Kansas City Star April 06, 2003
Home and away
War gives area Kurdish family hope of returning to homeland
By Eric Adler
The boy is 17. Seventeen. And, man, does he like it. He likes North Kansas City High School and playing varsity soccer. He likes Tupac, J. Lo and comedian Chris Tucker.
He likes his friends. He likes girls.
And though he's still a junior, he has real plans.
Like going to Maple Woods Community College, then maybe the University of Kansas. Nights and weekends he's working at Jiffy Lube. He's got an eye on buying a Jeep Grand Cherokee and has money down on a new amp for his Alpine speakers.
With his black hair combed back, a thin teen-age mustache sprouting, the boy in baggy hip-hop jeans flashes a huge toothy smile just thinking about it.
"I like it over here," he says. "It's fun."
By "here," Aram Salihparkhy means the United States.
Because although he's been in the United States since 1996, he's not from here. He and his family are Kurdish. They are from the rugged, green and oil-rich land of northern Iraq.
But seven years ago Aram, his parents and two younger sisters - threatened with death at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime - fled Iraq and came as refugees to Kansas City believing they might never again have the chance to live in their native land.
But now, they think, it might be possible. Now, should American and allied troops be victorious, should Saddam Hussein be deposed, should northern Iraq remain safe - they can go home.
"When Saddam is gone, yes, I'm sure they'll want to go back," Aram says of his parents.
But wanting in your heart is one thing. Doing is another.
As alluring as the possibility of going home for good is to Aram's mother, Sirwa Barzinji, and father, Omar Parkhy - who have dreamed of being back home since they arrived - it also poses a dilemma.
Because after seven years in the States, Aram and his sisters - Arazu, 14 and Ziryan, 9 - have become rather, well, Americanized. In some ways, so has the rest of the family. Two years ago a new baby brother was born. His all-American name: Alan.
"He is born United States," Omar Parkhy, smiling, says in halting English.
Parkhy, solidly built with a heavy black mustache, sits in the living room of the family's North Kansas City apartment. Approvingly, he points and nods at his American-born son as he toddles about on a Persian-style rug that lies on the wall-to-wall carpet.
On the 32-inch TV, a satellite broadcast from a Kurdish news station beams images of the war into the room. The TV has hardly been off since the conflict began. Every day, hour upon hour and often long past midnight, Parkhy and the family watch. They root as the American military and its allies attempt to topple Hussein, who has long hated the Kurds and, over decades, has killed tens of thousands.
There are about 4 million Kurds in northern Iraq. Ever since the end of the first gulf war in 1991, United Nations-backed flying forces have been protecting the Kurds in that region.
Nonetheless, in 1996, Parkhy and his family were forced to flee after Hussein discovered a CIA-backed plot, using Kurds and opposition Iraqis, to overthrow his regime. Hussein killed many.
Quickly the United States organized an evacuation not just of those involved, but also of numerous international aid and relief workers tied to the United States.
Parkhy, who was a scout and guard for the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, got out with his family and 6,000 others.
On TV, images of the Iraqi leader flash on the screen.
Next come pictures of dead American soldiers, the captured maintenance unit, their bodies scattered on the ground.
Parkhy's face hardens with disdain. Maybe soon Hussein will be gone. Or, even better, dead, he hopes.
Though, of course, then he and his family may have a decision to make.
Do they stay? Do they go?
To Americans who wonder, "What would they be going back to?" the decision may seem easy. But it's more complicated, more personal than that.
Like his children, Parkhy is torn. He knows definitely that the family will go back for visits. There is no doubt, which makes him happy.
But for good?
"My children, education, no can take away," he says with sorrow in his voice.
The children can get a good education here, he knows. They can build an American life with all that America has to offer. It is safe. It is friendly. And, no, it is not home. But parents sacrifice for their children. This, giving up the dream of going home, is the sacrifice he and his wife will have to make.
"No take away," he says again.
Aram and his sister Arazu, though, are not blind to their parents' feelings. They know how deeply they love and miss their land.
