Feyli Kurds: A “blood-stained” wound still awaiting justice after 46 years

Shafaq News

By Ali Hussein Feyli

As we look through the window of the forty-sixth anniversary of the great tragedy that struck the Feyli Kurds, we find ourselves facing a moral, national, and political obligation that goes beyond merely commemorating the victims, for this anniversary must not be allowed to become a cold date on the calendar of annual observances.

The history of the Feylis is not merely a tragic narrative written between the claws of forced displacement and the nooses of execution. It is a living document of struggle, a page “stained with blood” in an existential conflict that has yet to end. Today, that struggle centers on the essence of “identity” and the restoration of “full citizenship.”

Over the past decades, the Feyli Kurdish cause has been confined to the framework of “mourning gatherings” and emotional rhetoric. They have been treated as a group historically crushed between the hammer of nationalism and the anvil of sectarianism. Yet the bitter truth is that “silence” has been the real killer of this cause, transforming a complex issue of human rights and national existence into a mere administrative file gathering dust in the corridors of government bureaucracy.

Today, the message addressed to the national conscience must be decisive: it is no longer acceptable for the Feylis to remain on the “margins as victims,” nor to be viewed as a lingering crisis awaiting patchwork solutions, but rather to be recognized as genuine partners in shaping the country’s future and in decision-making centers. The time has come to liberate laws from the constraints of “inactive texts” and turn them into tangible realities, as in political practice rights are not granted through pleading but secured through effective pressure and the assertion of presence.

The major turning point lies in the rise of the third and fourth generations of Feyli Kurdish youth, equipped with the tools of the modern age, including living languages and digital technologies, and best positioned to break the walls of silence. These generations hold a historic opportunity to internationalize the file of “genocide” in human rights forums, moving it from the realm of deferred political promises into binding legal cases.

Silence at this moment is not an option; it is political suicide. History does not favor those who remain mere spectators to their own suffering. This anniversary is an opportunity to confront the legislative and executive authorities with clear, documented language, compelling them to acknowledge that what occurred was a systematic attempt to uproot an authentic community from its historical homeland.

A nation that does not give due respect to the bloody history of its components will never taste stability. When national discourse remains silent about the suffering in Badra, Gassan, Kut, Mandali, Khanaqin, Zurbatiyah, Baghdad, and beyond, it effectively grants a green light for the obstruction of justice and the erasure of collective memory.

In conclusion, we do not consider this anniversary an occasion for mourning, but the inauguration of a new phase of legal struggle to affirm identity. The Feyli Kurds are not merely a part of this homeland; they are a “beacon of resilience” and living witnesses to the vitality of the Kurdish nation and the Iraqi people. We are here because our roots run deep in this land, and we will not allow silence to diminish our national dignity.

This article was originally written in Arabic.