Barbarity

Hasankeyf, which will be drowned

I am missing a proper word that would describe an action that does not have anything in common with human beings, with humanity as a term. Is “barbarity” the proper word? Is it “abomination”? What would describe an intention of a state, a NATO member, to destroy one of the oldest cities on our planet. This crime is being prepared before the very eyes of the world community. They are preparing to sink all the city, the city that is 10.000 years old, that is a part of cultural heritage of all our civilization! It is sentenced to disappear underwater!

Hasankeyf survived even its devastation by Mongols….

We are speaking about the Hasankeyf city located in the very heart of Turkish Kurdistan.The city literally lies on both sides of the Tigris river. Tigris divided the city like a saber as well as it also protected, or tried to protect, the city against barbarians’ raids. The city was always offering its hospitality to all persecuted among them also to first Christians. It’s not such that long time ago when people from around the city, now mostly escaped to Scandinavia before Turkish State repressions, were speaking old Aramean, the language of Jesus Christ.

In all its long history, as long as the history of our civilization, the city always had impressed all invaders with its stunning beauty and its grandiose architecture. Because of that none of these intruders, including Romans and Greeks, even touched or humiliated the brave city upon the Tigris River. Then, in 1260, Mongols appeared on the left bank of Tigris. The first and only ones who conquered the city. And not only conquered. They devastated it, destroyed everything that they could and then left… Just like ISIS did currently… The city has never overcome its devastation and we actually don’t know how it exactly looked like, where its aqueducts or ventilation shafts were led through surrounding rocks… where a hospital for lepers or a mirror chapel used to be, later copied by Kappadokia inhabitants.

Hasankeyf, the world heritage sight…

The city, despite being on purpose neglected by Turkish authorities, fulfills 9 out of 10 criteria that UNESCO requires for including a sight to the list of world cultural heritage. Specialists say that it would easily fulfill all 10 if Turkish authorities showed at least a little effort.

Turkey has done nothing because it wants to drown all the city in water of a dam and get rid out of everything that does not have anything in common with islam and what, at least by far, reminds of Christianity or Zoroastrianism, Yazidis or Jews. Despite Mogolian barbarity the city has preserved memories of all of them. Even as little as it has remained disturbs Ankara rulers so much that they decided to build a dam just upstream of the city and sink in its waters all that Mongols did not manage to destroy. Why those people from Central Asia, like Mongols or Turks, hate cities so much that they always destroy them and leave their ruins? What has remained after Mongol devastation would be now destroyed by a Turk!

The Biblical Tigris River should drown Hasankeyf!

Hasankeyf inhabitants have been trying for years with all humble resources that they have to preserve their city- the humanity’s cultural heritage, where all humankind’s history has been imprinted since the beginnings of civilization, but in vain. The Hasankeyf city located in the very heart of Turkish Kurdistan has been the living memory of the human history, it speaks to

us with words of the past, reminds of past civilizations, forgotten by now by most of the people. Nothing of this has addressed Turks. Contrarily, looking at the city they can see all history of humanity, of civilization that they try hard to silence forever….

The world as if could not see pictures of the city demolished with explosives, the world ignores them, as if UNESCO didn’t have its offices in Ankara and as if all members of NATO, including USA didn’t have their representations.

What else must be done so as the powerful authorities of the civilized world start behaving as civilized politicians and stop just watching such a barbarity threatening our common cultural heritage.