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I am referring to the dead of Halapja. The men, the women, the children, and the elderly. They died inhaling Hydrogen cyanide. They dropped lifeless like the Autumn leaves. They did not have time to say things like, I love you, to their loved ones. They did not think of bidding a final farewell the way the terminally ill do in our lives. In the minutes that they had, they reached out to each other. They embraced one another. They dropped dead like this father and this daughter...

So the victims may be the Kurds, the one-time residents of Halapja, but the problem is ours, as a generation and as a civilization, and it is that what kind of world we are going to leave behind for those who are just born or for the countless others yet to be born. As a Kurd, I was filled with a sense of nihilism like many of my compatriots around the world upon hearing the news that some 5,000 of my kind had died on a Spring day, a few days before Newroz. I cried for them, which is not that important, but I also cried for humanity, which I think we should all do from time to time.