Homeland

The book contains 111 poems written by 45 poets from 27 countries and published in London, England, in 2014. I was happy to find the poem of Toeti Heraty, the only Indonesian poet in the anthology.

Kompas

A woman wears a laurel of olive branches on her head as she marches with a flag bearing the portrait of Kurdistan Worker\'s Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, ahead of a procession of Syrian Kurds, Arabs, and Syriacs bussed in from across northern Syria, in the Kurdish town of Jandairis near the Syrian-Turkish border, and 18 kilometres southwest of Afrin, on February 6, 2018.Demonstrators marched to the sound of traditional music, holding olive branches and portraits of Kurdish fighters killed since the start of Turkey\'s "Olive Branch" military operation, launched on January 20 against the Kurdish People\'s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey has blacklisted as "terrorists".

The Kurds have become a species of bird. They traverse the tearing of the yellowing pages of history, wandering about. Kajal Ahmad, the Kurdish woman poet, presupposes this in her poem, Birds. She emphasizes in another stanza: Ya, orang Kurdi adalah burung!/dan bahkan ketika/tiada tempat tersisa/tiada perlindungan bagi rasa sakitnya/mereka berpaling kepada ilusi bepergian/antara iklim hangat dan dingin Tanah Air (Yes, Kurds are birds! / and even when / there’s nowhere left / no refuge for their pain / they turn to the illusion of travelling / between the warm and the cold climes of their homeland).

Kajal was born in Kirkuk, a city in Kurdistan, a country of her dreams, which is still in dispute with Iraq. Now she lives in Jordan, a foreign land.

Also read: A Strong Woman’s Guts

Like Kajal, it is estimated that millions of Kurds are part of the diaspora in a number of Middle Eastern and Western European countries. The exact number is not known because they often shut themselves off. Identity is a red flag.

A number of poems were written by poets who have experienced imprisonment or who have been alienated from their countries.

I first found Kajal\'s poetry in My Voice: A Decade of Poems from the Poetry Translation Center, a bilingual anthology of poetry edited by Sarah Maguire. The book contains 111 poems written by 45 poets from 27 countries and published in London, England, in 2014. A number of poems were written by poets who have experienced imprisonment or who have been alienated from their countries.

KOMPAS/AMANDA PUTRI NUGRAHANTI

Toeti Heraty.

I was happy to find the poem of Toeti Heraty, the only Indonesian poet in the anthology. She voiced women\'s independence over the body and rejected the obstructing metaphors through Post Scriptum: Ingin aku tulis/sajak porno sehingga/kata mentah tidak diubah/jadi indah, pokoknya/tidak perlu kiasan lagi (I want to write / an erotic poem in which / raw words are not changed / become beautiful, in essence / where metaphors are unnecessary).

Leaving the homeland, out of threat, is not a pleasant journey. The year My Voice was published, I went to The Hague to attend a literary event organized by the Winternachten Festival. The story of the poet Rodaan Al Galidi made me pensive. He fled Iraq in 1998. He tricked immigration officers with a fake passport into becoming an illegal resident in the Netherlands. His application for asylum was granted nine years later.

I tried to trace Rodaan\'s family name, Al Galidi. There was no other Al Galidi, except Rodaan. There was no Rodaan, except for his name.

Also read: Building Political Civility

Latif Tas, a researcher from SOAS University of London, wrote the book Legal Pluralism in Action: Dispute Resolution and the Kurdish Peace Committee, which was also published in 2014 and reveals why Kurds run away from Turkey to Britain. Not only the physical threats they experience, but also the cultural ones. Color also determines fate. "Currently Kurds in Turkey cannot wear their traditional colors (yellow, red and green) in public: doing so could lead to imprisonment or even endanger their lives," he wrote.

Safety was not guaranteed in other countries. On Jan. 9, 2013, a few weeks after Tas interviewed Sakine Canziz, this Kurdish woman activist was murdered in Paris along with two other female activists, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Söylemez.

