Why I had to flee my country

Tuesday, September 26, 2006 2:22 PM

CHOMAN Hardi is no stranger to hardship. She was born in Iraqicontrolled Kurdistan in 1974 - the year negotiations broke down with the Baath government.
CHOMAN Hardi is no stranger to hardship. She was born in Iraqi-controlled Kurdistan in 1974 - the year negotiations broke down with the Baath government. The Kurds had long been fighting for independence, but when the revolution was crushed many people fled to neighbouring Iran. Among them was Choman's family, their baby just over one month old. They ended up in Kerej, a small town outside Tehran. I grew up in a refugee Kurdish neighbourhood filled with stories about homeland and the hopes of return, she recalls. This is where I spent my first five years. In 1979 the Iraqi government issued an official pardon and after much hesitation her father decided to return. Choman remembers crossing back to her homeland; the journey captured in her poem At the Border. I was five years old and expected the other place behind the border to be much more beautiful. This is what my family had assured me. I realised I had been deceived. That day I probably learnt the first important lesson in my life: that the stories immigrants tell about their homelands are myths and beautiful lies. Suleimanya was not better than Kerej and the landscape was not that different. A year later, war broke out between Iraq and Iran. My childhood, like many of my generation, is full of the sound of sirens and planes and guns. Our days were dominated by the Iraq-Iran war and our nights by Iraq's war against the Kurdish peshmarga (fighters for independence). In those years all of our textbooks started with glorious pictures of Saddam Hussein, grinning at us. A large portrait was also hung above our blackboard. Some days, after heavy breakouts of shooting the night before, we would go to school and there would be more triumphant posters of Saddam on the walls. My father told me that they were hiding the bullet holes. Nevertheless, Choman was a cheerful girl, if shy. She was furious when her parents outlawed music lessons, or any involvement in sports or art exhibitions. Years later she realised they'd had good reason. Any student who stood out in these fields was gradually sucked into the (Baath) party. I was once chosen as the model student and my father made me turn this prestigious position down. As a child I was angry with my father, refusing to believe that things were as bad as he made out. But soon life itself proved him right.

When I was nine years old my brother took part in the students' demonstrations and was arrested and tortured in 1983. He was only 17. In 1984 my other brother was arrested during a curfew because there was 'an anti-government slogan' on our wall. He was a university student at the time and had come home for the weekend. In 1986 both my brothers joined the Kurdish revolution despite my mother's cries and begging. In this way the same circle started again. Choman was 14 when the family ended up in Seqiz, a small Kurdish town known for its harsh winters. Under the Islamic republic we had to cover up and wear the hijab, and I had to re-learn Persian to continue my schooling. I had two classmates who were in the same position as me. In school, the girls were fascinated by us and wanted to find out what we were like. Some were curious to know what it felt like to have bare arms and legs on the street. The more religious ones even thought we were lucky that we had been saved from our previous sinful lives. Most of our teachers were very supportive but the history teacher refused to speak in Kurdish in the class, which meant that for a few months we were depressed throughout her lessons. I hated my life for about a year but then I discovered literature in Persian and everything started to look up again. Most of all I missed the relatively freer environment we enjoyed as girls. I had always looked forward to growing up and being a woman, wearing colourful dresses, make-up and bare-toe shoes. Living in Iran deprived me of all these things. I was turned into a black crow on the streets. She hopes her writings capture a time and a place which may otherwise remain in the dark; that they provide insight into another perspective - another realm of experience that may seem too distant and strange. I think the process of growing up involves becoming aware of our similarities and vulnerabilities. All the awful things we hear about and see could happen to any of us. This is why it is important to keep talking to each other, to keep working, and to build an understanding. I hope that my poetry is also in this spirit, opening the door to another world shaped by war and violence. The concept of home Group discussion 1. Choman Hardi has said that at the age of five, she learned the most important lesson in my life; that the stories immigrants tell about their homelands are myths and beautiful lies. Discuss this idea with the class: How many of your have moved home during their lifetime? If so, how do you view their old home? What does home mean to you is it where you come from or where you live now? Why do you think that immigrants cling to myths about their homelands?