The Hunt of Kurdish Legends

"If you are scared, you are going to die"

-Aza Nawzad Anwarbag Betwata 

" Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice"

At first, I did not quite understand what Mr. Smith meant. I thought it's just a picture with a text, until I met Aza Nawzad Anwarbag Betwata. It was just an ordinary day and I was scrolling down on facebook, when I saw his facebook profile. He had a picture of Peshmarga as his profile picture and at first I thought it's not his own picture. After having the priviledge to talk to him, I found out that he will be a Kurdish Legend.

While the whole world is still sleeping in their warm beds, our soldiers are wide awake. They get dressed and make sure they have the Kurdistan flag right next to their heart. It was 5.30am my time when Mr. Betwata was on a move. 

"I've slept enough and now it's time to go to the frontline" 

So the question is... Who is Aza Betwata? He is no different from you and I, he is the people's choice. He has been raised in the Netherlands but never forgotten his roots. In August 2014 Aza decided to join the Peshmarga Forces. He wanted to join the movement and fight for a Free Kurdistan!

 

Full Name: Aza Nawzad Anwarbag Betwata

Birthday: July 13, 1990 (24 Years old)

Nationality: Dutch

Origin: Xhosnaw, Kurdistan

We have seen and heard many young and brave Kurds from abroad coming back to Kurdistan and fight ISIS. But what makes him different from others? Nothing, but Mr Betwata is a best example of a young Kurd who believes in a better tomorrow. He is ready to put his own life at risk, he is ready to give up on everything only to ensure the safety of our people. 

True braveness at a peak. Our Peshmarga.

Here I am sitting in my neat office, enjoying the ray of the sun light and not worrying about a single thing. In contrast, Aza is in the middle of a battle field making sure none will trespass the border of Kurdistan. It's funny when you put your own life in contrast with someone else's life.  

Suddenly you are more grateful. 

The more I put my head into this topic, the more patriotic I become. I look at Aza and I look at my own life -and I can't even describe how meaningless my own daily routine becomes. My existence feels worthless. Even though I should not because we all are doing something, we are living for something. What makes us all different is that some of us are willing to go the extra mile. They are willing to do something that others are not. 

What happens after the war?

Even though Aza is living everyday as if it is his last, he still has future plans for tomorrow. He is not going back to the Netherlands but instead he will stay in Kurdistan and do his best to change Kurdistan into a save haven for all of us. 

The more I listen to Aza, the more I sense his excitement for a better tomorrow, the more I feel his pain, the more I realize he just might be the key for it all. 

For you that know him, knows he got big plans for Kurdistan and those that does not know him -remember his name. 

At first I saw Aza Betwata as a Kurdish Legend, but after getting to know him more I can tell you all that you are looking at a Future Leader right here.

 Want to follow Aza's life? Here are all the social platforms:

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Save the Golden Land of Kurdistan!

It’s 5.33 am and I wake up to Adhan, wake up call for the remembrance of God. I open my eyes and the next second -million thoughts go through my mind, but mostly the happiness that goes through my veins straight to my head and from there… a smile creeps into my face. I am smiling damn early in the morning. Why? Because it’s FRIDAY! What do we Kurds do on Fridays? Obviously we gather our stuff and we head to the mountains for a day with the nature.

I wake up my cousin and tell her “It’s time”, like we are going for a mission. Due to my super excitement I start packing, picking up all the things I will need. And no, I won’t forget the most important thing: Lipstick. The clock is ticking, my family is hassling and it feels like the whole house is on a move to somewhere. I go outside to our garden. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and listen to the birds singing. It’s March, the most beautiful month in Kurdistan because Newroz is getting near.

The sun is arising and illuminating our golden land meter by meter. The scene mesmerizes any human being, takes you to places you have never been and most importantly your feet are touching the most precious land in the whole wide world – Kurdistan. 

We are ready and we jump into the car heading to the mountains. The journey takes around 2-3 hours depending on how slow or fast we drive. I put on my headphones and listen to my favorite play list. While we drive through Kurdistan every scene on our way reminds me of our constant struggles. I guess one of the best things on our road trip was that almost in every corner one can catch the Kurdistan flag! Isn’t a beautiful sight?

I am sure many of you already know that beneath the colors of our flag lies an unforgettable story.

Red symbolizes the blood of all the Kurdish patriots

White symbolizes peace, equality and freedom we Kurds desire and have acquired over the years.

Yellow symbolizes the golden land, light and hope

Green symbolizes our gorgeous nature, life and vitality.

