On May 3rd, The Action Group (TAG) at AUIS hosted their first seminar, “Social Injustice: towards problematising inequality”, featuring Dr. Mariwan Kanie as the keynote speaker and the musician and singer Tara Jaff. During the seminar students also presented their own research findings.
The Action Group (TAG) is a student club at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), founded and supervised by Dr. Choman Hardi, assistant professor of English literature. The group draws on the energy, ideas and initiatives of students for the good of the community. It aims to engage with a wide range of issues including injustice, social inequalities and environmental pollution. It thrives to establish firmer links between AUIS and the wider community through conducting research, facilitating workshops, taking joined actions, organizing conferences and exhibitions, and producing short films to disseminate the ideas within AUIS and the larger community.
The group's inaugural meeting was on February 27, 2015 in which the beloved Kurdish singer Bahjat Yahya spoke to students about the importance of getting involved in democratising society. Student musicians Harem Jaafer and Botan Abdullah also took part in the event.
On May 3, 2015 TAG hosted its first seminar, “Social Injustice: towards problematising inequality”, featuring Dr. Mariwan Kanie as the keynote speaker and the musician and singerTara Jaff. Dr. Kanie’s talk focused on “Rethinking Roots of Rising Violence against Women in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.” He is a Kurdish intellectual, writer, and political scientist. He teaches in the department of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Jewish studies at the Amsterdam University in Netherlands.
During the seminar TAG members also presented their own research findings. Students Ahmed Yousef, Biryar Bahhaalddin and Aska Osman discussed “Women Members of the Kurdistan Parliament and Gender Equality”; Rushdi Burhan spoke about “Men's Perception of Women and Inequalities,” and Hero Rfaat and Amez Hiwa addressed “The Phenomenon of Begging in the City of Sulaimai”.
TAG also presented their first short film on gender equality at the event. The film was created by student Berzy Behzad with support from Shko Shwan, Dastan Sabah, Haarem Jaafer, and Dr. Hardi. “The purpose of the video is to send out a positive message to our community that being a father of girl(s) is a blessing, not a curse; this is to fight the phenomenon that boys are generally favored over girls in our society. Our group's vision is to advocate equality between both genders,” said Behzad, about the film.
The seminar ended with a melodious performance on the celtic harp by renowned Kurdish musician, Tara Jaff. She mostly played her own compositions and also talked about discovering her passion for music, and her challenging journey towards becoming what she calls a “traveling artist”.
Dr. Hardi explained the idea behind the creation and purpose of TAG: “The idea developed in the last weeks of the Gender, Media and Society course where we discussed possible ways to challenge inequality in our social environment,” she said, “It was also given space when we studied The Handmaid’s Tale as part of the ENG 102 course. In the novel Offred, like many others, ignored the growing injustices around her and she focused on her own personal happiness. This resulted in the rise of dictatorship in her land. Unlike Offred, we don’t want to be passive and let our world give into injustice, inequality and radicalism. We want to “problematise” the inequalities that are seen as normal (to use Bourdieu’s words) and move towards creating an egalitarian society where people are treated as equal citizens regardless of their gender, ethnicity and religious background.”