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What Snow Cannot Bury
Bager Kaya, 2025on Manifold
Platforms
Manifold
Description

Snow falls quietly, blanketing everything it touches in a pristine white. It pretends to purify, to smooth the rough edges of the world, but its beauty is a deception. What snow truly does is obscure. It hides what lies beneath, covers shapes, identities, and histories in its silence, as though they were never there. Yet snow is temporary. It melts, it fades, it disappears. Beneath it, the rock remains—unchanged, unbroken, and undeniable.

For centuries, those who sought to oppress the Kurdish people have acted like snow. They have covered us with fabricated histories, political erasure, and cultural suppression, pretending that we do not exist. They have sought to make us invisible, to bury us beneath layers of silence and stillness. But their efforts are as fleeting as the snow. The Kurdish people are the rock: ancient, immovable, and deeply rooted in this land. We existed before their borders, their policies, and their attempts to erase us. We will remain long after they have melted away.

This work speaks not only of endurance but also of truth. Oppression often masquerades as purity, as order, as something natural or inevitable. Like snow, it claims to smooth over history and hide what is inconvenient to its narrative. But the rock beneath cannot be erased. It does not conform to the shape imposed upon it. It is not washed away by snow; it is only hidden for a time. And when the snow melts, the truth is revealed again, stronger and more enduring than ever.

At the same time, this work reflects the potential for transformation. A rock does not move easily, but even the slightest shift is enough to dislodge the snow above it. The weight of oppression, no matter how heavy it seems, is fragile compared to the strength of a people rooted in their land, their identity, and their history. For the Kurdish people, unity and movement are the keys to breaking free from the illusion of the snow.

Unmoved Beneath the Snow is an assertion of existence and a rejection of erasure. It is a reminder to those who have tried to deny us: "We are here. We have always been here." The snow, no matter how pure it appears, cannot silence the truth of the rock. Beneath its temporary cover, the Kurdish people endure, steadfast and unyielding.

This is a story of resilience, not victimhood—of rootedness that defies the temporary, of presence that cannot be obscured. Beneath the snow lies the undeniable truth of a people who refuse to be erased.