American photojournalist urges Kurds to honor past while embracing future

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An American photojournalist who has documented Kurdish struggles for more than three decades urged Kurds to honor their history while also embracing their cultural identity and future role in the world.

“It’s important to hold on and remember the past, but it’s so important to move forward… not to forget the past, but not to dwell on it,” Ed Kashi told Rudaw earlier this week. 

Kashi said that he first arrived in what is now Kurdistan Region in 1991 during the refugee crisis that followed the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein, which was then brutally suppressed and led to a massive refugee crisis as over a million Kurds fled to the mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders, fearing renewed genocide. In response, a US-led Coalition launched Operation Provide Comfort to deliver aid and enforce a No-Fly Zone, which led to a de facto safe haven where Kurds began to establish their own autonomous administration in 1992.

“I was with [Kurdistan Democratic Party President Masoud] Barzani and [late Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Jalal] Talabani in the mountains,” he recalled. “They were trying to figure out what to do… reclaiming their authority for good and bad, establishing political structures, economic structures, [and] trying to figure out how to reclaim this land.”

“There is so many reasons now for Kurdish people, especially in Iraq… [where] you actually have a chance to move forward, you know, to teach new generations about your amazing, glorious history and past, and to talk about good things that are happening,” Kashi said

Reflecting on the aftermath of the Anfal campaign in 1988, which killed an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds and destroyed more than 4,000 villages, he said, “I had never seen anything like that before: all the destroyed villages, towns and communities.”

Kashi, who spoke to Rudaw on the sidelines of the inaugural Kurdish Studies Forum at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) on Saturday, echoed an AUIS graduate Lana Salim, who last week, during an episode of Rudaw’s Legel Ranj program, said Kurds should not only look back on tragedy but also celebrate their cultural and artistic contributions. “It is time for us as Kurds… to remind ourselves of the cultural and artistic essence we have, [and] act based on the premise that we should be a player in the world,” she said.

His 1994 book When the Borders Bleed: Struggle of the Kurd, which he published with the late British journalist Christopher Hitchens, had lasting resonance. 

“A Kurd I met in Europe told me that book taught them about their history,” Kashi said. “One of the beautiful things about doing something for so long is when you meet people and realize your work had an impact on their lives.”

“I truly believe if we can change one mind, that is when change begins,” the photojournalist said. “If you can change one young person to maybe become a historian or a Kurdish scholar or a journalist to tell the stories of their own people, that is a beautiful thing.”