“Youth is a period of flowing energy, beauty, and juvenility. The middle of anything is usually the strongest, for instance the sun is stronger at midday; and youth is a period of strength and flourish; it occurs between two periods of weakness: the weakness of childhood and that of old age” – Amr Khalid

Our current crisis and the apparent lack of good leadership throughout Kurdish history always force me as a young Kurdish youth to ask, why we can't have great leaders like Qazi Muhamad, Mala Mustafa, Layal Zana, and others. The answer might come from issues pertaining educational systems, lack of thinking and cooperating with other successful societies, poor parenthood, lack of trust in our youth and the waste of their energy, etc.

We as Kurdish youth have a serious problem. Our problem is that we do not take the time to consider thinking or articulating. Kurdish youth think that “thinking” is a tiresome process that leads to no destination. Every youth relies on the other to implement the thinking process for him or her. We as youth believe that thinking is ONLY for grown-ups. Lack of thinking or ideas is what leads to lack of production. What is the last product that we, as Kurds, have presented to humanity? No one in the Kurdish community thinks of producing something to benefit humanity or Kurdistan. Where do all the ideas of construction that is currently taking place in Kurdistan come from? All from the West! How about our art skills, our video clips and music programs? We take them all, as they are, from the West. Where are our own inventions that are appropriate for us Kurds and that suit us and our cultural practices? This is how we live; we live from the results of other people’s thinking. Others invent and we consume. We are nothing but consumers, because we don’t consider thinking.

When we talk about education in Kurdistan, we realize that learning is based on memory, book keeping and stuffing brains with information. This way the mind becomes a storage closet, with no place for innovation. In the West, however, this is not how learning is being implemented. As a graduate student, I am expected to think and reason. Through my studies, I have learned that I can change whatever I don’t like as long as I maintain a respect for other opinions. I learned that if I fail in changing what I dislike, I can find alternatives, and if I fail in finding any alternative, I have to convince myself to change my perception through my education. The more informative I become, the more choices I see myself come across to.

In graduate school, my professors propose a subject or a research question for discussion, and suggest where and how we can research it. Based on our research, we then build up our opinions and ideas. There can be up to 10 points of view for the same topic. The mind gets used to dealing with alternatives. Becoming accustomed to respecting other points of view, our youth becomes accustomed to the idea of valuing tolerance and peace and condemning discrimination. The result of the education system in Kurdistan is that the student sees a topic from a very narrow point of view. If he comes across a different point of view, he is unable to understand it or find alternatives and the brain stops. This concept of education is what leads to the creation of discrimination, narrow mindedness, and many idealistic points of view among our youth.

In one of the articles, I came across the following statement, “Scientists found that brain cells, of which there are 140 billion in the brain, each develop connections around themselves that help to do more thinking. They increase in number when you think, and they die if they are unused.” Of course the thinking that this scientist was talking about is not only purposed for a day-to-day thinking, but the right kind of thinking that is needed to help solve a nation’s problem as a whole.

Another fact I learned about student from Kurdistan is that average Kurdish student studies much more than those in the West, nevertheless the results are much less.

Lack of trust by Kurdish Regional Government in the mentality of our youth in Kurdistan is another reason that leads to lack of true leadership in our Kurdish society. Youth is a period of flowing energy, strength and flourish, which occurs between the weakness of childhood and that of old age (2). We see that Kurdistan is progressing by the hands of youth from other nations. How about Kurdish youth and the mentality of Kurdish youth? What have the Kurdish leaders done to invest and utilize the energy and hard work of Kurdish youth if we see everything constructed by utilizing the energy and mentality of youth abroad? And we talk about lack of employment in Kurdistan?!

Thousands of youth graduate from Universities in Kurdistan every year and we invite and welcome youth from other nation to construct and rebuild Kurdistan. If you build malls, hotels, institutions by others and present it in the “ready form” to the youth in Kurdistan, how do you expect the youth to attain loyalty to his nation? Let me give an example about the economical projects that is taking place currently in Kurdistan and that have all been set by the West. The Kurdish government and the West did not intend to make them so as to befit the ordinal Kurdish citizens. They construct projects to be suitable for their own way of life and their guests aboard that visit Kurdistan; from the meter, to the kilometer, to the Malls, to the number of stars evaluating hotels, to the airports and the number of planes (3). If you want to build a luxurious five star hotel for tourists, as a Kurd, you will not be able to make one nor that will you succeed in finding any support. To build a five star hotel recognized by the world standards, the hotel must serve wine and it must have a casino. If you object to this and say that it is not permitted by our cultural practices, then you will not get the world recognition that the hotel is a five star hotel. Who decides this? Unfortunately, not our Kurdish youth!

Through my talk for Kurdish American Youth Conference, I talked about two categories of Kurds living in the United Stated. The first category that I talked about is a category of Kurds that have chosen a confined life style. By saying confined, I mean they chose to stay confined in dealing with their children. Raising a child and constructing a successful personality within the child should not terminate at the level of Kurdiati. I agree that my child has to master in the Kurdish language and should have an awareness of his/her cultural practices, but success is a matter of constructing a complete personality and leadership (5). The child should be taught to actively cooperate with people from all nations as long as that cooperation does not lead to loss of self or true Kurdish identity. Raising a child as a leader should be based on leading any nation through its all domains and aspects of life, full of unknowns and new matters that join ancient and modern. This way the child will be able to overcome obstacles and issues pertaining cultural and generational gaps later in life.

As a Kurdish parent, how can you raise your child to become a leader or a role model? Raising a role model cannot be left to circumstances without planning. It is a tiring and long procedure that starts from early childhood to enrich the talents, explore the skills and increase the powers in chronological procedures. We all understand that as Kurds, we have cultural and religious restrictions, yet as a parent you have the ultimate responsibility of refraining yourself from utilizing dead ended word like “Haram,” which means forbidden and “`ayb,” which means “disgraceful.”

Like I said earlier, the child by being a “recipient,” with no doubt will accept whatever you as a parent have to say or offer. Yet, with this confined manner, you are causing the child to become a “slave” of the cultural and religious practices. You have failed your ultimate role as a parent in persuading the child to become convinced in Kurdiati and to start reasoning the cultural practices. With a confined life style, I mean that the child has to obey and implement without understanding the reason behind it. He sees the parents taking all the decisions; don’t do such and such because it is a western practice. Yet, they fail in reasoning everything with the child. Why such an act is considered to be disgraceful? We hardly see parents initiate an open discussion with their children in our communities. And if they chose to converse, we see them control the conversation.

Children’s magnitude of understanding and intelligence in our community is almost always underestimated. The child is an active wonderer; he goes outside and observes practices that are considered to be “unacceptable” by his parents. When he wonders and asks why, the parents’ reply is that he or she is too young for an answer. My word to those parents is that if the child is old enough for such question or any question, he or she is therefore old enough to deserve an answer. When I first came to the United States, I was astonished to see how parents in the United States converse and reason everything with their children.

As a parent, how can I improve the cognitive thinking of my child? The cognitivity of the child flourishes with the type of toys they play with. I recently heard that European countries have cancelled all taxes on toys because they think that toys nourish and feed the child’s mind. You might ask what type of a toy I should get for my child. Choose toys that help to develop your children’s minds. For example, buy pieces of cars, toys, and building and let the child construct the car, the toy or the building. Buy threads and beats and allow your young daughter fix the jewellery for herself. Yes, you can initiate thinking this effortlessly.

Thus, we will not change unless we wake up from this blurred coma that we Kurds live in; the coma of not thinking. No doubt with this mentality we have reached the bottom of the sink in all domains and aspects of life. I cannot imagine that we can go anywhere with the low level that we have reached. It is a challenge to wake up from this coma. I learned Challenges can be divided into three kinds: there is an easy challenge that does not encourage the person to progress and move forward; an impossible challenge that leads one to depression, and a challenge that flourishes one’s potentials and powers (4). We are facing a challenge that unleashes all potentials and most importantly the potentials of our youth. We faced enough challenges in our life; hunger, prosecution, death, deportation, imprisonment, poverty, etc. Therefore, there is no reason for us youth not to flourish!

http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=14083