The World has a Mobile Size; My Canadian Passport is Twice as Big

This article was published in Write Magazine Volume 42 / The Writer Union Of Canada

By KaziwaSalih

What I have always wanted is to live and die as myself. I did not want to become a combination of everyone who I grew up around, or be determined by my social environment. If we look at identity as the characteristics that determine oneness, the Middle East is a place of people without identity, especially for women, who are considered a second class in society. How about if your nation was considered a second class nation like Kurd, and that you as a woman were considered a second class citizen of that nation? Can the sun of freedom and oneness ever rise in such a dark sky?

This question is complicated particularly when I found out I was Aboriginal. My nation had their first Kurdish state called the Medes, or the Mittani state, which was established around 1390 BC. With the aid of Western superpowers, their state was divided into four and given to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey during World War I. Ever since, the colonizers have made us stateless people deprived of identity, and also performed every kind of genocide, torture and displacement.

As an elementary school student, my hobby was music. After admission to a music institution, they expelled me because I was Kurdish, and considered to be a future threat to the Iraqi government. At the time, my father was a political prisoner. When he was released, I did not recognize him. He was impossibly skinny.Black circles covered his rosy cheeks as a result of torture with fuel burner. Although he was imprisoned almost every year, sometimes I did not see him for longer. His detention always made me happy, because I did not know what a prison was.  I could only think of the trinkets he made for me there. After I was expelled, for the first time I was informed about why Kurds were mistreated. Along with my mother’s unspeakable pain due to the death of her elder son, I was left with the one consolation of expressing my feelings on paper, making books and pen my best friends. 

Notwithstanding, I consider myself to be luckier compared to the previous generation and my counterparts who still live under the hammers of oppressors. I am the generation of post uprising. In 1991, Kurds who were ruled by dictator Saddam led the uprising and freed their land in Iraq. Thus, the self-governing turned our dark days into bright silver ones.  We became people with identity, but what we were missing were passports.

Many might think the passport had no impact on individual identity. However, my experiences attest oppose, especially the one that encouraged me to seek migration to Canada. By 2001, I had six published books, had become founder and editor of two magazines, and I was the first Kurdish writer to be invited to Egypt. At the time, Kurdistan did not have an airport or a relationship to Baghdad as Saddam Hussein still was in power. Thus, Kurds had to travel via one of the neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Syria or Iran. I chose Syria to travel from to Egypt. Although Syria provided me with an entry visa, they made me wait for over four months to obtain one to exit. Their only excuse was that I was Kurdish. Upon my return from Egypt, I was blocked from entry in Syria’s airport for same reason. After spending two days in the cold airport transit, I was deported to Egypt.

This dehumanization made me wish many times to get out from the woman who was under my skin who never accepted imposed identity. I had decided to leave Kurdistan before this event too, but the necessity of obtaining the passport of a country that would protect my identity as a freely traveling writer prioritized my migration plan. Among the few countries offering me opportunities, I chose Canada as my second homeland.

Since I moved to Canada, I have had six more books published (in Kurdish). I have obtained four degrees from Canadian universities.As an anti-genocide activist, I have always felt I am a member of each victim’s community, such as Jewish, Armenian, Assyrian, Coptic, African, Native… etc. Canada’s multiculturalism offered me opportunities of meeting wonderful people from those communities. I have been traveling intensively representing my identity as a writer in Western and Eastern countries. In airports, I usually notice some people hiding their passports, embarrassed about the identity of the country they belong to. I proudly hold my Canadian passport.Nowadays; the world has become a small village, the size of the mobile phone that tells you what’s happening anywhere anytime. Conversely, you can’t visit any place in the world without the passport of a reputable country. This means that the passport becomes bigger, but not bigger than a writer’s identity. In the Middle East my identity as a writer was upheld strongly locally, but oppressed internationally due to the lack of a respectable passport. Today my identity has been subjected locally, it turns to a brand name -- ‘immigrant writer’ – but it is represented internationally thanks to my Canadian passport. Sometimes I think that I have a passport but I have lost what is considered a life for me. Again, I feel I want get out from the woman who is under my skin, and plan for another migration.