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Thank you for visiting our website.
I am Kani Xulam, director of the American Kurdish Information Network, a nonprofit organization, in Washington, DC.
I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and our office.
I was born a Kurd in Kurdistan. But my birth certificate notes my nationality as Turkish.
It is not that we Kurds have an inferiority complex and would like to pass as Turks, but rather the Turkish government has claimed half of Kurdistan as its own and asserts 20 million Kurds are Turks.
There are at least 35 million Kurds in the Middle East who are denied their most basic human rights by Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
I am a lucky Kurd. Fortune smiled on me in my late teens. I put it to good use and pursued an education that I would not switch, to paraphrase Gibbon, for all the gold of America.
Thank you University of Toronto and thank you University of California.
With the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq in the late 80s and Turkey’s own scorched earth campaign in Kurdistan in the 90s, I felt compelled to do something to stop the suffering of the Kurds.
So I moved to Washington, DC and with the help of Kurdish community leaders, founded AKIN to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship.
A world that respects the Kurds and accepts Kurdistan is our enduring goal.
I can almost hear you murmur, “That is not going to happen, Kani. The Middle East has a culture of domination. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” sells like hotcakes in Turkey. Who now remembers Dr. King or Gandhi?”
We at AKIN do.
And notwithstanding the skeptics, we know a lot of you out there, like us, would prefer to see change through nonviolence.
Like Dr. King and Gandhi, we practice truth in politics.
Like them as well, we believe in loving one’s enemies.
With truth and love, coupled with non-cooperation with evil laws, we are aiming for not just one but two victories. One: to free the Kurds. Two: to free the Turks, the Arabs and the Persians from their oppression of the Kurds.
It was Gandhi who once noted that no one climbs the Himalayas in a straight line. He could have added: some never make it to the mountaintops.
At AKIN, no one is looking back. Our record speaks for itself. We are veterans of a 40-day fast for peace in Kurdistan and a 221-day vigil for the freedom of Kurdish parliamentarians.
To continue with our advocacy on behalf of the Kurds, we need your prayers, your moral support, your financial help and your time and skills to restore a people to its maiden name and a land to its proper title.
A Middle East without the Kurds and Kurdistan is like a Europe without the Poles and Poland.
Reject conformity.
Cherish diversity.
Honor nonviolence.
It is time you too spoke up for the dispossessed in our global community.
If our message of truth, love and non-cooperation with evil laws is resonating with you, please get in touch with us. We would love to hear from you and perhaps visit you and your community to kindle a nonviolent affinity group for the Kurds.
And now the hardest part of my job: asking you for your money to expand the boundaries of freedom and liberty nonviolently.
Please donate $ 10. Just text keyword KURDS to 20222 from your cell phone. You are allowed to make five $ 10 contributions per month.
Mobile giving is for US based cell phones only. If you are from another country or if you prefer to donate more or less, please do so right from our website.
Thank you.
A native of Kurdistan, Kani Xulam is a commentator on the history and politics of Kurdistan, and advocates for the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination.