Kathy Ireland: How lesson about tolerance in Kurdistan can help Americans overcome racism
We must bring our children, families and communities together to have tough conversations.
In our tense and vitriolic times, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offers sage advice, “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” We must instead build resilience. We need a solid foundation to stamp out bigotry.
Dr. King left us a way, writing, “Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” Dr. King preached nonviolence to achieve justice and love to win over his enemies.
Human dignity is the foundation diamond — that if embraced — empowers us to love and live peacefully. Achieving greater respect for the dignity and worth of every person isn’t easy, but it is possible.
In 2014, while seeking to learn how to respond to the crisis of persecution inflicted by ISIS, I was introduced to Tina Ramirez, founder and president of the education non-profit, Hardwired Global. I have had the privilege of experiencing profound and lasting results from this great work.
Tina and her team have seen hatreds that have spanned centuries and many generations be replaced by tolerance and understanding through education.
When ISIS attacked communities across Northern Iraq, Tina traveled to the Kurdish capital of Erbil to visit the refugees and find a way to help them.
ISIS terrorists targeted anyone who rejected their hateful ideology. Yezidis were considered devil-worshippers; Christians treated as infidels; Turkmen, Shabak, Mandaean and other smaller communities also were targeted. No one was safe, including Muslims who rejected the group’s ideology.
In this environment, tens of thousands of families fled to Kurdistan and neighboring countries for safety. While the children found safety elsewhere, they could not escape the ideas of hate and intolerance that fell like a violent thunderstorm over the country.
Tina met a brave man named Mariwan Naqshbandi, director of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Iraqi Kurdistan, who was on the front lines helping the persecuted communities gain their rights.
Naqshbandi had instantly seen the danger among the children. On a playground, a group of boys pretended to be ISIS and behead another boy — they repeated what they saw and heard without knowing what they were doing.
Something had to change. Naqshbandi worked to pass Law Number 5, which called for recognition of every religious community in Kurdistan.
After the law passed, he brought various people together to write a new curriculum for schools where each group of individuals could tell their story — their history. For the first time, Muslims, Christians, Yezidis, Zoroastrians, Kaka’i, Baha’i and Jewish leaders came together to write a new chapter in Iraq’s history.
Naqshbandi didn’t stop his work there. He opened the door for Hardwired to begin to work with children in the schools to teach them a different way from what they had seen, heard and experienced from ISIS. Hardwired trained teachers to overcome hate and intolerance, while replacing those ideas with truths about human dignity, equality, and the freedom of religion and conscience for all.
A lesson about diversity
Naqshbandi wanted every child to learn one particular lesson that Hardwired developed with two victims of ISIS. Children were asked to build a bouquet from different types of flowers in a garden. They could choose any type, except the yellow ones. After each student assembled their bouquet, they were asked to look back at the remains of the garden.
It was ravaged and contained only yellow flowers. All the other vibrant colors that contributed to its initial beauty were gone. The children realized that by eradicating the differences in the garden, they had destroyed it. They set about to replant it – rich with variety – because it was the differences that made the garden beautiful and peaceful.
The lesson of the peaceful garden worked so well to counteract ISIS’ message of hate, the Kurdish government asked Hardwired to train teachers across the region to promote tolerance and acceptance through human dignity education.
We can learn to overcome hate
It must be clear that America is not immune from the problems of prejudice that afflict other countries. The “peaceful garden” lesson can teach us how to overcome the ideas of hate and intolerance.
We, too, must bring our children, families and communities together to have the tough conversations. To empathize with one another. To see things from another’s perspective.
And we have something they do not. We have a culture built on constitutional freedoms ingrained in who we aspire to be as a nation. We must remember the ideals of liberty our nation was founded upon, and commit to building a more perfect union where every person — every color, race, gender and religion — feels included, heard and respected.
As Dr. King and Mariwan Naqshbandi taught us, the answer to bigotry and oppression is not tribalism or violence. Instead, it is about recognizing the value and worth of others and engaging with the dignity we all deserve.
The Kurdistan model — peace through dignity education — is worthy of consideration here at home. America’s persistent and troubled history of racism and bigotry cannot be solved by a court decision or an act of Congress. It will take changing the hearts and minds of millions for the better. Dignity-based education offers promise that we too shall finally overcome.
As a human rights advocate, I join the battle in freedom for all people, regardless of their faith, even people who identify as atheist. My personal truth is in Jesus Christ, which never prevents me from being of service to anyone who may think differently.
Kathy Ireland is an entrepreneur, human rights activist and philanthropist. She is an adviser and supporter of Hardwired Global, an international education nonprofit focused on promoting tolerance. Follow her on Twitter: @kathyireland