the past and the present of book publishing in kurdish language in ...

The Turkish state reacted more severely to Kurdish publications than toweapons. A Kurdish writer says:“The police found a photograph and a gun when they searched me. I hada photo taken in front of the Kurdish newspaper named “Roja Welat”. I wasnot accused of being in possession of a weapon but I was taken to courtbecause of the photo taken in front of a Kurdish newspaper’s poster ” (28).A young man who was a student at the time has told me the following:“In 1978 the police arrested me because they found Kurdish books at myhome. They tortured me. When they arrested me again in 1981, duringinterrogation a friend said that I knew Kurdish better and I was tortured againwhile loud music was playing.” (The police was playing loud music to silencethe screams of the people being tortured) (29)So, people were tortured not only because they wrote in Kurdish but alsowhen they read, distributed, kept Kurdish publications at home and evenwhen they “knew Kurdish better”. The results of the questionnaire withKurdish writers (30) and my conversations with authors, publishers andowners of publishing houses have made it clear that most of them, especiallyduring the period of the military junta, had to hide their books, for exampleby digging them underground, not to be found by the security services. Outof fear of being caught, the books were sometimes burned by the writersthemselves or their families when they (the writers) were away.Many of today’s writers who used to be teachers at the time of the militaryinterventions in 1971 and in 1980 got fired, were sent to exile or bannedfrom teaching in Kurdistan.These clarifications will help illustrate the difficulties writers faced in thepast.With the exception of a few people who studied in Stockholm and Paris,Kurdish writers from Northern Kurdistan did not study their mother tongueat school but learned it on their own. Their answers to the questions in thequestionnaire have made it clear that 20 out of 37 writers learned to write inKurdish after the age of 18 (31).Age when they learnt towrite in KurdishNumber8-10 411-18 1319-35 20Total 3711