Overall, killed + missplaced the number lies in 500k-1mil. Today I spoke to an afro-kurd as some might call them, and this is what he said which am kicking myself for, what didn't I think of that before..
These assyrians and syrians... I can't say I dislike them, because I know a lot of them that are really good people. But most of them are so ignorant and misinformed that you can't even have a proper conversation with them. And they all say "Oh we are the people with no country". Really? What are we kurds then?
First of all, what everyone should now, Sultan Abdulhamid the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, ordered his army that happend to consist of a lot kurds, the massacre on the armenians and christians. This was not an act of the kurdish people. And these kurds in this army was known to all other kurds as "jash", traitors. The Turks used this army amongst many others, towards the kurds in the slaughtering of 75 000 kurds in the city of Dersim. Even during the Anfal attacks, we had about 250 000 kurdish "jasher" that participated in the genocide on Kurds, our own people. Worth to mention is also that a lot of kurds helped the armenians and christians against the turkish army in the early 20th century. They hid them in the houses or even adopted lot of their children so they wouldn't get killed.
I know I always say this, but knowledge is power. This is something everyone should know. These kurds (traitors) that was involved was not represanting the kurdish cause or it's people, it was a horrible act of certain individuals.
And I, just as every other person with common sense, highly condemn this.
These jaff kurds are the scum of the earth, I hate them with all my heart as thet are traitors that worked with both saddam and the turks! and should not be confused with the ordinary kurd!
Offtopic, I find this quite interesting I knew abit about it, but this guy explained in detail!
Funny, I just found this page randomly via Google when I googled "afro-kurdish". I just had to create an account to comment in this thread and set some facts straight. I see there's a lot of ignorism here, which is understandable, they don't really teach this is in schools. But then there's also a lot of racism too which I hope I can poke a hole in now.
My mother, who's kurdish just like any other kurd, is a pure afro-kurd. Her mother and father (my grandparents) are something called falashas. Falashas are Ethiopian Jews that in the begining of the 20th century were forced to either convert to christianity or become "falashas" (meaning: someone with no rights). So both my grandfather and grandmothers families (this was before either of them were born) chose to migrate. They heard about Iraq being a tolerant place, espacially the northern part (Kurdistan!) where they were very open towards other religions and ethnicities. So my grandfathers family moved to Kirkuk, where he was born and my grandmothers family ended up in Dohuk where she was born. But later on my grandmothers family moved to Kirkuk as well. My grandparents were raised very kurdish. They were given kurdish names as well. And that's how my grandparents met and in the 60's, my mother was born, Bayan (love you mom!). My mom is black. She's second generation kurdish. She doesn't speak amaharic (the language of Ethiopia) and she's not jewish by religion (not that being jewish would make you less kurdish).
My mother and her parents would be very offended if someone told them they are not "real kurds". Being kurdish is not just ethnically, it's also in your heart. My mother doesn't know anything about Ethiopia, she, just like her parent's, were born and grew up in Kurdistan. That's all they know and that's all they need to know.
My father is, what I guess some of you ignorant people in this thread would say, "real kurdish". He's also very educated and know's a lot about kurdish history. He was also a peshmerga fighting against Saddam Hussein in the late 70's and early 80's. He has told me about 80-100 Ethiopian Jews came to Iraq this way, many of them got mixed up with the rest of the population, others stuck to them selves (like my cousins for an example), but they still all speak kurdish, they celebrate kurdish customs they all eat "yaprach"
And he also told me (this is actually a known historical fact), there's been many blacks coming to (mostly) Iraqi Kurdistan and Irani Kurdistan for almost 2000 years. Almost all of them have been slaves, that has escaped either during the Persepolis era, Arab or Ottoman Empire era and sought refuge in Kurdistan, where the kurds has sympathized with them, knowing how it feels to be suppressed by arabs, turks and iranians (no offense to any arabs, turks or iranians, it wasn't you, it was your ancestors). Majority of these black kurds have been mixed up with the rest of the population.
This migration is still effective today, but to a lesser scale. Lot of wealthy families in Iraqi Kurdistan hires nannie's and care givers from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. They, I assume will probably stay in Kurdistan, learn the language and their children will be kurdish as well. I have cousins that looks like chinese (No ****!), cousins that looks typical kurdish and from my mothers side they are all black or mixed, like I am. And we're all kurds!
So I hope we can put this racism to and end, I can understand the ignorism and racist behaviour from the older generations of kurds, but we're the new generation of kurds.
Beji Kurdistan!
Pics here:
http://northerniraq.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1886&start=75
Best regards!
