It's Friday in London and most girls and boys around my age are hitting the clubs and bars enjoying drinks and in some cases getting hold of people they just met on the dance-floor of one club or another forgetting all the details in the morning of their encounter with the stranger laying next to them in their bed or the stories their friends tell them about their behaviour the night before .
However as a Kurdish Girl who is a Muslim, and the daughter of a Father who is well known in one of the main cities of Kurdistan in Iraq I have been home since 6:15 pm after my father picked me up from the tube station near my house on my return from work. Even though I have being bought up in the UK from the age of 8 until now at 24 I have never been able to go to a club or return in the early hours in the morning from a wild night out with my friends.
I was always reminded of the fact that I am from a family that many fellow Kurdish people from our city knows and it will bring shame on our family name if I was seen by any of them. Like many other Muslim societies most things such a having boyfriends or going out at night and drinking for a woman is considered forbidden and shameful behaviours for women.But nearly all the male members of the family do carryout one or all these acts without damaging their reputation or bringing shame on the family name.
I don't mean to sound like as if I am moaning about my life or if I am deprived of anything, because I am not. My parents have always supported me financially and emotionally in every occasion and situation. I wear designer clothes, own a rather expensive gold collection as well as driving a sports car. I am simply trying to say growing up in the UK and still trying to follow the same traditions and cultures that my parents followed in Kurdistan, Iraq can be difficult at times. Even though I am a British citizen and I was grown up and graduated in the UK I still consider myself to be a Kurdish Girl from Iraq and at the same time from the UK/London.
Being Kurdish is in my blood and I am very proud of it as my people have sacrificed everything for decades to be recognised by the world and simply be accepted by the people living and ruling Iraq in the past. We are known to be the largest nation without a country. In Iraqi Kurdistan all the Kurdish areas are blessed with oil from Allah. Anyway lets not turn this to a political debate as I am not in the mood and I feel tried so I might go sleep!