"They're always talking about it," Aram says. "I know they'd be happier if they were home."
On the entryway wall of the family's apartment, a framed map of the country of Kurdistan hangs on the wall. It is notable because, as mapmakers can attest, the country of Kurdistan does not officially exist except in the minds of Kurds who have a dream that, one day, the Kurdish parts of Iraq and Syria, Iran and Turkey will come together as a single independent nation.
If they did, the nation would have 25 million to 35 million people. It's often said that the Kurds may be the largest ethnic group on Earth without a sovereign country of their own. In essence, it is a nation without a state.
And what the map also shows is how large the idea of Kurdistan as home looms to the family.
So Aram has thought, as has Arazu, that they would be willing to make the sacrifice. Instead of their parents choosing to stay for their sake, maybe they should choose to leave. At the least, after college.
"I think on a scale of 1 to 10, my parents are at about 8 on wanting to go home," Arazu says. "For me, I'm in the middle. Five."
Meaning, if they stayed, fine. If they went, it would be OK, too.
That's because she, like Aram, recognizes that as good as life has been in the United States, it has also been hard.
Right now Parkhy is out of work. He was employed at a local hotel doing maintenance. But when the economy soured, management reduced his hours so much he felt forced to quit. He's yet to find work. The family is without medical insurance.
Aram works about 30 hours per week at Jiffy Lube. It's his salary, less than $9 an hour, that's paying the bills.
"I don't mind," Aram says. "It's my family."
On the other hand, although life in northern Iraq could be hard, there was much that was good. Family was there. The language was easier. Parkhy, adept at construction, might find work. And in the 12 years that the U.S., British and French planes have been protecting the area, the culture has come back.
There are now numerous schools, hospitals, modern TV, highways, parks, a working parliament and contemporary cities such as Sulaymaniyah, the family's last home, with nearly 1 million residents.
And it is, after all, the family's culture.
Nijiar Shemdin, the U.S. representative in Washington for the Kurdistan Regional Government, which represents Kurdish interests in Iraq, understands the pull. And the conflict.
"I think it is very genuine," he said. "Kurds are loyal people. They are loyal to their friends and family and motherland."
He also understands how difficult the decision to return home can be.
"Because it depends," he said, "on what kind of life they have built for themselves and how easy it is to uproot and dislodge. Some will go back and help. Some may not go back, but help from here."
Currently, there are about 25,000 Iraqi Kurds in the United States. It is hard to calculate, Shemdin said, how many might choose to return to northern Iraq in a post-Hussein age.
Some might indeed go, he said. But most, he guesses, are remaining optimistic, but cautious, interested in how Iraqi Kurdistan will fare after Hussein. They are interested also to find out what provisions the United States and its allies will make to ensure that historic animosities between the Kurds and Turks don't billow into a conflict all its own.
So for now, like the rest of the world, the family members watch and wait, knowing that America is where they live, while Kurdistan is the home in their heart.
"Go for a visit?" Parkhy says. "Yes."
Stay?
Maybe not. But he knows one thing.
Unlike before, it just might be possible.
GRAPHIC: Photo, Aram Salihparkhy, 17, plays basketball with friends in North Kansas City. Aram and his family are Kurdish and have long dreamed of returning to their hometown of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq (shown left, in map).; Photo, Omar Parkhy (clockwise from left) and his family, in their North Kansas City home: son Aram Salihparkhy, daughter Ziryan Salihparkhy, wife Sirwa Barzinji and daughter Arazu Salihparkhy; Photo, An map of Kurdistan, which includes parts of five countries, hangs in the Parkhy home.; Photo, Aram checks power steering fluid levels while working at Jiffy Lube in Independence. The boy's income right now is paying the family bills.; SHANE KEYSER/The Kansas City Star; The Associated Press, The Kansas City Star; Sources: GlobalSecurity.org; CIA; ESRI
Copyright © 2003, The Kansas City Star Co.
