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KurdistanObserver.com
Colonizing the Kurdish Narrative
By: Dr. Sabah A. Salih
Oct 1, 2004
Arab imperialism always hides
behind its most potent weapon—Islam—to extend and impose its hegemony over
non-Arabs. Combined with brutal force, the invention of Islam in the 7th
century gave the Arabs of Arabia an important ideological weapon in their
relentless crusade to force the non-Arab into submission, culturally as well as
politically. Adoption of Arabic names and customs in lands as faraway and as
different from Arabia as Pakistan, parts of the former Yugoslavia, and Kurdistan
was only the tip of the cultural iceberg that centuries old traditions, rituals,
and histories had to contend with. The results have been catastrophic: whole
ways of life have been swept away and entire nations have been forced to
redefine themselves in purely Arabic terms masquerading as Islam.
This colonialist impulse is
still there for every Arab demagogue to tap into. A glaring example is a recent
essay by one Amr Mohammed al-Faisal titled “Letter to Iraqi Kurdistan” in the
Saudi daily Arab News.
In it, Mr. al-Faisal offers
no argument because his mind operates outside the resources of logic and
dialectic. He proceeds instead in the now all-too-familiar manner of Arab and
Muslim tyrants disfiguring the Middle Eastern landscape: big on victim-hood,
decree-like statements, self-glory, crudeness, ignorance, backwardness, and, oh,
yes, threats.
Mr. al-Faisal begins by
addressing the Kurds as his “brothers,” thus canceling out one entire half of
the Kurdish population—the women. In doing so, he reveals a mindset still
stuck in medieval times, utterly unaware that humanity has come along way since
those awful times. What is more, he doesn’t even realize that such blatant
sexism have long been wiped out from Kurdish society.
The use of the word
“brothers” is offensive for another equally important reason. It is one of
those patronizing terms used by the powerful against the powerless in order to
make captive listeners out of them. It is one of the Arab and Muslim
demagogue’s sleaziest forms of censorship.
Mr. al-Faisal’s aim is
two-fold: first, hijack the Kurdish narrative, and, second, give himself the
power to rule over it. He tries to give himself a degree of credibility by
invoking the power of history but without really knowing what history entails.
For him, history is a simple matter of repeating the term or name-dropping, as
he does with Saladin.
It doesn’t even occur to Mr.
al-Faisal that history is made by men and women, not by some supernatural being
sitting somewhere high above the clouds piously passing judgment on humans. The
Kurdish people realize, as Mr. al-Faisal doesn’t, that history is the past; it
is the present and the future as well. But history needs to be interpreted, not
worshipped.
Mr. al-Faisal cites Saladin
as a good Kurd and crudely states, “Kurds are the people of Saladin and the late
sultan would spit on you if he was alive today.” By all accounts, Saladin was
a statesman. He was a learned man and a patron of the arts. He was too refined
to engage in vulgarities—something we sure cannot say about Mr. al-Faisal.
Besides, it looks like it
doesn’t occur to Mr. al-Faisal that nationalism was nowhere in sight during
Saladin’s time, 1171, and that this was the reason why for the sultan Islam
rather than Kurdishness mattered the most. In later years the rise of Arabism
changed all that. Nationalism, which is a fairly recent invention, little by
little became a more potent force than religion.
That’s why if Saladin were
alive today, he would no doubt be a different man—not a Muslim warrior but a
Kurdish warrior fighting Arab and Muslim totalitarianism that the likes of Mr.
al-Faisal so eagerly support. Saladin would undoubtedly trade in the faith for
nationalism. For inspiration, he would turn to Ahmedi Khani’s 1598 Kurdish epic
poem Mem U Zin. This would be his sacred book, not some Arabic text.
Here he would learn how to direct his passions against the invaders and
occupiers of Kurdistan; here he would learn to celebrate the resilient energy of
a wounded nation and its determination to fight foreign domination; here he
would learn to fight for Kurdistan and keep neo-colonialists like Mr. al-Faisal
off Kurdish land. To imagine Saladin otherwise, as Mr. al-Faisal does, is to be
clueless about historical change.
Dr. Sabah A. Salih is
Professor of English at Bloomsburg University, USA. |
