The city of Washington is chockfull of monuments honoring famous generals and politicians.
Anyone living in the city is used to seeing them.
But we are not used to a large banner unfurled at a major intersection inviting us to “An Evening with David Brooks.”
Mr. Brooks, an author, columnist, commentator and lecturer, spoke at National Presbyterian Church on May 7.
Gazing at that banner, I couldn’t help but compare the American church to a Kurdish mosque—which would never do such a thing in a thousand years!
My small hometown in Turkish-misruled Kurdistan had three mosques, but not one ever invited an intellectual for a conversation.
Mr. Brooks, who is Jewish, was hosted at a Christian church.
Why can’t a Kurdish mosque in the Middle East do a similar thing?
Kurdish mosques should serve the needs of Kurds, like the Anglican Church does for the English people.
King Henry VIII established the Church of England when Pope Clement VII wouldn’t grant him a divorce. There are hundreds of different reasons to establish the Mosque of Kurdistan.
The major reason is that the Kurdish mosque is not free. Its sermons are dictated from distant lands—but freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
We don’t need Turks, Persians or Arabs masquerading as our intermediaries to God. We can have our own special relationship with Him without them. The Almighty knows Kurdish—even though the Islamic Republic of Turkey wants to bury it six feet under.
Leaving aside my criticism of Turks and their odious rule, I attended the talk, which featured readings from “The Road to Character,” Mr. Brooks’ latest bestseller.
It subscribes to Plutarch’s belief that morally upright individuals can inspire ordinary people to do good for humanity.
The world is a messy place and evil is rampant, especially in its cities.
Mortals need a moral language to deal with it and the best of us are inarticulate who often are bewitched by the world’s wickedness.
The Turks, for example, think they are doing us a favor by banning our language—but it only reveals their hatred, and exposes their moral stupidity.
The few who have stood up to evil are to be cherished, but the speaker was not impressed with our current predicament.
Our language has been seriously corrupted, which the Google search engine proves.
There is a distinct uptick in using words like “self,” “personalized,” “I come first” and “I can do it myself.”
But a steep decline in the use of words such as, “community,” “share,” “united” and “common good.”
Recent years have been unkind to words like “character,” “conscience,” “virtue,” “gratitude,” “humbleness” and “kindness.”
While Americans may be retiring the word “humbleness,” we Kurds happily practice its direct opposite, as in “proud” Kurds.
Saint Augustine, a subject of the book, didn’t know the proud Kurds, but had some telling words for those of us who can still muster humbleness!
The proud man who “heeds himself” and “pleases himself,” Augustine writes, “seems great to himself,” but he “pleases a fool, for he himself is a fool when he is pleasing himself.”
How many Kurds can you name that fit this Augustinian description?
But the best story was that of Frances Perkins, the first-ever woman U.S. cabinet member, secretary of labor in the Roosevelt Administration.
She wasn’t the type who said, “What do I want from life?”
She asked, “What does life want from me?”
A tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in lower Manhattan in 1911, killing 146 garment workers, turned this native of Maine into a lobbyist for workplace safety and workers’ rights.
But she was not exactly the type to influence state lawmakers in Albany—who curtly dismissed her as a greenhorn and irrelevant in the “Old Boys Club” run by men.
Until one day she came across a legislator, Hugh Frawley, who while complaining about the shameful work of his colleagues, moaned, “Every man’s got a mother, you know.”
That chance remark transformed Miss Perkins’ entire personality.
From then on, although in her early 30s, she dressed as if she were an old lady—and the press began calling her “Mother Perkins”.
It became harder to say no to “Mother Perkins.” She was instrumental in limiting the workweek to 54 hours, and was soon invited by President Roosevelt to join his cabinet, where she defined the 40-hour workweek.
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins on the cover of Time August 14, 1933
If you are a Kurd reading this, you doubtless notice the differences between Frances Perkins and a cabinet member in the Nixon administration, Henry Kissinger.
The first learned from that deadly fire tragedy, and did everything she could to make the world a better place for all.
The second, who almost got gassed by Hitler in Germany, years later hoodwinked Kurds into fighting Baghdad—but then treacherously abandoned us to the tender mercies of Saddam Hussein.
When a Senate Committee asked him why he would play such dirty tricks on our supposed allies, he icily snapped—devoid of any trace of human pity:
“Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”
His sarcastic answer was like the old joke about how to grow mushrooms: “Keep them in the dark and feed them shit!”
Except Kurds were fed poison gas!
The real tragedy was that we Kurds mistook Kissinger as a missionary—instead of the Machiavellian trickster that he was!
I hope and pray we have learned our lesson.
And when another statue is added to the Washington inventory, let it be Frances Perkins—not Henry Kissinger.
We should consign Henry to the dark with the mushrooms!
- Kani Xulam is a political activist based in Washington D.C. He runs the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
- The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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