Obviously, Plato had a brilliant image for the false beliefs and illusions from which we the Kurds nowadays suffer quite often. Plato’s allegory of the cave is perhaps the most famous of his philosophical works. It is written and interpreted at the beginning of the Book VII of The Republic.

In addition to the way Plato depicts the cave, it can also be depicted as an image of the current Southern Kurdistan’s situation.

The allegory depicts a cave in which people exist as prisoners, chained since childhood deep inside of the cave. Not only their transitioning movement is immobilized, their heads are as well to focus their attention to a certain direction. Behind the prisoners blazes an enormous fire.

Between the blaze and the prisoners (i.e., behind the prisoners) locates a road, designed for men to carry shapes of various animals, plants and other materials. Possibly, signs portraying democracy, human rights, women rights, rule of law, freedom of press and free-market are also carried along the road. The blaze, however, is casting the shadows of the carried shapes on the wall, and that is with what the prisoners’ attention is preoccupied. The residents of the cave, the prisoners, equate the shadows with the illusion reality in which they live (e.g., naming them, talking about them and linking sounds from shape-carriers’ voices to their movements.) This is basically the only “reality” that prisoners experience, seeing merely shadows of images.

Basically, the above situation can be described as a theater, where people are forced to indulge themselves with a show of illusions: A show playing fabricated footages about democracy, human rights, women rights, rule of law, freedom of press and free-market.

This situation in the cave is circled until the day a prisoner manages to break free of his chains, realizes reality of the shadows (i.e., shadows depicting democracy, human rights, women rights, rule of law, freedom of press and free-market), and escapes the cave to the real world. At first, he would be blinded by the glare of the sun, portrayed through the blaze of the fire in the cave which he escaped, and will be incapable to see the brighter objects of his surrounding. He will only be capable to distinguish the darker objects. But after a while, his eyes would begin to adjust to the real daylight and will start to distinguish the nature around him.

The brave man who managed escaping Plato’s cave of illusions was Dr. Kemal Sayid Qadir. His eyes are still blinded by the glare of the sun, and he is incapable to see any bright objects. He is, however, capable to distinguish the darker objects in the mean time.

Eventually, realizing the difference between the real world outside of the cave and the fabricated shadows inside the cave where he had been imprisoned, he is no longer able to live in a dark world fabricated by shadows: He prefers to live free and can not accept a totalitarian system.

The free man returns back into the cave to convince his people who share him a single fate to break their chains as well and climb into the reality, originally fabricated by the shadows in the cave. No doubt he would find difficulty in convincing his people to break their chain and step to world of reality. In addition, if he were to prove the reality of fabricated democracy, human rights, women rights, rule of law, freedom of press and free-market with them, to them, they would still prefer to live in a dim world!