CENTRAL NEWS – Şervan is a filmmaker, responsible for the documentary “Revolution Selfie: The Red Battalion”, that addresses the current Revolution taking place in Philippines, by the New People’s Army (NPA) and it’s 53 years old resistance! The film got He talked to our agency and answered our questions in a video about the current situation in Shengal and the project of Radio Kurdistan!
1 – The Radio Kurdistan initiative seems to be a new development, since its first episode was a week ago, can you talk about the goal of the Radio?
“The goal of Radio Kurdistan happened because it seems like that there was no main-stream foreign media here present in Sinjar. Even tho a major military conflict seems poised to happen, and its basically already happening. So, the Yezedi people are vulnerable and we need to get the word out to the whole world of whats happening. So, at first Radio Kurdistan happen to be, just a way of telling the story of what is going on here in a media way. Because as a filmmaker, i work on a film, and then it get released in the following year. But the needs of the Revolution now is that we need foreign media people to actually do things now, to get the information out now. So that’s why Radio Kurdistan was born, and i think there is a need for a wide syndicated podcast that keeps people informed about the Revolution in the area of Sinjar”
2 – So you came to Kurdistan, specifically Shengal to work on a project. In 2017 you published the documentary “Revolution Selfie: The Red Battalion” addressing the Revolutionary Struggle of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Philippines, does your project in Sinjar goes in this direction?
“If Revolution Selfie, it was my last film, got distributed in Canada and won many awards and the film is about my experience with the Philippines Revolution, and armed revolution of the New People’s Army (NPA) witch is happening right now with peasants in southern Philippines. So what i am doing right now is sort of a continuation to that effort, to bring western audiences inside a Revolution and to try to get them to understand what people are fighting for and how they are organized. So, that’s the type of movie that i’m doing here, the plan is to bring western audiences inside the Revolution to allow them to understand why people are standing up to themselves, for what they are fighting for.”
3 – On the 18th of April the Iraqi army attacked positions of the YBS/YJS Yezedi self-defense forces, arrested 2 Germans journalists from ANF and starting mounting up troops in the region. How is the situation right now and how does it affect your project and presence in Shengal?
“The situation right now is that in the towns near to mount Sinjar the mood is very tense. I’ve never being in into a town witch felt like there was going to be an impending military attack before. And you can tell it by the fact that nobody is getting any sleep anymore, they seem to just stay up, people are stressed out and you can tell the tension in their voice that they are concern about the fact that the Iraqi army is staging thousands of troops to attack the defense of Sinjar”
4 – Do you pretend to keep the work on Radio Kurdistan for the period you are there or to be a continuous work? How the replies have being so far to it?
“With the Radio Kurdistan, the response has being great! It’s just a new podcast but is gaining followers on facebook and the other podcasting platforms. So, it takes a while to have an impact on the different podcasting podcast with the potential audience to reach. But it’s being very good! Very positive so far. My plan on it is, if its a successful way to report whats going on in the region, and the stories of the people who are here, i would like to see what Radio Kurdistan can do, when i have to leave this region maybe it can be taken over by another media/journalist to continue this work.”
5 – As someone who was present in the structures of the NPA and lived a while among their guerrilla fighters, do you see similarities to the Kurdish Revolution? How the PKK paradigm can be seeing as an theory and practice that can solute the problem of the capitalist modernity around the world?
“I believe that the movies are really bad at expressing ideas, but they are really good at the stories of people. So i look at the people of the NPA, peasants from southern Philippines, and i see a great similarity of personality, a similarity of interest between those struggles. I think that the if Yezedis and Philippines peasants could get together they would find out that they have a lot of similarities. I think that is true across the world. My theory is that poor people and other struggling folks in the capitalist, imperialist system has a lot of common ground and can share a lot about their Revolutions if we can put them in dialog between each other. And that’s my life’s work, for other revolutionaries from all parts of the world to know of each one is doing and to be inspired by their struggles. And of course, to the other part of the people of the world who are not a part of a revolution to understand what a revolution is. I think that today, the matrix of capitalism and imperialism and how they affect media, they prevent an understanding of people’s struggles. The people’s with AK, the people’s militates are always considered the enemy, the terrorists. So, all revolutionaries are painted with the same brush. The matrix of images and optics when comes to people when they are organizing to resisting and organizing to their own liberation. Makes so that is almost impossible to them to communicate to the others parts of the world affected by capitalism, i am trying to do is to pierce that wall of prejudices and the amount of misunderstanding it’s truly incredible, the extraordinary effort and the extraordinary feat of creativity to pierce peoples prejudices so they can understand the truth, for what is going on in liberation movements across the world. And that is most true, so when it comes to the resisting of the Yezedi people, and it is seeing as terrorism, and its exactly the opposite…because they organized themselves they were able to defeat the worst terrorists in the world. So, the way that is being painting, the liberators of the Yezedi as terrorists is pretty common, created by the main-stream media, film making and so on..its gonna take a true effort bring people the truth and pierce the lies that they have being told for their entire lifes.”
6 – Anything you would like to add?
“It’s amazing to me that with all that is going on right now, how the Yezedi are being attacked but still they were able to expend hospitality towards me. To a foreign that came here to make a movie, two journalists who were arrested Matej and Marelene, i have being so heart warmed by how many people around here that are expressing sympathy and support for those journalists and incredible outrage at the Iraq government for arresting them here. I think that the people here think that its not only an attack on those journalists but on them also, to prevent them to show the truth about what the Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government are doing in this region. It’s quite amazing, people can take their time out to be nice, to be hospitable and generous with foreign media people like myself. It also means that i have and obligation to do my best in the time that i have here, to right for the Yezedi people.”
