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FILM "YOL": A MONUMENT TO HUMAN ENDURANCE
By Jalal Jonroy
KurdishMedia, UK
Sept 9 2006
Yilmaz Guney (1 April 1937 - 9 September 1984)
When shown at the Cannes Film Festival '82, YOL received a standing
ovation and won the coveted first prize. YOL is a Kurdish drama made
by Yilmaz Guney -a Kurd- while serving 19 year prison sentence in
Turkey. Y. Guney escaped prison and now lives in Paris where he and
other Kurdish artists in exile have formed (The Kurdish Institute)
to help save the Kurdish culture - a much neglected and maligned
treasure of mankind's cultural heritage.
On the surface, YOL relates the sufferings, the loves, and the hope
of five Kurdish prisoners while on temporary leave. On the way -YOL-
to their homeland Kurdistan, occupied by fascist military Turkey,
the film slowly and sensitively reveals the terrible operation
and hardships of the Kurdish nation. YOL is a long harsh road into
Kurdistan -deliberately kept backward socially and economically, by
successive Turkish governments. Poverty, bad transportation, luck
of schools and hospitals (witness the dentist's scene), deprived
children smoking cigarettes, villagers crammed in tiny mud houses,
and farmers still having to work with antiquated tools are all shown
in dramatic contrast to the purity and natural beauty of Kurdistan.
The only signs of 20th century progress the Kurds see daily are the
machine guns of Turkish soldiers!
The five prisoners soon find themselves in the greater and more
oppressive prison of Kurdistan. Through lack of education, the Kurds
are held under and old feudal system with its blood feuds and complex
codes of honor -for example with the respect to adultery. Today,
this medieval web coupled with religious ignorance, and compounded by
Turkish political and economic oppression, reduces much of Kurdistan
to a rigid backward social structure with both men and especially
women trapped as victims. (Witness during the snow scenes the unspoken
painful dilemma of husband and wife who had "betrayed" him martially.)
To ease its exploitation, Turkey dupes the people with confused
brand of religious and archaic moral standards, hence, for example,
the mass hysteria and the tragic scene of the train.
YOL is a compassionate journey through Kurdistan kept under a permanent
state of siege by Turkey since the dawn of this century.
Here, over one and a half million Kurds (and similar numbers of
defenseless Armenians) have been massacred. Persecution, tortures,
gallows, mass deportations, aerial bombardments, napalm, poison
gas, mass trials, organized terror, forced assimilations, and total
destruction of towns and villages are marked in blood on Kurdish
mountains as the unwritten history of Kurdistan. To talk about basic
human rights would be futile, when Turkey, in order to add insult,
calls the Kurdish nation "Mountain Turks".
To this date, mere speech in Kurdish or Kurdish costume carries a
mandatory prison sentence! Of course, since twelve million Kurds in
Turkey are not supposed to exist, any mention of even the word Kurd
is banned, let alone Kurdish culture! (Last March, a non-Kurdish
sociologist, Ismail Besikci, was sentenced to ten years for merely
describing the Kurds as a separate ethnic group.)
Turkey, a member of NATO, receives over one million dollars a day from
the United States as military aid. The corrupt fascist Turkish junta
uses much of this to destroy Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, and liberal
Turkish people. As recently as last May, Turkey in conspiracy with
Iraqi military fascists staged a back-handed attack on Iraqi Kurdistan,
and burned Kurdish villages. Two thousand Kurds were captured, most
of whom are now under torture in the already over-crowded Turkish
prison camps.
Robbed of its oil, food produce, and other natural resources by its
more powerful neighbors, Kurdistan lies in a singularly strategic
position -between the Middle East, Russia, and Europe. Due to this
quirk of fate, Kurdistan has always been the battlefield of aggressors
with Kurds used as worthless pawns in a brutal game of greed and power.
Today, the fascist governments of Iran, Turkey, and Iraq are
shamelessly ganging up to exterminate the Kurdish nation -something
no one has been able to do for 3000 years from Alexander the Great,
the Mongols, the Persian and Ottoman empires, to the British. The
Kurds are some 40 million people. Descendants of the ancient Medes,
they have lived in Kurdistan long before the Turks existed.
YOL is a monument to human endurance; to the sick and wounded
in Kurdish mountains; to thousands of lost orphans and homeless
families. YOL is a poem of tears and flowers dedicated to the bereaved
women and weeping mothers of Kurdistan.
If you add up the hardship of the freedom-loving peoples of El
Salvador, Vietnam, South Africa, Afghanistan, Palestine and Poland, it
may not equal the plight of the Kurdish nation whose very existence is
endangered. Yet ironically because Kurds are being massacred by Iran,
Turkey, and Iraq, and not directly by "white" or "big" powers such
as Russia or America, the Kurdish cause, though a unique tragedy,
does not get the media exposure of the support automatically given
to other national causes. How apt, even today, is the sad, age old
proverb: "Kurds have no friends"!
YOL is hymn to the unsung heroes of the Kurdish nation, who against all
odds and modern destruction machines, fight alone for the preservation
of their dignity, and identity. Form the heart of Kurdistan, YOL
is a gift of spirit and hope to the oppressed people everywhere in
the world.
Outside links KurdishMedia.com does not take the responsibility for
accuracy of the outside sources.
