NO blogging for a couple days, but I think that my extremely small readership will probably not notice.

Forget what happened at work, because it has lost all relevance. What has occupied all of my thought has been Kani, henceforth referred to as a bastard. You might remember me mentioning that he had asked me to edit a speech of his, which was just awful, and I was hoping that with my comments that he would completely rewrite it. No such luck, in fact yesterday he sent me another version (almost exact to the first one) and announced that he had wanted to send it out for the Fourth of July. This open letter that he has addressing to Minister Nesreem Berwari of the new Iraqi government was awful. And even though I wrote 3 pages of edited comments and begged him not to send it out the bastard did anyway. If you want to read it, the address it www.kurdistan.org/Current-Updates/berwari070404.html I hope that it makes you as sick as it made me. My mom was even outraged by the letter and sent him an email.... this is what she said:
Kani,

I have been a long admirer of you and the work that you have been doing with your American Kurdish Information Network. You have opened my eyes to issues that I had never before even considered. I enjoy most of your writings. However, the piece that you are about to send out on the 4th of July, is NOT one of them! Debbie had shown me the first draft and also the second, and asked my reaction. I could not in all good conscious stand by and see you degrade your self, your cause and Kurds in general with "An Open Letter to Nesreen M. S. Berwari".

First of all, you sound like a love sick puppy, disappointed because Nesreen Berwari did not fit your vision of a perfect "Kurdish" woman. Heaven forbid that an aide would walk her out to her seat, be gentleman enough to carry her presentation and help her into her seat. She is a woman, hence female. She is from Iraq, hence an Iraqi. She is Kurdish by heritage, but forgive me, as much as one would like there to be a country that Kurds could call there own, there is NO Kurdistan the country. I fail to see the problem with her not considering herself a Kurd first before anything else. From what little I know of her, she has done much to help women and children, both those who are Arab and Kurdish as well. She is a political figure, who is walking a tight line in this changing current political climate. She is well educated and well thought of. She is making a difference in peoples lives. While you may have been disappointed in the way that she entered the room at the International Conference at the American University on Iraq, the problem is yours, not hers.

You also make other references in your writing which are troublesome. You consider yourself a "junkie of political news relative to the Kurds", how DEGRADING is that! Yes you may know much about a lot of issues that most Kurds don't, but as The Director of the American Kurdish Information Network, you should! By making such a comment, you degrade no only yourself, but all the issues and causes that you have worked on in the past and will to do in the future. You make a fool of anyone who has worked with you, supported you emotionally or financially. I hope that you are better than that! You make references to Kurds being "slaves", your sarcastic remarks about Minister Berwari's meeting with President Bush, references to American History, "the milestones of human liberty" and Saddam Hussein. While I don't agree with a lot of thing that President Bush does, he too walks that tight political rope. Peoples of all nations and nationalities have been considered slaves, not just Kurds. Read and think about American History in all it's glory and splendor and times better forgotten. While we, as a nation, have done much good in certain areas, much bad has been done also. No one is perfect by any means. Liberty has it's costs as well as it's milestones. And while not everyone is interested in American History and the history of the area they currently live in, don't put them down because they like to go "shopping". Much can be learned about people by watching how and what they buy. I find your comments about Saddam Hussein were not appropriate either.

One of the most disturbing references is when you talk about your sister as a "retard". According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, retard means to "delay the progress in". Your sister was not retarded because she could not tell time, she was never given the opportunity to learn! A BIG DIFFERENCE! Many women, no, most women in third world countries, are not given the opportunity of an education. And by who? Men! Men are the only ones that need an education, the only ones with the authority and a voice to make a difference, right? WRONG!!! Who educates the children, men? NO, women do! Society, while trying to keep their traditions, must change it's backward and old world thinking and come into the twenty-first century if things will truly change. If more women were given the opportunity of an education, I dare say that this world might be a better place for all to live in. It would definitely have a different outlook on things. While you have your issues with Nesreen Berwari, she is at least trying to make a difference.

