BROKEN DREAMS: FAMILY FLEES WAR IN IRAQ KURDISTAN FOR THE DIASPORA, NOT ARMENIA
Anna Muradyan
12:58, February 10, 2015
“When it was snowing, my son went out to play. But it was cold and
I’m called him to come home. Armenia is our father. So why doesn’t
he call us inside?”
The above rhetorical question is posed by Movses Sarkisian, who left
Iraqi Kurdistan for Istanbul.
Movses says that his cousin returned to Erbil after staying in
Armenia for four years. He told Movses that in Armenia they called
him a foreigner and a gharib (stranger) who had grown up among Turks.
People in Armenia are tired. Young people are looking for work in
Europe. Everyone is leaving Armenia. Only the women and girls are
left,” Movses says with a sigh. “We also felt like outsiders in Iraq.
I am angry at Armenia. Why didn’t they take us in? Why didn’t they
leave us outside for so long?”
Movses, his wife and three children left the Dohuk region some six
months ago. It’s been the fourth time. His family history starts in the
village of Arou in the Shirnag (Å~^ırnak) province in south eastern
Turkey near the Iraqi border. Movses says that the entire population
is Kurdish speaking and that Armenians from Arou speak Kurdish as well,
regardless of whether they now live in Australia or Canada.
The Sarkisian family speaks Kurdish at home. None know Armenian except
for a few words here and there.
During the 1915 Genocide, Movses’ ten year-old grandfather
miraculously survived and fled towards the town of Zakho near the
Iraqi border. There, he met his future wife, a member of the native
Armenian community. The couple then moved to Dohuk, some 30 kilometers
away. Movses’ wife is also an Iraqi-Armenian from Zakho.
In Istanbul, Movses has rented an apartment in a building in
the neighborhood of Samatya, where there are many Armenians. The
screeches of his three kids – Yerjan, Tania and Hovig – emanate from
the corners of the dark uninviting rooms. They now attend class at
a local Armenian school.
His wife, Seta Nersisian, smiles and tells a neighbor that they have
a guest from Armenia. The only words she can say in Armenian are,
“I am Armenian. My family is Armenian.”
The family says they chose Istanbul because it is a cosmopolitan
city with many Armenians living there. In addition, Movses says that
the people are kind, and that they all help him out – whether Turks,
Armenians, or Kurds – and that they are even more helpful when they
hear he escaped the war.
Movses is a sculptor who works with wood and stone. He boasts that,
just like Leonardo da Vinci, he comes up with his own designs and
mentions a unique water tank he made that was displayed in Paris. He
also writes poems and songs; mostly in Arabic and occasionally in
Kurdish. His wife used to teach Kurdish at school.
The first time Movses left home was at the age of nine in 1973 during
the Kurdish uprising in Iraq. Holding back tears, Moves, now past
fifty, recounts how he was left on the side of the road because there
wasn’t enough room I the car. “There were 7-8 people in the vehicle
and the driver said there wasn’t any room.”
Movses’ father, who passed away twenty-five years ago, had five sons.
Movses never raised the issue of being abandoned with his parents. He
figures that his father took the decision to abandon one of the sons
so that the other four could live.
Movses’ mother, Elvin Kiroian, suffered a broken hip back in 1990
when U.S. planes were bombing northern Iraq. She flew while running
down the stairs to an underground shelter.
It was difficult moving his mother because they didn’t have a
wheelchair. After relocating, however, the woman is receiving free
medical care at the Sourp Prgitch Armenian Hospital in Istanbul.
I visited Elvin Kiroian, who was born in Zakho and learnt Armenian
at the local school (there’s also an Armenian church there).
“My mother and father dreamt of one day going to Armenia. They regarded
Armenia as the Jews look towards Israel,” says Movses. “They thought
that perhaps our children, if not us, would go to Armenia to live. But
all that is water under the bridge.”
“If Armenia had empty space, many people would come from Iraq, Syria
and other places. Ten years from now, Armenia would be a different
country,” says a teary-eyed Movses. “But all that’s gone with the
wind.”
Movses’ brother Mardiros, who has come to Istanbul to help, remembers
the story his father told him about the officials who came to Iraq
in 1946 inquiring about how many Armenians lived in the north of the
country. (Reference is to the repatriation of Armenians to Soviet
Armenia).
“But they left and never returned because Iraqi officials didn’t
let Armenians leave. But the Jews did,” says Mardiros. “My mother
always remembers the Jewish adage that they constantly said – that
they would go to Israel but that we would not go to our Armenia.”
Mrs. Kiroian says that the Jews sold everything possible and left for
Israel; their promised land. “But we couldn’t. Do you know Kurdish?”
she asks me. Hearing that I do not, she goes on, “Better still.
Yerevan is our place, the place for Armenians. The Kurds shouldn’t
know.”
Speaking of his decision to leave Iraq several months ago, Movses
says he got passports with Turkish entry visas and fled within an hour.
“We couldn’t take much of anything, not even the little cash we had
saved. I left it with relatives.”
Movses says there are forty Armenian families in Dohuk and around
the same in Zakho.
“This time, we were the only ones to flee. Most of the others have no
passports. Others are so rich that they can’t leave their possessions
behind.”
The family still doesn’t know where they will end up. But Armenia
isn’t an option. Their dream about Armenia has gone up in smoke.
“Do you know what it is like to have a dream that is broken?” asks
Movses. “It’s a heavy emotion, very heavy. Because you know there is
no hope afterwards.”
http://hetq.am/eng/news/58472/broken-dreams-family-flees-war-in-iraq-kurdistan-for-the-diaspora-not-armenia.html