C o m p a r a t i v e S t u d i e s o f S o u t h A s i a , A f r i c a a n d t h e M i d d l e E a s t V o l . 3 2 , N o . 1 , 2 0 1 2 d o i 1 0 .1 2 1 5 / 1 0 8 9 2 0 1 x -1 5 4 5 3 2 7 © 2 0 1 2 b y D u k e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s 7 0 n the morning ofMarch , twenty-five-year-old Kamaran Ahmad got out of bed, slipped on his clothes, and went to meet his friends at a statue of Omar Khawr in the center of his hometown of Halabja, a Kurdish city of about fifty-six thousand people in the northeastern corner of Iraq. So did twenty-two-year-old Hunar Hama Rashid, a slim, fair-haired student who was at that time just starting his university studies in Kurdish language and literature. By : a.m., several hundred university and local high school students had gathered around the statue, which depicted the dying figure of Khawr prostrate on the ground clasping the small form of his infant son. Students handed out flyers to local people and began to march down the road toward the main entrance to Halabja. Those looking up into the sky on their left would see the enormous, sixteen-fingered stylized hands adorning the Monument of Halabja Martyrs, completed in September to commemorate victims like Khawr, who, along with about five thousand other civilians, died on March when the Iraqi military bombed the town with toxic chemical gases.At the edge of the town, green-clad Kurdish security forces, the asayish, tried ine ectively to block protesters' way. Outnumbered and ill-prepared for crowd control, they stood by as the students continued peacefully down the road to a checkpoint just past the memorial. Their goal: to prevent Kurdish o cials from reaching the monument and holding their commemoration ceremony. When word came that o cials might circumvent the protesters by taking a back road to the memorial, the demonstrators rushed back. As they surged toward the memorial, panicked security forces shot over their heads. Some people turned around and ran toward them. As the men fired again, one eighteen-year-old youth fell to the ground, dead. "When people saw that he had been killed, they rushed at the monument and started This article is based on fieldwork conducted in Halabja and the Sulaimaniya governorate in 2009 and 2010. My research there relied on the assistance and hospitality of many individuals. In particular, I am indebted to Peshawa Ahmad for his time, generosity, and dedicated research assistance. Translations from Sorani Kurdish are his. I also deeply appreciate the help and shelter provided variously by John Agresto, Denise Natali, Falah Muradkhan Shakaram, Suad Shakaram, Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, and Jonathan C. Randal, who remains an inspiration. Many thanks to Gilles Dorronsoro for his insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East