My divided heart

For centuries, travelers, vagabonds, and migrants roamed the world.

Not anymore.

Today, in our century, free movement is reserved for money—it knows no borders and ends up in the hands of certain powers. Or for contagious diseases like bird flu, swine flu, … or radioactive contamination, or electromagnetic waves.

Strange! Humanity, which dominates the world, has turned it into a prison of its own making, barricading itself behind the borders of territories, of nations.

Countries have become larger or smaller prison cells. Freedom of travel depends on documents, signatures, and is subject to various visa regulations, sometimes even becoming a matter of conscience. Not only foreign citizens but also one’s own compatriots suffer under these barriers.

Aggressors, however, are different. They invade everywhere with their weapons. The prison is built only for the oppressed; the borders are insurmountable only for them.

Some of these oppressed cannot even move freely within their own country’s borders.

Yes, I speak of the Kurds, whose homeland has been carved up by various powers, whose villages and communities have been divided. I speak of a people without a land.

Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state.

I am part of this human geography. I know what it means to be divided, I know all its facets. I live it every day.

I chose to go abroad and live as a stranger there, rather than remain a stranger in my own land.

It was only in the country I chose that I was granted an identity.

My two brothers suffered similar fates. We three brothers are citizens of three different countries—only because we had no land, no state of our own.

Borders have inflicted such deep wounds on us.

One can only understand oneself by understanding others.

So take this city map and let it guide you!

History is not over…