In his book, Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan, Martin van Bruinessen, an anthropologist and professor emeritus of Utrecht University, said that the confiscation of Kurdish lands was massive. The lands of aga (traditional leaders) and sheikhs (religious leaders) were forcibly taken by the Turkish government with a mask against feudalism, then handed over to the Turks. Bruinessen\'s research took place in the Kurdish regions in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran between 1974 and 1976.

The Sevres Agreement, which was signed after World War I, supports the establishment of the Armenian state and the Kurdistan state.

An independent Kurdish state was first initiated in the modern sense after the Turkish Empire lost the war to the Allies. The Sevres Agreement, which was signed after World War I, supports the establishment of the Armenian state and the Kurdistan state. The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1924, but Kurdistan did not form a state.

Abdullah Öcalan, one of the most important Kurdish political leaders, continued the aspiration of fighting for a Kurdistan state, which covers the territory in four countries (Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey) under the Sevres Agreement. The Kurdistan that he dreams of is inhabited by various ethnicities and followers of religions, respecting women\'s rights, and protecting the ecosystem.

In solidarity with the Kurds, Nelson Mandela refused the Atatürk Prize the Turkish Government gave him in 1992.

(AP PHOTO/THEMBA HADEBE)

Graca Machel, left, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, background, delivers a speech at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at the 16th Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture by US President Barack Obama. Obama urged Africans and people around the world to respect human rights and equal opportunity in his speech to mark the late Nelson Mandela\'s 100th birthday.

Öcalan was arrested in 1999 and imprisoned on the Turkish island of Imrali. Recently Öcalan lawyers urged the Turkish Government to end the ban on visiting Imrali, especially when news of his death broke on March 14, 2021. The last time he was allowed to be visited was in August 2019.

Also read: Unequal

Ironically, the homeland for political prisoners such as the poet Hersri Setiawan is Buru Island. For nine years he was detained, tortured both physically and spiritually. He immortalized Sanleko Beach in a poem: “getaran sepi/melimbur datang/bersama gelombang bergulung/- bayangan seragam loreng mata tentara dendam kesumat - bayangan gagang karaben bersambaran di atas kepala oleh rasa sendiri/basah/tampuk mataku” (a lonely vibe/overflowing comes / with the rolling waves / - the image of striped uniform of the soldiers\' smeared vengeful eyes - the shadow of a fire rifle handle spreading over the head by his own feeling / wet / my eyelids").

Also read: A Friend to Problematic’ Students

One of the most revered poems of Indonesia\'s foremost poet, Sapardi Djoko Damono, makes us contemplate the meaning of love for our homeland, this poem is titled Selamat Pagi Indonesia (Good Morning Indonesia):

”selamat pagi, Indonesia, seekor burung mungil mengangguk/dan menyanyi kecil buatmu/aku pun sudah selesai, tinggal mengenakan sepatu/dan kemudian pergi untuk mewujudkan setiaku padamu dalam/kerja yang sederhana;/bibirku tak biasa mengucapkan kata-kata yang sukar dan/tanganku terlalu kurus untuk mengacu terkepal/selalu kujumpai kau di wajah anak-anak sekolah/di mata perempuan yang sabar/di telapak tangan yang membatu para pekerja jalanan;/kami telah bersahabat dengan kenyataan untuk diam-diam mencintaimu”. (Good morning, Indonesia, a little bird nods / and sings a little for you / I have finished, just put on my shoes / and then go to manifest my allegiance to you in / simple work; / my lips are not used to saying difficult words and / my hands are too thin to refer to clenched fists / I always find you in the faces of school children / in the eyes of patient women / in the petrified palms of the street workers; / we have made friends with reality to secretly love you).

Today Sapardi has his 81st birthday and he passed away last year.

However, Kajal\'s poetry still haunts us with the reality faced by those who are forced to leave: mengelana dari satu negeri ke negeri lain/dan tiada pernah mewujudkan impian untuk menetap (wandering from one country to another / and never realizing their dream of settling down).

Isn\'t poetry the Motherland for the poets?

Kompas

Linda ChristantyLINDA CHRISTANTY, Writer and Cultural Activist

(This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo)