 The day the sun never rose
For the children of Halabcha
Cklara Moradian
March 21, 2005
iranian.com
I am a 17-year-old Kurdish student/writer residing
in Los Angeles. I recently wrote this piece for the children
of
the
Halabcha
tragedy.
I awoke far before the sun rays could creep in with
their playful hands through the thick colorless curtains of my
father’s
house and bring the message of dawn to our perhaps dreamless sleeps
and silently whisper that she has arrived. I awoke and wore a dress
of the bluebell’s and violet’s grace and set out to
the fields of my mother’s land. I walked among the grass
that grew knee high and the crimson flowers who had not yet unveiled
from their gentle moonlight rest. With such childlike innocence
I flouted like a butterfly that has come to greet the blooming
spring.
Only days before Nowruj and already I felt revived,
already I could smell through the passing breeze the New Year,
taste in
the melted snow of the racing rivers a new beginning, could touch
the purity of my land as I plugged a flower from the fields. I
stood far from the city and looked down from a hill, admiring every
scent, every breeze, every sight, every inch of what stood before
me, of the metamorphosis that I was given the privilege to witness.
As the sun was rising and the glorious dawn was withstanding
its triumph upon the winter night, an unnatural wind began to blow
behind me and my long dark hair and colorful dress moved about
violently. My heart began to pound upon my fragile chest as the
birth of day was stopped by a monster shaped helicopter, flying
right above me towards the city I had first opened my eyes to see.
Fear began to entangle itself around me, squeezing my body, making
it hard to catch the ever escaping air.
The flying monsters continued
to follow and without a sound or trace left as sudden as they had
come only to return again and again to pierce the fear through
me. I could not move and stood where I had first set eyes upon
them and as I could no longer see or hear their terrifying sight,
I began to run towards my home, hoping to find comfort in my mother’s
embrace. I ran as fast as my small feet permitted and as I began
to get closer to my city, I could smell the sweet scent of apples
and pears but could no longer take long deep breaths and see clearly.
My feet began to tremble beneath me and shook as
I was walking through the streets of my city. I put my hands on
my face covering
my mouth and nose and absent mindedly walked towards my home. There,
in the corner of the street, a boy I had often played with, lied
motionless, his eyes still open yet hollow, the only movement upon
his face was a stream of blood running down his nose...
My eyes
were burning and tears began to run down my cold cheeks, and as
I continued to walk, I was faced with the most terrifying scenes
of a morbid city. Another boy carrying a cart was standing, his
feet in the same position they had been when he had made his last
stop. A man lied faced down, on the concrete of his front yard,
a woman, frozen, was sitting in the corner of her door and her
spilled milk was still running, a young mother, carrying her child
upon her back was half way up the stairs of her house but she remained
unmoved, her child was fast asleep.
I passed neighbors, classmates,
friends, family, no one spoke, no one raised their heads, no one
waved or said “hello”, they all lied like statues upon
the rocky roads of the streets and the only movement upon the city
was the torment of the wind that carried the agonizing sound of
shouts, weeping mothers and terrified children who had remained
awake.
As I was getting closer to my father’s house, I had
become somehow empty as a drum and I knew that I would not find
comfort in my mother’s embrace, for although my vision was
blurry, I could still see enough of the darkness that had come
with sunrise. I ran the last few steps inside to find a lethal
silence that tore me apart.
 I fell on my knees and screamed as
my mother lied by my father on the breakfast spread, the tea cold,
the glass still between my father’s fingers. I continued
to scream and cry for I could do nothing else, the room was illuminated
by the sky’s light but it created a mocking irony upon the
depth of misery that had come upon my world. I shook my father’s
cold body, asking him to awaken, telling him that it is too late
to still be asleep, yet he remained where he had been. I threw
objects around thinking that maybe somehow my mother would awaken
and scold me for misbehaving, but no one said a word, no one was
there to silence me...
The only survivor of my family, I was left
to carry them all to their graves, left to pick up the crumbled
pieces of life. I was
left, like so many others, in a city that was shaken, broken,
left to horror and merciless pain, to mourn for those innocent
souls
whose only crime was being born. I wonder if I would have been
set free if I had been buried by their side today. There was no
Nowruj that year or the years that followed. The only ceremonies
that we attended were one funeral after another and the only emotion
that filled my emptiness was the penetration of pain. So often
did I sit before my window and longed to see those crimson flowers
once again, but they had all died, on that day when the sun never
rose...
This is not just a young girl’s personal story; it is the
story of the Kurdish people of Halabcha, of the survivors who were
left to carry their loved ones on their bruised knees to mass graves,
of the massacre that left the innocent people to clean the bloodshed
of the blood thirsty tyrants. It is the story of the Kurdish holocaust
and Hiroshima. That Friday morning, on March 16th of 1988, in the
city of Halabcha, the city of the strong and brave, the sun did
not rise, nor did the winter leave or the spring arrive.
That Friday
morning in the city of Halabcha was only the beginning of what
continued to be a day of genocide upon humanity and it left thousands
of Kurds dead and a never ending chain of people sick, and almost
two decades later, still no flowers or sincere joy grow .
Here
we stand, remembering the day the sun never rose and attempt
to show our sympathy, strength, our pride, our dignity, which has
withstood the test of misery. Here we stand, and although we
can
not mend the wounds of the Kurdish children of Halabcha, we take
a moment of silence to remember them, to remind ourselves that
no matter what they do to us, we will never bow down and kneel.
How can we ever forgive or forget? We stand here today to raise
the voice of the silenced orphans left behind by the corpses
of their mothers and fathers. We stand to let them know that they
will never be forgotten... *
*
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The day the sun never rose
