Your name is your identity

Dear followers,

            Firstly, I would like to apologize for my absence to all my regular readers and followers, I have been incredibly inactive. Our son was born on March 11 and I needed some time to find a good routine that would work for myself and my family. But our son is doing so well. We truly have been blessed with a healthy, strong and loveable son.

            About 9 months ago, we were told that we were going to have a son, I had not looked into boys names. The only thing I was sure about was that it had to be a Kurdish name.

            I’m a firm believer in the phrase ‘your name is your identity’. As a parent you are given the right to name your child and in some cases this child will face many difficulties when growing up. Your child can be discriminated or refused because of his or her name. My grandfather was such a patriotic man that he named my mother Kurdistan. Not knowing, back then, how many challenging she would face because of her name.

She always loved to study mathematics but because of her name she didn’t get accepted. She either had to walk away or change her name. Now, I remember, back when I was at university, I met a girl who had a very funny Kurdish name. Translated to English it means ‘don’t cry my love’. Maybe she cried a lot when she was born? But would you, as a parent, like to burden a child with a name like that for the rest of her life? I do have to say that my son will find some difficulties in the name we have given him. Maybe I have a bit of my grandfather in me when it comes to patriotism.

            I know that my son will be going back and forth between Kurdistan and Europe and therefore I didn’t want a name that would be difficult to pronounce. We named our child Aryan and I know that some people will relate that name to the concept in the Nazi ideology of the Nordic race – According to them; the Aryan race was a master race. But it just happens to be our race as well. His name originates from the Sanskrit word Arya which means Noble. And looking further into history of the Kurdish language, Aryan truly identifies his identity.

I found his name when I was going through my grandfather’s/mother’s book. My grandfather started to collect and write down all the Kurdish names he had heard of and published that book in the 50’s. This book has been republished a couple of times by my mother and now I wanted to add the names that were still missing. I have been writing down all the names and the new names I knew of during my pregnancy.

I also wanted to know how many people here in Kurdistan give their child a Kurdish name and so I spent my morning counting all the Kurdish names that were given to children registered in Hawler in January 2014. If you’re curious about the number or if you’re curious to know if there is an increase or not, you’ll have to keep an eye on my blogs. It will come up soon.

           About two months ago I was walking around in Europe and I met Dilxwaz, I didn’t know she was Kurdish until she introduced herself; a very pleasant surprise. Identity groups, belonging, language and names; without them, Kurds would have ‘disappeared’ already.




 

Kurds and their future..

So many changes when it comes to construction and everybody seems to love it; Park View Apartments for example, is according to their website ‘the most prestigious project in Erbil’. I do not agree with their slogan owing to the fact that none of these Park View Apartments have a view or a park. This fact appears to be a minor issue since no one really seems to care about that part. ‘You can build a park on your balcony if you really want a park’ the salesperson answered when a friend of mine asked for clarification. The irony in this all is that we Kurds don’t mind paying an absurd amount of money for a project like Park View.

The builders, the engineers and the investors from Turkey and Lebanon don’t care about a Park. They do not care about our health and why should they? They are not here to invest in plants, parks or our health. What drives me mad is that we seem to think exactly the same. We love to invest in these ridiculously expensive projects, without really thinking ahead. We haven’t made plans for the future; our health, our safety or even our economy.

We all know the exact prices, square meters and location of these new projects but why are we so indifferent when it comes to our safety? Can we blame it on all the wars we’ve been through? That maybe because of all these wars we never really could look ahead?

Now let’s discuss our future here.

Let’s say we want to buy a villa in one of these projects, do we know if an invalid person can even enter the villa? What if your family member, who could walk yesterday but can’t walk today, wants to go in and out of your house? Can you rebuild your house? We have so many staircases in our houses; it really is as if no one has thought about an invalid person, at all. And when you want to get a stair lift, you can get a second handed one from Europe that will work for a couple of weeks but you won’t be able to find a new one even if you’re willing to pay a little more. We do not invest in good home medical supplies like electric wheelchairs. When is this going to change?

Let’s say we want to buy an apartment on the twentieth floor in Gulan Park. Is it earthquake resistant? Have we even thought about earthquake building codes now that more earthquakes occur due to the oil extraction? Have we thought about the social and economic difficulties we will face when a heavy earthquake strikes Kurdistan? What if, something like this happens do we even know what to do in situations like that?

We all know the telephone emergency number is 911 in the United States of America. All Dutch people know this number is 112 in the Netherlands but do we, Kurds, know which number to dial, here in Kurdistan, when in an emergency situation? Let’s, for argument’s sake, say that we all know the number here in Kurdistan; would you even want to give it a try when you need an ambulance or fire truck?

About a year ago, the maid from next door ran out of their house into ours screaming ‘fire, help, fire’ and I was as panicked as she was because I had no idea what number to dial. After a few phone calls I finally got the number of the “Erbil Civil Defense Directorate”. I explained where we lived and thought that it wouldn’t be very difficult as we live in a well-known compound.

I was thankful when I heard the siren only a few minutes later but lost hope when I saw the truck taking a left where he should’ve taken a right. I got so desperate that I almost ran into the house next door with our own water hose. By the time the truck arrived, neighbors had already taken care of the fire.

It’s not very different when it comes to the ambulance service here in Erbil. Most cars don’t make way for an ambulance with lights or the siren on. Why? ‘He might be in a hurry to eat his lunch.’ My colleague answered. People do not take it serious anymore but what if it is serious? Are we even prepared for that?