Jag upplåter i dag min blogg till Sabahat Karaduman och Mustafa Özçelik
vars budskap får stå för dem. I en konfliktfylld del av världen med komplicerade allianser och en historik som inte många i Sverige har kunnat följa är ett ställningstagande på sådana grunder inte vad jag gör. Men ett dödat barns röst måste ges plats … /Helena Sigander
Alan och Cemile 

FOREWORD FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA av Sabahat Karaduman

Musata Özçelik is the leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (Partîya Azadîya Kurdistanê – PAK) which was founded at the end of the 2014.
The main ideology of the party is a free Kurdistan, and it is on this ideology that the party always calls for unity within the Kurds. The party manifesto focuses on the Northern Kurdistan region.
Since the foundation of PAK until now, it has made visible and noticable progress and it has made a secure place in the fight for a free Kurdistan.
The party is calling on unity within Kurds at every opportunity. It says: “Those who can unite should unite. If they can’t unite, they need to build an alliance. If they can’t build an alliance they should try to establish and build a dialogue. If they can’t do any of the above they should not oppose one another in a hateful manner.
When Alan’s body was found on the shore and the pictures of his lifeless body arose in the media all over the world, the leader of PAK Mustafa Özçelik had written about Alan with tears running down his cheeks. Alan was only three years old.
A few days later it was Cemile from Cizîra Botan this time that was killed and her body had to be kept in a freezer for days as the Turkish authorities wouldn’t let people bury their dead in the Northern Kurdistan.
And Alan had returned; this time as Cemile. Mustafa Özçelik has written this time about Cemile but in Alan’s words. These words come from the pain in his heart with his tears dripping down on the keyboard, as he once told me. The first one is called “My name is Alan” and the second one is called “ I was Alan but now I am Cemile from Cizîra Botan.”

I have translated both of his writings because I believe that both articles effectively describe the situation of the Kurds in a very clear and emotionally powerful way. They describe the pain and atrocity that the Kurds are faced with due to being stateless. Within the articles there is a cry for unity within the Kurdish community and a plea for support from the world. I wanted that the whole world to also get the opportunity to read and engage with them, so that we are one step closer to there being no more Alans and no more Cemiles. (S K)

My name is Alan by Mustafa Özçelik

I am asleep on the shore with waves of silence crashing down on me, the silence of the humanity. I can neither hear, nor feel the lapping waves or the sea breeze. I can’t hear the sound of the seagulls; nor can I feel the rays of the sun. I can’t hear anything. I can’t feel anything.
I am a child, 3 years old. They named me Alan. I am lost in the sea’s shameful foam. This time it is the shame of the humanity that has produced the foam in the sea and not the waves.
I know that you are writing poems for me, you are drawing pictures of me. You are talking about human rights… You are talking about my Kurdish ethnicity; the misfortune and ill fortune of my people – Kurds. You are mourning for me and for us.
And my mother; Oh! Dear Mother! I know that she was dead before me. How do I know? Well I know … I can feel it as I know her so well; from the time she embraced me and started to breast feed me. I know that she is alive but dead at the same time. I know that you talk about her; you say how unfortunate, how wretched she must be. You continue with that. What you can’t see is that it is you all who actually are the miserable ones.
I can’t hear those embellished words or those worn-out sayings anymore. I won’t be able to watch your play anymore. But for once, just for once put your sons or daughters in my place and then watch it yourselves! Look at your lifeless child! But I suspect there is no humanity left, as I am but one act in this farce of a play.
That is enough! I am calling the Kurdish leaders and wise men; you haven’t built a country for me and other children like me. Try at least to build a country for those who are alive. It is time to stop being petty and being selfish. Become united. Do not lose the chance of creating your own country, the chance that is waiting on your door step.
My name is Alan… I am a three year old child. I am from Kobani, from Mahabad … I am from Sengal, from Halabja, from Amed… I am from Kurdistan.
Don’t let any more Alans become a victim on the shores of statelessness or a victim of mankind’s cold-bloodedness. All I want from you is a country.
03/09/15

I was “Alan” but now I am “Cemile” in Cizira Botan by Mustafa Özçelik

I was “Alan” but now I am “Cemile” in Cizira Botan. My corpse, wrapped in icicles, hurts my mother’s heart.
My heart is frozen. Whatever humanity that still remains has become numb… I was Alan but I am no longer stranded on a beach. I am now lying in a box, embraced by a blanked of frost. I have changed my name, now I am Cemile…
They have become the angels of our death and for this I do not want to entrust my heart to a land that takes so many of our hearts.
I came back but you weren’t aware of me. You didn’t see me.
Yes, I am Alan…
I got to know many people like myself here. I didn’t know who they were and where they were from. I don’t even know where it is that I have come to but it is a very beautiful place.
I don’t speak the same language as some of them but the funny thing is that I understand everything they say and do.
Then I got to know that one is from Hiroshima, one is from Vietnam, one is from Halabja and one is from Dersim. There are children like me from all over the world. They described their own countries and cities. They said:
“Here, you stay the same as you are now. Here, you don’t grow up.” How nice. You don’t grow up and you don’t become dirty and nasty.
Like always, my mum didn’t leave me on my own. I knew that she would come here before me… See, there is her bosom rubbing gently and warming my face again.
Where are you? Where are those who were drawing my pictures in order to do my sculpture? Those people whose tears were mixing up and foaming together with the waves, where are you all?
I was ashamed when I saw that you weren’t the same this time. I then realised that all that crying, all that mourning and sadness was just for show. It was a role for a play.
But again where are those true-hearted and devoted people who were watering my grave with their tears… I am here … but this time embraced by a blanked of frost. I can’t hear you; nor can I feel my mother’s tears on my cold body.
Where are you all?
Are you blind? Is there no sympathy left in your frozen hearts? Can’t you speak? Why don’t you say `my sweetheart` like my mother used to say.
Here, where I have reached, my friends welcomed me and greeted me. They turned their hearts into an agal and put it on my head. The child from Halabja said: “You know that mankind was made from the earth. Clean and pure, mankind opened its eyes. But in the dirtied hands of unclean minds, mankind drowned and suffocated.
I had thought that our soiled species with its own disgrace had drowned with me in the sea. And so my soul felt lighter. But the angel of death had once again woken up; this time returning to Cizira Botan.
I was Alan, but now I am Cemile in Cizira Botan. With my cold body wrapped in icicles in a box I am hurting my mother`s heart again.
08.09.2015