Translator: Ivana Krivokuća
Reviewer: Mile Živković I'd like to tell you a story, actually,
I'd like to tell you three stories, but don't sweat it, I talk fast. My Southern cousins say
that I talk fast like a Yankee on drugs. (Laughter) So we will get through it all
in two, three hours. There is a people group on the Earth who are 35 million strong. They are the largest people group
in the world who do not have a homeland of their own. They are likely to be
the world's next new nation. They're called the Kurds, and I'd like to tell you
just a little bit of their story. Now, you probably know more
about the Kurds than you think you do. Perhaps you've seen the beautiful faces
of their lovely children all over the internet and magazines,
they're used often. If you eat yogurt, you already know
something about a Kurd. This is the founder of the Chobani
yogurt company, Hamdi Ulukaya. He's a Kurd. You may, even if you're
not willing to admit it, be one of the followers
of the female Peshmerga, the guerilla fighters for the Kurds. The word "peshmerga" is the Kurdish word
that means "those who face death". And some who face death
in Kurdistan are women, and they have many,
many Western followers. The men in Kurdistan have been known
as fierce fighters for centuries and many of them are
just ridiculously handsome. Apparently, that starts rather early. Look at this little guy.
Come on. I should stop now. What they all want
is a place among the nations. What they all want
is a country of their own. And this is what they dream of.
This is their ancient homeland. They are in the belly of the Middle East where the Zagros Mountains
form the spine of their land and where they're between Iraq
and Iran and Turkey and Syria. This is what they want, a homeland, a free and independent Kurdistan
that they can call home, thirty-five million of them. Now, I'd like to tell you
a little bit about the Kurds and I'd like to use the stories
of three women to do it. It may sound unusual
that I would use the stories of three women, but the Kurds are proud of the fact that, thought they are
a 97 percent Muslim country, women are extremely prominent
in their society. Women sit on the Supreme Court.
Women command troops. Women are leading entrepreneurs. Women are diplomats,
as you'll see in a bit. And they are proud of this,
so it's appropriate with the Kurds particularly
that I would use the stories of women. Let me start with the story
of a rather unusual woman, a British woman, not a Kurdish woman. Her name is Gertrude Bell. You may not know that name,
but look into the face here for a moment of Gertrude Bell. This delicate, Victorian looking face
belongs to the woman who is credited with really being
the mother of modern Iraq. She was born in 1868,
she attended Oxford. A brilliant scholarly mind - she mastered six languages
in the early part of her life, at eight, and before she was done - she was not just a great mind,
but a courageous soul. She has mountains in Europe
named after her because she was a brilliant mountaineer. She once spent 52 hours hanging by a rope
off of a cliff during a blizzard. That's why they named a mountain for her. And that's also why there will be
no mountains named for me. (Laughter) She went to visit an uncle out in Persia,
fell in love with the Arab world, fell in love with the desert,
fell in love with the people, and she became really an expert
on the Arab world, recognized all throughout
the British Empire, and during World War I, she actually was asked
by the British government to take the soldiers across the desert
because she was so good at it. Now, she did it
in typically British style. Though she was
in the middle of the desert, sometimes in the middle of a war, she would insist upon stopping
and having high tea and eating her meals
off of the finest china from London. Then she would pack them back
into her saddle and storm off across. You can see in the photograph here. She's got Arab headdress,
a dress from London, she's sitting in an English saddle
and she's having tea. So this is a beautiful part of who she is. She had phenomenal impact upon the configuration
of the Middle East after World War I, because she was such a brilliant woman. She also had
some very influential friends. One of them was named Winston Churchill,
who was, as you can see, minister of air and war
right after World War I. And another one is T. E. Lawrence.
