Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RIVISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi
MOSAIC
A silent scream
Leyla Zana was the first Kurdish woman to become a member of the Turkish parliament. In this exclusive interview for
The Middle East she talked to Chris Kutschers about some of the tragic and traumatic events which formed her political
beliefs, including her arranged marriage to her cousin Mehdi, who was later to become the leader of the Socialist Party of
Kurdistan, her torture in a Turkish prison and the eventual realistion that even as an elected member of parliament as a
woman and a Kurd she still had no voice.
Flight of the Kurds. A truckload of children heading for a safe haven Northern Iraq.
was born in May 1961 in
Ithe village of $ilvan near
Diyarbekir. My father was a
minor employee with the
water distribution authority
who had six children, five
daughters and a son.
I started primary school at
an early age but my father,
a traditional and conservative
man, later farced me to
give up my studies and although
I didn't want to stop I
could not go against hiswill.
When I was 14years old my
father decided to marry me
off to my 35 year old cousin
Mehdl. I did not remember
Mehdi although I was told I
had met him years earlier
when he visited my village
campaigning for his party
(the Communist Party of Turkey).
Mehdl had been arrested
in 1971 and spent
three years in prison. On his
release his mother asked for
my hand for her son, and my
father agreed.
I was very distressed but
despite my objections he
gave me to Mehdi. I did not
choose my husband and I
knew that my life from then
on would be a difficult one.
We were so different, Iwas a
child, he was a mature man,
working as a tailor, even so at
the beginning of 1975 we
were married.
Your husband became the
leader of one of Turkey's
Kurdishnationalist organisations,
what did you think of
his political activities?
At the time we were married
there was no Kurdishnationalist
movement. The
militants of that generation
were communists. All my
family were very traditional
therefore I was antl-communist,
as they were.
So what happened?
I began to change gradually
I had been living in a
small world suddenly, -f was
transported to a far bigger
one. When I married Mehdi I
was full of contradictions, until
then I had no say in choosing
my own life, somebody
else had done the choosing
for me. Forthe next five years
it was the same, it was still
not my own life, it was controlled
by Mehdi. Iwas somebody
to please Mehdi.
In 1980Mehdi was arrested
and sentenced to 35 years in
prison, where he eventually
spent the next ten years. I
was just 20 years old, I had a
small son and I was pregnant.
For the first year after
hisarrest Idid not stop crying,
Ididn't know how Iwas going
to survive, my family was not
rich, I was not financially independent,
the situation
seemed hopeless.
When I went to visit Mehdi,
at the gate of the prison Imet
many very different people.
Little by little I began to
change, to question my own
identity and to wonder exactly
who I was. Until then I
had no interest in the fact
that I was a Kurd. The ideal
was to be a Turk. The Turks
were openly saying 'the
Kurds are bullshit' or 'the
Kurdshave tolls' (like the animals),
and we put up with it,
it was the officialldeology To
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