It’s not that only the flag is beautiful, but the whole story behind it makes any Kurd patriotic and defend their country no matter what. Hence, here I am. Defending my country.

We Kurds are known for our patriotism and that we never back down even in the face of death. We defend what is ours and we have done that over centuries. Over years we have built a country that cannot be compared to any in the whole Middle East! We have hospitals, universities, a booming economy with many foreigner investments, peace among any religion and ethnicity, equal rights for women –look at our parliament (The legal minimum quota of female is 30%)! The list goes on, but I do not want to focus on all of the aspects. I am here to discuss only one: our land.

May I ask how many of you have lost someone protecting our people and our land? How many of you would get up and fight against the enemy just to keep our land safe? How many of you would die protecting our golden land? How many of you are a proud Kurd and will die as a proud Kurd? If you raised your hand to all of the questions above then please keep reading.

Now can you explain, what do you see?

I see broken bottles on our golden land. I see trash covering our hopes and dreams. I see our struggle going down the toilet. I see no Kurdistan.

What wonders me the most is that we say we love our land, we say we will die for our land and yet we feel no shame throwing trash everywhere, we feel no regret leaving broken bottles behind. We say "no friends but the mountains" -yet we treat the mountains like garbage. Is this how we repay nature? By destroying the only beautiful thing we have. I feel devastated. 

Another point is that once I was driving around Hawler with my friends and asked them to stop the car. I got out of the car and threw some trash into the garbage. My friends were shocked! They were like you made us stop the car for that?! Now it was my turn to be shocked. I asked "You want me to throw the trash all around our land?" then they were like "yes, who cares?". Honestly I did not know what to say since they way I have been raised is to always throw any trash to the garbage and not on the ground.

One of the biggest problems we come across Kurdistan is waste management. It feels like there ain't any waste management but yet few times a week someone picks up our trash in front of our houses, offices, hotels and malls. So who are they? Well folks, they are the only people who actually are cleaning our town and land! The only people who the most important jobs concerning our future!

There is a solution for everything. 

Few months ago I had the pleasure of talking with Eric J. Bollard. Mr Bollard is one of the founders of Grand Array Company. What caught my attention to talk more deeply with him was that his company's core goal is "to be the biggest waste management company in Kurdistan encompassing waste collection, sorting, recycling, land-fill and waste to power generation."

Now you tell me, isn't Mr Bollard doing exactly what we Kurds should be doing every single day throughout our life?

I say yes! I say all of us need to keep our city and land clean, we need to take responsibility now in order to have a cleaner tomorrow!

If we do not care for our land, cherish it like a little baby, keep it clean while we can then why do even fight for our land, why do we let all those young men and women die in the battle if we cannot keep the same land they shed their blood clean. Just tell me why it's so hard to keep your own country clean? 

The pictures with the signature "Sarok F." are Sarok Jaff's property and are used with his permission.
For more information: Sarok Jaff.

Working Class Princess

Do you ever just sit down and think about life? I do that all the time. I try to find logical reasons for everything that happens within me, around me and all around the world. It's already scary enough to think about everything that is happening in the world, that we constantly try to minimize our thinking into smaller pieces. Like for example "Me, me, & me" -thinking.

The fact is that we all are selfish, either we like it or not. We all have our own problems and we put all of our energy into us -don't even mention other people's problems.



But.. then again the case is not always this. Sometimes, just sometimes we happen to meet someone who makes us feel ashamed for being able not to be just like them. We wish to be like them because they amaze us by just being who they are. So.. who are they? More precisely said who is the "Working Class Princess"?

Is she someone like her?

Or perhaps someone more closer to reality?



Or maybe... Young and Successful?





Noup. She is none of these lovely ladies. She is one of us. She is the type of a princess we call our best friend. She is the first person we call for awesome news, for not so awesome news and for really bad news. She is the girl who does not judge because she knows better. She knows how rough life can be and all we need is someone to tell us "You know that you are really strong"? and hugs us tight.




The best of all. She has been through more than anyone else I know, yet she is always there for you. Even if you are a stranger, she will care for you if you need her. You can always count on her because you know she will ALWAYS be there for you. This is rare.

She is selfless, she loves you with all of her heart and no matter what the world has done to her she never ever lost hope and never will. You know why? Because god blessed her with a heart no one else has. Because god blessed her with a soul you cannot find. Because god blessed her with a smile on her face even when tears are falling down. She is beautiful in and outside. 

She is:



The only person who understands me completely. 






Yet.. we find peace in them, in people like her because what would the world be without people like her? Just nothing.