You know him better as Lawrence of Arabia. These were her hanging buddies. So she had some influence
that others did not have. She would've had influence anyway because nobody knew as much as she did
about that part of the world. But I have to tell you,
they made a mistake. These three heroes made a mistake. They had it in their mind
to found a new country. This was during a time when the Ottoman Empire
had been removed during World War I and now the Arab's moment was coming
in history and the Arabs were emerging, all of which was to be celebrated. But these three, these architects
of modern Iraq forgot about the Kurds. Or, if they didn't forget about the Kurds,
they at least forgot who the Kurds were and who they had always been. Because the Kurds are an ancient people. The Kurds are people
with an incredible heritage and incredible culture. They are also not Arabs,
they're happy to live in a friendly way, amongst their Arab friends,
but the Kurds are not Arabs, they're from the Persian side
of the Middle Eastern ethnic tree and they have
an intense sense of identity. If you're Bible readers, you may know that the Kurds
are descendants from the ancient Medes. They're part of much of the story
of the Old Testament, they're part of the story
of Prophet Daniel, for example. They were there on the day of Pentecost,
the ancestors of the modern Kurds, there on the day of Pentecost, and Jerusalem
and the Christian church was born. Just a different heritage,
a different background than a lot of those who were around them. They are a storied people,
a covenanted people, a passionate people, a people who don't want to lose
their heritage and their background and just simply be merged
into another culture, however friendly they might be
with that culture. So, what our three European heroes did - Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia
and Gertrude Bell - was they fashioned a nation called Iraq that had never existed
before in the world. And they used the Kurds
in the northern part of the country as a buffer against Turkey, which was newly emerged
from the Ottoman Empire and still somewhat aggressive. Notice my words - they used the Kurds. And they used the Kurds
to defend and to protect, to be a buffer for the Sunni and Shia in the south. Kurds are friendly with Sunni and Shia,
many of them are Sunni and Shia, but they had no desire
to not have a homeland of their own. President Wilson had promised them one, European treaties had promised them
a homeland of their own, and so this becomes the basis
of much of the trouble that we have today. This becomes the part
of the problem for the Kurds, because they were used by Europe
to protect against Turkey and not given the homeland of their own
that they were promised. Gertrude Bell, essentially a mentor to King Faisal, who became the
European-placed king of Iraq, was well-intentioned. We can't criticize from this distance,
we can't look in this face, this Victorian delicate face
that I mentioned and think that any harm was intended, but it laid a basis for great harm, brilliant and magnificent,
though, Gertrude Bell was. Let me tell you about another woman. I cannot tell you her real name
and I cannot show you her real picture because it could cost her her life,
but we're going to call her Nishtiman. Nishtiman ended up
living in the Iraq as a Kurd that Gertrude Bell and Lawrence of Arabia
and Winston Churchill fashioned for her. She was born in 1980. That means that she spent
the early years of her life under the reign of this man,
Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein hated the Kurds because they would not assimilate
into his dreams, for an Arab-Iraq dreams
for a Neo-Babylonian Empire. And so he committed
horrible atrocities against them. Let me warn you, I'm about to show you
some pretty gritty pictures. And on March 16th 1988, he decided to drop chemical weapons on Nishtiman's hometown of Halabja. Perhaps you've heard of Halabja. And in 1988, on March 16th, Saddam Husein ordered his airforce to drop mustard gas, sarin gas, tabun gas, other forms of gas
on a largely defensive people - his own people, the Kurds,
part of Iraqi Kurds. You see in this photograph here
the beginning of it. He instructed his airforce to drop gas
on the perimeter of Halabja, that would hem the people in,
and then he dropped the serious gas right on them. These are the billowing clouds
of mustard and sarin gas. People died and died horribly. Their organs liquefied, they began to contort in wild ways and broke their own backs
and separated their own joints and crushed their own skulls. They went insane, literally,
some of them laughing themselves to death. It sounds horrible
to describe that in such a way, but that's exactly what happened. Now, prepare yourself. Deaths were immediate, horrible,
5,000 people died in about two hours, 10,000 more would be
horribly disfigured and damaged, and many of them would die
in the following weeks. This is the photograph of a dead man. His two sons are alive,
but grabbing him, don't want to leave. Grandpa is trying to get them
to leave that site. The elderly died instantly
and froze in place. The sad tragedy of this particular couple
is that they died instantly, but stayed in that vehicle for days, the neighbors thinking they were alive
and sometimes waving to them. That's how the death occured. At this photograph, a man in a home, when the gas began to come into his home,
grabbed his son, ran to a neighbor, didn't make it, they both died. What's interesting is that this is now
the carving for the statue. This picture is the basis for the statue of the monument of Halabja
in Iraqi Kurdistan. So they literally took that picture
of a man holding his son as the symbol of the entire affair. Nishtiman lost her father
in that gassing of Halajba. Her eight-year-old flesh
burned for months. Some people's burned for years. Her mother survived, but then later, her mother was taken captive
by Saddam's troops, and buried in a mass grave. There are many of them
that dot Iraqi Kurdistan. Saddam knew how to do this well. But the Kurds are a unique people. They intend to honor their dead,
they know how to find these mass graves. Nishtiman's mother was found
and DNA confirmed who she was, and she was buried. Nobody intends in Iraqi Kurdistan for the dead not to be honored. They grieve, they put them all,
all the remains in coffins, and they celebrate their lives
and offer them to God. This is what they do, because that is
their history and their tradition. So what happened to Nishtiman? Well, I told you she was born in 1980,
that means she's 36 now. What is she doing? Well, you might enjoy knowing,
given what you've seen of her sufferings, that she is now - and by the way,
the pictures I'm about to show you, none of them are her. These are people she is like,
because I cannot show you her picture. She is one of these
awesome female Peshmerga, and her tribe of warriors
are feared by ISIS, because ISIS has an unquranic,
unusual belief that if they are killed by a woman,
they will not go to paradise. These women enjoy that thought immensely. (Cheers) (Applause) Some of them are the best marksmen
and snipers amongst the Peshmerga, and my male Kurdish friends
are going to get on my case about that, but it's just true, I'm telling you. And they are just magnificent,
and Nishtiman is among them. What's interesting to watch, for those of us paying attention
to these trends, is how so many of these female Peshmerga
have got Twitter accounts, how they have
a huge following in the West. Many of them, as you can see, are pretty.
