beyondtheknife

[beyondtheknife]

why my boyfriend is a refugee

My boyfriend and his family came to the US as refugees from Kurdistan in 1999, and in 1988 fled to Pakistan. He's talked with me a bit about his people and his culture, but I admittedly don't know much about Kurdistan or its recent history.

Quick facts:

Kurdish regions include 4 countries: Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.

The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group that have been fighting for autonomy for many years (particularly against neighboring countries of Turkey and Iraq).

In the late 1980s, Kurdish living became especially perilous. Iraq began attacking Kurdish villages with the intent of exterminating their inhabitants. This came a few years after the Iraq-Iran War, in which Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 and the Kurds and Iranians fought back. Kurdish military fighters, peshmerga ("those who face death"), fought to regain Kurdish-inhabited areas of Iraq.

In response, Iraq launched the Kurdish Genocide in 1988, also known as Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign. From February to September, air strikes, chemical weapons, looting, firing squads, raids, and deportation were used to either kill or displace Kurdish civilians. In total, this led to an estimated 50K - 180K civilian deaths (likely an underestimation) in the late 1980s and many more civilians forced out of their homeland-- among them, my boyfriend's family.

After their hometown of Halabja was attacked with poison gas in March 1988, they were forced to flee east to Pakistan. They remained in Pakistan throughout the 1990s.

In the 90s at the end of the Gulf War (1990-1991), the US and other Coalition nations came up with Operation Provide Comfort, which created a protected zone in Northern Iraq to protect Kurds. This gave way to the formation of an autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, complete with its own flag, parliament, military, etc.

This region had its own government, made up of two parties-- the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Unfortunately, this nascent autonomy barely lasted two years before a civil war between these two parties broke out in 1994. Clashes resulting in thousands of deaths continued until 1998, when a US-mediated ceasefire (the Washington Agreement) was signed. The two factions of the Kurdistan Regional Government remained peaceful, particularly to maintain a unified opposition against Saddam Hussein.

[beyondtheknife]

intro post

Hi. I’m a surgery resident living in the US. Work takes up a lot of my time and mental energy, but I am trying to be more intentional about developing and expanding my non-medical interests. I made this blog to set aside a dedicated space for this endeavor. Some of the areas and topics I’m hoping to learn more about include: 

architecture

music

languages (especially Chinese and Spanish)

historical events relating to present day

evolutionary biology

life hacks

financial literacy (really, really need help here)

I’m also hoping to hold myself to progress on projects outside of medicine (painting, writing, etc). I’ll be posting here and there to track how things are going. That’s all, folks!