I love her with every beat of my heart. 

It's All so Black in White

It's Sunday morning and I wake up to the sound of rain drops. The weather seems so cold and laying on my warm bed felt the best thing in the world. I look at the time and it's 10 AM. Still too early to wake up but I still get up.

I open the window blind and I see a foggy world. The moment felt different because for once I didn't feel like the world needed to make any sense. The world didn't make any sense.

No matter the weather, I still decided to go for a jog. As I run under the rain, the cold wind hits my face, the rain drops on my head and nose -a small memory hits me like a flash back.

I suddenly see myself on a summer afternoon back in the 90's, when I am 6 years old. I am at the playground and building a sand castle, but I am alone. All the other kids are running around, screaming and laughing. Seeing myself playing all by myself I remember something. I remember that I did not know anything about the world I know today. I did not know anything about the world I am originally from. I did not know anything about the world we live in. I did not know what it meant to worry or suffer. I knew one thing, and it was that I was free to do whatever I wanted.
I was only a child and that meant that the world needed to love me and care for me as much as I needed.

But this is not for every child. 

We are living in the 21st century and yet we see suffering children every single day. The worst part is not that they are living in bad conditions, the worst part is that we see them walking on their bare feet without a shelter and we are not doing anything about it. Innocent children are in the battlefield as our shields.

"Kurdish children don't know how to be children, they act as if they know everything. They skip the age of knowing what being little is. They act like they are the protectors. And they are willing and always will look on the bright side."

-Ashna A. Wasman

What does it mean to be a child? Humanium -Help the Children defines a child as the following: "Etymologically, the term “child” comes from the Latin infans, which means ” the one who does not speak “. For the Roman, this term designates the child from its birth, up to the age of 7 years." If the definition of a child is one that does not speak, then how can they tell us they are suffering? They can't. It is our responsibility, the worlds responsibility to nourish a child in a  way that promises them a brighter day and a brighter future. 

What happens when we don't guarantee them a safe life?

"Kurdish children are not suffering from a natural disaster, being abandoned or for being homeless. Their role is to survive a war. A war, which has been going on forever and protect their fellow siblings through it. Even the ones living outside of Kurdistan, who have escaped war and have managed to be taken in by other countries, they struggle too. They struggle to explain to their friends what and where Kurdistan is and where they originate and why they had to leave. Kurdish children are the strongest ones and Kurds have it in their blood to keep fighting for their nation and it runs through each and every generation. It's amazing that Kurdistan is not officially on a map and all the Kurds are separated and scattered around the world, they are all united as one spirit. All our thoughts are with these babies, our babies. I pray for them all the time. They didn't do anything to deserve what they are going through, but they will fight against it and keep the Kurdish faith running through their veins for the Future Kurdish Generation."

-Joanne Abbassi-Nejad

As Miss Joanne put it, the role of the Kurdish Children is to survive a war -an ongoing war. What makes me wonder is that since when being innocent is for the privileged ones? Since when a child has to live inside the European union or the states to be cared for, to be protected, to have the right to breath and live in peace? We feel sorry for them but we refuse to help, we refuse to plan a better future if it does not directly concern us. 

The future doesn't lie in the hands of a 6 years old child who has an iPad to play with, a warm bed to sleep in, a healthy breakfast he gets or a school he attends. The future lies in the hands of a child that has nothing but still survives the war, sleeps during the cold dark night, barely eats. That is where our future is and will be.

I don't know for how long the West will close their eyes for the injustice that is happening in the same world, not in light-years away. Our children are scared to live every single moment of their life.

Imagine if your own child didn't have their safe haven, their own safe surrounding where they can play with their dolls, laugh and run as much as they want. What if your child's future was All so Black in White? I can bet, that is the moment when you open your eyes and do your best to guarantee them a brighter future. What kind of a parent you would, if you did not do that?

Well imagine these are your kids.

Imagine that these two little children are in the middle of a war, and their only playground is the battlefield and each second could be their last. 

Forget the iPads, the dolls and even shoes, but focus on their face expressions. These two little angels don't even realize what is happening, because they don't know any better. All they know is today. 

What if we can give them also tomorrow? We can. Every passing day we have the possibility to change their life, and their future. We can give them shelter and not just in our hearts, we can give them a smile that lasts longer than a minute - a life time, and mostly we can give them a real life. A life every child in the world deserves.

The Children of Kurdistan deserves a colorful life just as our flag.





Long live #Kurdistan !



The pictures with name of Rekar Hiwa are his property and they are used with his permission. For more information: Rekar Hiwa.