Kani, sometimes people are so close to a subject that their vision gets cloudy and they have a hard time seeing the total picture. I know you live and breathe your work. Maybe it's time to take a break. Rethink how you could help more people on a larger scale. Go back to school for your Masters. May be then, you would be able to look at things in a slightly different light and be able to help more Kurdish people achieve the liberty, freedom and hope for a new future that they are desperately trying to achieve.

Sincerely Yours,


But when I read the version that he sent out even after I had begged him not to, I am not sure that I can describe how I felt, like all of the help that I had given him meant nothing. It was awful watching him ang himself with his own words. I sent him an emai afterwards, I said a lot of mean things, but I felt that he had proven all of them to be true. He made a mockery of all of his hard work. This was the email that I sent to him after he sent out his "open letter' to the public...
How can you look in the mirror every morning? Do you realize that by witnessing ONE SIMPLE act you have accused Minister Berwari of being like SADAAM HUSSEIN? A man who oppressed, tortured, and murdered your Kurdish brothers and sisters in Southern Kurdistan for over 30 years? Shame on you, Kani. By allowing M. Berwari to have her assistant hold out her chair for her (gentlemen-like behavior) you have equated her to the murderer of 5000 hapless souls in Halapja. Forget about honoring the memory of your fellow patriots as you like to call them, you have disgraced them by making such an extreme and erroneous comparison.
I know full well that the Kurds have gotten the shaft over the centuries. They have been oppressed, misused, murdered and misunderstood. The public cares nothing for them, this is where you step in. I understood your life's work to be furthering the cause of your Kurdish brethren. I have watched you for years work yourself to death in this most noble of causes. But today, with your letter, you have destroyed everything that you have worked so hard for. It makes me sick to my stomach and it breaks my heart.
I thought that with the release of Leyla Zana, that things for the Kurds were "looking up". I guess that I was wrong. Instead of capitalizing on that good fortune, and capitalizing on the increased Kurdish influence in the new Iraq, you criticized everyone who is trying to do a bit of good in such an extreme way that you have become heartless and cruel. You have proven yourself to be a child unable to deal with his own frustrations in this world.
So tell me Kani, what good have you done for the Kurds lately? Have you been coordinating with various Outreach groups across the country? Or have you been waiting for them to come to you? Have you been writing grants to that you can expand your programs? Or grants so that you get help in that office? You cannot keep running this one man show forever, especially now as you are obviously showing signs of major burnout. That helps no one.
And while I am on the subject of money, let me digress a bit to your treatment of women. Let's forgo the comments that I have already made in defense of Minister Berwari. How about your sister? Yes, she is not retarded (an odious word) and she is a victim to the system that she was brought up in. Yet she and her peers are bringing up the next generation of Kurdistan, if nothing is done for them now, what hope is there for the future? Have you already forgotten the lessons that Leyla Zana and M. Berwari have taught us about the power of education for women? Try to do something for your sisters, do something not just complain. You came to America because you saw the opportunity to affect change, so do it. Women, that is where the "big bucks" are, that is where you can get the general public and their pocketbooks involved.
I have always been willing to help you, all you have ever needed to do was ask. And I am sure, given a little time to calm down, that will always stay the case. But I can no longer stand by, and adore you absolutely, when you need someone to buckle down and tell you when you have done something wrong. This email has hurt, deeply, to me and maybe to you. But your open letter was wrong in every sense. Your logic has reduced you to the level of the very people you hate. Right now, you are dead in the water, you need to change (and fast) or pack it all up.
Yours,


I had bad dreams all night. Kani was a tryant and threw me out of my own house in the rain. When I began to dance outside in that rain, he came out, even more angry with me than before. And I was banished from my own home. I have felt hollow all day. Last night I cried so much, I don't really feel like I am here.

My mom and I watched a movie called Ali Zaoua about Morrocan Street children, I cried more than I probably should have. It was still a really good movie. We tried to sent up the tent that we bought for the next time we go out to the rocket show it was pretty cool, but putting it up and taking it down was probably really funny to watch as everyone was griping at each other. It wasn't bad too bad, normal for us, but dang Jimmy takes everything personally and has been pouting all day. SO I must go and help my mom, we are getting ready to bar-b-q.