activists – Yashar Star Ahmad
Bravo! What an extraordinary innovation! The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) have mastered a groundbreaking political art since 1992: sharing power between themselves while sanctioning the murder of innocent civilians—then legitimizing it as a “party right.” Truly, a remarkable contribution to the annals of modern governance! While the Barzani and Talabani dynasties have ruled for decades, the people of Kurdistan live in poverty and displacement. Oil revenues and regional economic deals vanish into the pockets of a privileged few, while civil servants go months without pay. Is this not the pinnacle of democratic advancement in southern Kurdistan? In most advanced societies, governments exist to serve the people. But in the Kurdistan Region, we’ve invented a new model—where protests in 2011 and 2020 were crushed with impunity and violence against peaceful demonstrators became the trendiest policy of the era. The extravagant palaces of the ruling families in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah stand tall atop the crushed hopes and stolen futures of Kurdish youth. Even the blood spilled in the pursuit of freedom has been neatly repackaged into the crowns of hereditary rulers. Welcome to a land divided into the “Yellow Zone” and the “Green Zone,” where each party maintains its own security forces and no one truly belongs to a united homeland. You have perfected the art of eliminating the future by targeting the youth, imprisoning dissenters, and arresting journalists and activists, all while hollow party loyalists cheer you on. Your party-run indoctrination machines have been wildly “successful”—producing nothing but empty slogans and obedient servants. And let us not forget the official manipulation of laws to extend presidential terms or keep the prime minister in power indefinitely. At what point did we become numb to these authoritarian tactics disguised in democratic rhetoric? History is filled with fallen tyrants who believed they were untouchable—until the people proved otherwise. One day, we too will exhale deeply and rebuild from the wreckage they’ve left behind. For now, we remain witnesses to the consequences of 30 years of corrupt rule: a looted homeland, a silenced people, and two political factions who have turned the dream of autonomy into a slow-motion nightmare.