By Jalal Jonroy
KurdishMedia, UK
Sept 9 2006
Yilmaz Guney (1 April 1937 - 9 September 1984)
When shown at the Cannes Film Festival '82, YOL received a standing
ovation and won the coveted first prize. YOL is a Kurdish drama made
by Yilmaz Guney -a Kurd- while serving 19 year prison sentence in
Turkey. Y. Guney escaped prison and now lives in Paris where he and
other Kurdish artists in exile have formed (The Kurdish Institute)
to help save the Kurdish culture - a much neglected and maligned
treasure of mankind's cultural heritage.
On the surface, YOL relates the sufferings, the loves, and the hope
of five Kurdish prisoners while on temporary leave. On the way -YOL-
to their homeland Kurdistan, occupied by fascist military Turkey,
the film slowly and sensitively reveals the terrible operation
and hardships of the Kurdish nation. YOL is a long harsh road into
Kurdistan -deliberately kept backward socially and economically, by
successive Turkish governments. Poverty, bad transportation, luck
of schools and hospitals (witness the dentist's scene), deprived
children smoking cigarettes, villagers crammed in tiny mud houses,
and farmers still having to work with antiquated tools are all shown
in dramatic contrast to the purity and natural beauty of Kurdistan.
The only signs of 20th century progress the Kurds see daily are the
machine guns of Turkish soldiers!
The five prisoners soon find themselves in the greater and more
oppressive prison of Kurdistan. Through lack of education, the Kurds
are held under and old feudal system with its blood feuds and complex
codes of honor -for example with the respect to adultery. Today,
this medieval web coupled with religious ignorance, and compounded by
Turkish political and economic oppression, reduces much of Kurdistan
to a rigid backward social structure with both men and especially
women trapped as victims. (Witness during the snow scenes the unspoken
painful dilemma of husband and wife who had "betrayed" him martially.)
To ease its exploitation, Turkey dupes the people with confused
brand of religious and archaic moral standards, hence, for example,
the mass hysteria and the tragic scene of the train.
YOL is a compassionate journey through Kurdistan kept under a permanent
state of siege by Turkey since the dawn of this century.
Here, over one and a half million Kurds (and similar numbers of
defenseless Armenians) have been massacred. Persecution, tortures,
gallows, mass deportations, aerial bombardments, napalm, poison
gas, mass trials, organized terror, forced assimilations, and total
destruction of towns and villages are marked in blood on Kurdish
mountains as the unwritten history of Kurdistan. To talk about basic
human rights would be futile, when Turkey, in order to add insult,
calls the Kurdish nation "Mountain Turks".
To this date, mere speech in Kurdish or Kurdish costume carries a
mandatory prison sentence! Of course, since twelve million Kurds in
Turkey are not supposed to exist, any mention of even the word Kurd
is banned, let alone Kurdish culture! (Last March, a non-Kurdish
sociologist, Ismail Besikci, was sentenced to ten years for merely
describing the Kurds as a separate ethnic group.)
Turkey, a member of NATO, receives over one million dollars a day from
the United States as military aid. The corrupt fascist Turkish junta
uses much of this to destroy Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, and liberal
Turkish people. As recently as last May, Turkey in conspiracy with
Iraqi military fascists staged a back-handed attack on Iraqi Kurdistan,
and burned Kurdish villages. Two thousand Kurds were captured, most
of whom are now under torture in the already over-crowded Turkish
prison camps.
Robbed of its oil, food produce, and other natural resources by its
more powerful neighbors, Kurdistan lies in a singularly strategic
position -between the Middle East, Russia, and Europe. Due to this
quirk of fate, Kurdistan has always been the battlefield of aggressors
with Kurds used as worthless pawns in a brutal game of greed and power.
Today, the fascist governments of Iran, Turkey, and Iraq are
shamelessly ganging up to exterminate the Kurdish nation -something
no one has been able to do for 3000 years from Alexander the Great,
the Mongols, the Persian and Ottoman empires, to the British. The
Kurds are some 40 million people. Descendants of the ancient Medes,
they have lived in Kurdistan long before the Turks existed.
YOL is a monument to human endurance; to the sick and wounded
in Kurdish mountains; to thousands of lost orphans and homeless
families. YOL is a poem of tears and flowers dedicated to the bereaved
women and weeping mothers of Kurdistan.
If you add up the hardship of the freedom-loving peoples of El
Salvador, Vietnam, South Africa, Afghanistan, Palestine and Poland, it
may not equal the plight of the Kurdish nation whose very existence is
endangered. Yet ironically because Kurds are being massacred by Iran,
Turkey, and Iraq, and not directly by "white" or "big" powers such
as Russia or America, the Kurdish cause, though a unique tragedy,
does not get the media exposure of the support automatically given
to other national causes. How apt, even today, is the sad, age old
proverb: "Kurds have no friends"!
YOL is hymn to the unsung heroes of the Kurdish nation, who against all
odds and modern destruction machines, fight alone for the preservation
of their dignity, and identity. Form the heart of Kurdistan, YOL
is a gift of spirit and hope to the oppressed people everywhere in
the world.
Outside links KurdishMedia.com does not take the responsibility for
accuracy of the outside sources.