IF YOU TAKE A PLANE from Istanbul and fly southeastward to Diyarbakir, you stay in the same country. But you leave Europe for the Middle East. And you enter the world of the Kurds. In Diyarbakir. A boiling, teeming city enclosed within ancient walls made of forbidding black basalt, the Kurdish flag is prohibited and use of the Kurdish language restricted. So elevator boys and waiters ware begin careful when whispering to Westerners like myself:" This is no Turkey… this is Kurdistan. Diyabakir-capital of Kurdistan… We are not Turks… we are Kurds."
I visited a coffee shop with my new friend Hasan, a young Kurd who had agreed to around in disgust through the plumes of tobacco haze and took the proprietor to one side. Within seconds the loud cassette music had been replaced by another tape, more wild and mournful sounding- but not until the boss had cast a swift glance down the street. Taking the best table, Hasan-a man of relatively few words-explained: "Stupid Turkish music. I told him play some good Kurdish tunes." full text
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I visited a coffee shop with my new friend Hasan, a young Kurd who had agreed to around in disgust through the plumes of tobacco haze and took the proprietor to one side. Within seconds the loud cassette music had been replaced by another tape, more wild and mournful sounding- but not until the boss had cast a swift glance down the street. Taking the best table, Hasan-a man of relatively few words-explained: "Stupid Turkish music. I told him play some good Kurdish tunes." full text
to read part 2 click here
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