I have become fixated with the fate of Kobane, the Syrian town near the Turkish Border and home to thousands of Kurds. This city, that began as a simple train station built in 1912 along the Baghdad Railway, soon grew to become a refuge for Armenians and Kurds. Since July 2012 Kobane has been under Kurdish control and is now the centre of a popularist resistance to fight the onslaught of Islamic State jihadists.
Like the rest of the world I have watched and waited to see quite how it plays out. Why did it take so long for Obama to intervene? Why has Turkey refused to let help through to the Kurds yet clearly allows Isis fighters and other Jihadists to cross its border? It has been a troubling news story, standing for so much, yet resulting in so little global action.
But on a flight back from Tel Aviv this week I read an article by Heysam Mislim a 28-year-old journalist who has chosen to stay in Kobane and report to the death, if needs be, at what is actually happening to his home and people. His writing moved me to tears. It explained in great detail the courageous mothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, who are dying daily, of relatives beyond the city wall who have been captured by IS fighters, beheaded, tortured, raped and maimed. Of the hunger, the street-to-street fighting that rages non-stop in this ravaged city. Isis gunmen with their modern weaponry are aiming to destroy everyone and everything in Kobane whilst hungry old men with hand revolvers wait to protect their homes and history. The solidarity and sense of community in Kobane is humbling. The realisation that they, the ordinary citizens of this city, have become a symbol to the world, of standing up to Islamic Fundamentalism.
Mislim's article stirs memories of reading about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. In 1942 over 300,00 Jews were rounded up in the Ghetto and taken to Treblinka concentration camp. Word of the genocide and mass murder filtered back and a small but determined group formed,within the Ghetto and, against the odds and with minimal weaponry, took on the Nazi might and fought valiantly for a whole month. It is one of the most remarkable tales of The Shoah. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising is a tale of heroism and bravery in the face of unfathomable evil. This fight by the Kurdish citizens for the last eight weeks is no less brave and heroic.
Research recently shows that Jewish Judean people and the original Kurds began their existence in an area within or nearby Kurdistan, prior to the Judeans migrating south west to Israel. There has always been a shared friendship between the two people in Northern Iraq. Mutual tolerance and respect between two people who have known the suffering of being forgotten.
These people have become a symbol of defiance
I stand by Kobane and I hope that world leaders, and that includes you Miliband, Clegg and Cameron, who are closing a political eye, will also stand by them. Look to the words of Pastor Neimeler which ends with " And then they came for me. There was no one left to speak out".
