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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
TOM
The Nation.
BOOKS Ii. THE ARTS
March 23, 1998
Kingdom of Desire
LECLAIR
"~ 0 friends but the mountains," Kurds Western aid to parachute down to their "safe
say. Kurds aren't walking up out haven." Meiselas's next two images explain
of the surf on Long Island or Cape the Kurds' unpreparedness and panic. One
Hatteras, not yet. But arriving now shows the town of Qala Diza, every structure
by boatloads in Greece and Italy,
dynamited, flattened to the ground in
Kurds are the Fertile Crescent's canaries, Saddam's "Anf al" campaign of the eighties,
escaping nationai cages, refusing to be poisoned
which razed mountain towns, relocated
again. Iraqi Kurds know another women and children in "victory cities" and
Western attack on Saddam Hussein will murdered men, a systematic genocide with
further impoverish them, already éaught more than 80,000 victims. A photograph of
between Saddam 's embargo and the West's a cemetery in Goktapa shows white-daubed
sanctions. Turkish Kurds can smell signs gravestones of Kurds killed by Saddam's
offurther military repression in Turkey's poison gas in 1988. The gravestones, unfinished
recent crackdown on Islamic parties. Americans
rocks, really, are numerous. In the
don't have to befriend Kurds to hear background, those postcard mountains.
their warnings or understand the prison Beauty and terror. It's the three-word,
states they're fleeing.
. four-image story of Kurdistan and Kurds.
Many writers have told the Kurds' recent
The rest of Meiselas's book extends the
history. But the photographer Susan
Meiselas's mountain ofa book-388 folio
pages-best introduces and summarizes
Kurds and their kingdom of desiI:e located
in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern
Iran and northeastern Syria. Kurdis~
tan opens with a postcard, a double-page story back to the 1890s, personalizes it
color photo of mountains in Iraq, a mellowlighted
with photos of famoUs and nameless Kurds,
field in thèforeground, snow-topped widens the focus from Iraq to Iran and Tur~
blue peaks in the backgroÙDd, a road barely key, complements the visual story with facsimiles
visible in the upper left comer, no humans
ofremarkably varied texts and puts
in sight. The next image is also a double'- raw materials in context with a cultural historian'
page shot ofIraqi mountains, several miles
s running narrative in chapter intro-
of a winding trail packed with thousands of ductions. Kurdistan haS the emotional impact
Kurds-babies in their arms, sacks on their
of a documentary film and the informa-
backs, suitcases balanceq on their heads~ tionaldensity of a document file. One photo
walking toward the camera arid Turkey in shows wooden crates of captured Iraqi
April 1991. This photo is a flashcard, a papers, eighteen tons of them proving the
still flashback to the videotape that horrified
Anfal genocide, awaiting airlift out ofKur-
Western television viewers after the distan to a safe place. Other photos were,
allies proclaimed "victory" in the GulfWar like assassinated bodies, recovered from
and Saddam's "defeated" army took its burial places and, because still subversive,
revenge on panicked Kurds.
smuggled into this collection, a safe haven
City-dwelling Kurds found the mountains
of Kurdish history.
and Turkey unfriendly. Denied entry Heroism was required to take many of
by one of the allies, thousands died on shitstenched
the photographs, and obsession was needed
mudscapes while waiting for by Meiselas to gather, identify and publish
them, activities continuing onher interactive
Tom LeClair teaches at the University of Web site--akakurciistan.com~which offers
Cincinnati. His most recent book is Passing
a sampling of the book's distinctive
Off (Permanent Press), and he 'sjust finished features. Unfortunately,the heroic range,
a novel about refugees in the Middle East. . scale and quality of Kurdista~very page'
Like assassinated bodies, these Photos were
recovered from burial Places and smuggled
into a safe haven of Kurdish history.
is glossy, painstakingly designed, expensive
to produce--places this book beyond
the means ofmany people naturally interested
in its subject. Librarians could be the
Kurds' best friends. But before you razor
out this review and take it to your branch
or send it to your university bibliographer,
.consider, please, that Kurdistan may well
be worth a place on your coffee table.
This compendium is not just about a
place that impinges on Americans' gas
tanks. The Kurds are not just the Middle
East's Native Americans, a second chance
to expiate some national guilt. The oldest
and largest people--20-25 million-without
a homeland, Kurds represent issues of
ethnic and cultural survival everywhere.
Kurdistan fairly poses those issues, questions
the bases cf et!1!'jc and racial identity,
admits Kurds' struggles with each other,
recognizes the claims of national states.
And more: This massive album treats and
exemplifies how history is made, how technologies
of representation-such as photography
and print-affect both events and
their recall. And still more: Kurdistan asks
who took the photographs, who wrote the
documents, why and-finally, recursively-why
the materials of history are
arranged as they are.
In the introduction, Meiselas describes
her book as an archive for a people without
one and as a "mosaic." "Patchwork" might
be a more appropriate description of Kurdistan-and
of a culture pieced together
fromt:nany tribes and several dialects.
Switching back and forth among the four
countries where most Kurds iive, Meiselas
stitches a pattern of repression, rebellion,
repression. When the first photographersanthropologists,
missionaries, adventurers--':showed
up a century ago, Kurds had
an oral culture. The camera was a leap, a
different kind of remembering. In many of
the first shots Meiselas includes, Kurdish
leaders look like Native American chiefs,
proud and independent, but also posed and
welcoming an individual validation that
might be lost in oral history. "That's me,
show it to the great-grandchildren."
Early photography implied culture
was costume and custom. Though Meiselas
doesn't say so, !think photos initially
reinforced the feudal quality of Kurdish
life, discouraging the mass movements
needed for autonomy or independence.
In the early twentieth century (and
even now), genealogy-conscious Kurds
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