Dawood Saleh is the author of ‘Walking Alone’, an account of the Yazidi genocide. He’s a humanitarian activist, a genocide survivor and the host of The Dawood Show on Youtube which focuses on Yazidi stories.
His book ‘Walking Alone’ is a powerful account, based on many interviews Dawood did with survivors of the genocide. And of course, his own personal experience. And he reads several of the poems from this book in this episode.
We talk about how the Yazidi’s have been discriminated against – and killed for their beliefs – for centuries, and with the rise of ISIS, thousands were murdered and thousands more kidnapped and raped. 3,000 people are still missing.
The genocide of the Yazidi people led to half a million refugees who are still living in camps, or who’ve tried to make the hazardous journey to safety in Europe and other parts of the world. But as Dawood points out in the programme, these numbers do not convey the real stories and suffering each person experiences. And each person experiences this as an individual, as a family, as an entire group.
The poems he reads are based on events that happened not only within our lifetime, but just a few years ago.
The magnitude of what’s happened is almost unbearable to think about. But as Dawood says during our talk, this isn’t helpful for the survivors who need to be heard. He tells me about this – and how it doesn’t help survivors when people refuse to listen to their story.
We also discuss his efforts to raise awareness through his writing – and how the West should take responsibility for its citizens who participated in the genocide and who are now back in their own countries trying to evade justice.
Dawood also shares insights into the difficulties of writing about and with trauma. and how hard it was to begin the writing process about events, cruelty and suffering that almost can’t be put into words.
Watch The Dawood Show on Youtube – please go and support him, listen, share – whatever you can do. Some of his newspaper articles are up here.
Follow Yazidi organisations – the Free Yezidi Foundation (@Free_Yezidi) and Nadia Murad -who Dawood mentioned – author of ‘The Last Girl’ and founder of the @nadiainitiative and of course Dawood Saleh himself: @Dawoodshow
Photo above from this ‘Remember The Yazidis’ article and painting above is from ‘Walking Alone’ by the Yazidi painter Marwan Barakat who is also from Sinjar Mountain.
