the area, but they are gone.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here and now, we asking the KNC to ask the Kurdish authorities to stop violence against the Kurdish civilians, to stop torturing journalists and stop arresting protestors, to stop smothering the free Kurdish voice asking for basic needs of life, to react in more civilized approaches to the demands of the Kurdish people