The Kurds and the Hmong and a trip to Kurdistan
As of this morning June 28, 2006 I have made arrangements to visit Eastern Turkey via Ankara and then Diyarbakir. Eastern Turkey is said to be primarily Kurdish. It is then my intention to explore the possibility of visiting Northern Iraq and its Kurdish area.
The plan is to go this fall 2006. The trip is predicated of course on money, health, and job offers among other things (common sense). If someone offers me a nice job I can't refuse between now and then of course I will scuttle the trip.
This is a people project. As with my Vietnam research, one of my main objectives is to meet the people. So often visitors to a remote areas get caught up in sites as opposed to people. My academic, military experience, and my nature in general favors the meeting of people rather than site destinations. Yes, it is important to know a place's history, but I feel the current people of a place are often overlooked as if they were peripheral furniture or at best janitors in a museum.
I chose Vietnam and Kurdistan because I also have an interest in places we have recently fought wars in. Granted, as opposed to the Vietnam War, the War in Iraq is still going on. I am after all a blue-collar guy and I have to choose my focus on this kind of work carefully. I have learned a guy in my position can not explorer the whole world to pontificate on all the millions of issues. That is why I focus on specific people, areas, and issues such as can be found in places where we have had recent wars.
Americans seem to treat former war areas they have fought in since the Korean War as if they are random sex partners they no longer wish to associate with the next day. I find the story of the H'mong peoples that come form Laos, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian areas, and the Kurdish peoples that come from Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, and Western Iran to be most interesting. Both groups have leaned toward the United States while we fought wars in those respective areas. Both groups have paid dearly for that choice. The H'mong and the Kurds have dispersed to the U.S. and other places in the world because of persecution from the reigning governments over their areas and also for having favored the United States in conflict. Both groups are said to be fiercely independent minded. This is no-doubt an inadequate explanation of my reasons to study both these peoples and regions. But there is after all I feel, a bit of a theme to my journeys.
The plan is to go this fall 2006. The trip is predicated of course on money, health, and job offers among other things (common sense). If someone offers me a nice job I can't refuse between now and then of course I will scuttle the trip.
This is a people project. As with my Vietnam research, one of my main objectives is to meet the people. So often visitors to a remote areas get caught up in sites as opposed to people. My academic, military experience, and my nature in general favors the meeting of people rather than site destinations. Yes, it is important to know a place's history, but I feel the current people of a place are often overlooked as if they were peripheral furniture or at best janitors in a museum.
I chose Vietnam and Kurdistan because I also have an interest in places we have recently fought wars in. Granted, as opposed to the Vietnam War, the War in Iraq is still going on. I am after all a blue-collar guy and I have to choose my focus on this kind of work carefully. I have learned a guy in my position can not explorer the whole world to pontificate on all the millions of issues. That is why I focus on specific people, areas, and issues such as can be found in places where we have had recent wars.
Americans seem to treat former war areas they have fought in since the Korean War as if they are random sex partners they no longer wish to associate with the next day. I find the story of the H'mong peoples that come form Laos, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian areas, and the Kurdish peoples that come from Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, and Western Iran to be most interesting. Both groups have leaned toward the United States while we fought wars in those respective areas. Both groups have paid dearly for that choice. The H'mong and the Kurds have dispersed to the U.S. and other places in the world because of persecution from the reigning governments over their areas and also for having favored the United States in conflict. Both groups are said to be fiercely independent minded. This is no-doubt an inadequate explanation of my reasons to study both these peoples and regions. But there is after all I feel, a bit of a theme to my journeys.
Comments