You see this woman holding an iPad. She's shooting during the day and then checking in with her friends
and followers at night. (Laughter) And for some reason
I can't really imagine, they get many, many marriage proposals from Western men.
(Laughter) I mean, I met them,
I think they're awesome, but you better be a good spouse,
that's all I got to say. (Laughter) You better hang in. So that's Nishtiman. Let me tell you
about one other woman. Her name is Bayan. B-a-y-a-n, a woman I deeply admire. Bayan was raised by the man you see
on the right and his wife, of course, Sami Abdul Rahman. It's this man, a Kurdish hero. He was a leader of the resistance
against the regime, as the Kurds will say, which largely means Saddam,
but all of the years that the Iraqi regime was oppressive to the Kurds. This man was brilliant,
well-educated, spoke English, but because he was part of the resistance,
he ended up living in the mountains. That means that little Bayan
ended up living in the mountains, and so they, on the one hand, had their homes filled
with Western journalists, because, again, they spoke English
and could articulate their Kurdish cause. On the other hand, they lived
a hard and rugged village life of the Zagros Mountains, and you can just picture
little Bayan here, nibbling bread with hardened soldiers
and them loving her like a little mascot. This is sort of the culture
that she grew up with. Zagros Mountains are beautiful,
but hard and treacherous. This is the native homeland of the Kurds. They're called Mountain Kurds, in fact, by those who try to be
a little bit insulting, but it's actually true. Her father - unbelievably influential, helped to build what we now know
of Iraqi Kurdistan. When more freedom came -
Saddam was dealt with - he became a Prime Minister
of his own party. Really a pretty amazing man. Unfortunately, in 2004, there was a double bombing
by an Islamic extremist group and Dr. Sami Abdul Rahman
was killed along with his son. A very, very violent moment. Now, by that time, Bayan had gone
to England to be educated. Part of it was to keep her safe. She had become a journalist
for the Financial Times - very prestigious role. She was assigned to do her journalism
by the Financial Times in Japan, where she spent many, many years. She always thought of Kurdistan, always followed, of course,
what her father was doing, always cared for Kurdistan. But she didn't know
exactly how she should live that out. Well, eventually she knew that she would have to live out
her parents' legacy, that she would have to live out
her love for Kurdistan and what her parents
had embedded in her soul. And so today, little Bayan is actually
Madam Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman. She is the representative
to the Washington DC of the Kurdish regional government. She is arguably the most powerful
Kurdish woman in the world. Unbelievable. (Applause) She's about that tall. It's all dynamite. She's a cross between Golda Meir
and Margaret Thatcher and Oprah and Pink, I guess,
if you want some attitudes drawn in there. (Laughter) She's pretty amazing. She spends her time telling
the US government in Washington how they need to stand up
with the Kurds against ISIS, and how they need to be prepared
for independent Kurdistan. And that, I think,
is what is important for you today. What does this mean to you?
Why is this relevant to you? Well, you're smart,
you're educated, you're here. You're socially conscious. And 35 million Kurdish people are waiting to be born
into the family of free nations. I intend to help them.
I hope you will too. Thank you. (Applause)
