Saturday, January 23, 2016

Comparing the Khmer Rouge with the ethnic cleansing of Yazidis

An article by journalist Rose George describes how one humanitarian woman compared the carnage perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (The Killing Fields), with the ongoing and systematic ethnic cleansing of the Yazidis population, in Syria.
Rose George writes "All I can do is tell their stories" in the February 2016 "The Rotarian" magazine.
In the article titled, "All I can do is tell their stories," she reports:

"Evin traveled to Cambodia, where, having read about the Khmer Rouge, she met people who had suffeed under the regime. "I learned so much," she says, and she shared her own knowledge with others...."

The Yazidi are a Kurdish people who follow an old religion related to Zoroastrianism, but which has remnants of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are located primarily in the Nineveh province of northern Iraq. The sacred valley of Lalish is the center point of their culture. (Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. It was founded by the Prophet Zoroaster in ancient Iran, approximately 3500 years ago.) 
An icon representing Zoroastrianism

Link to the Rose George article and blog are here:

http://oneturkeyrun.blogspot.com/2016/01/syrian-refugees-tragically-brave.html