Let the Wind Take the Hat But Not Your Dignity

By Kosrat Dlshad Mohammed

There’s an old Kurdish saying: “Hold on to your hat so the wind doesn’t take it.”
To me, it’s one of the worst proverbs we’ve inherited. On the surface, it may sound like harmless advice about self-preservation. But at its core, it serves the interests of the powerful. It tells people to stay silent, keep their heads down, and look away from injustice to become passive observers in a society that desperately needs their voice.

This proverb doesn’t protect people. It isolates them. It creates a culture of fear and selfishness. It teaches people that as long as their own hat isn’t blown away, it doesn’t matter if someone else is drowning in the storm. That’s not wisdom that’s surrender.

If you study the history of developed nations, you’ll find that their progress didn’t come from silence. It came from rebellion. It came from hunger not just hunger for food, but hunger for dignity, freedom, and justice. When they were hungry, they didn’t tighten their belts and whisper old proverbs. They rose up. They demanded change.

Now look at us. For more than three decades, the people of the Kurdistan Region have lived under the shadow of two ruling families masters of plunder and manipulation. And when I say we’ve been starved, I don’t just mean by food. That’s the smallest part of the story. We’ve been starved of salaries, of water, of electricity, of access, of opportunity. We’ve been starved of freedom. We’ve been forced to face death just to reach the cities we call our own Sulaymaniyah and Erbil while our leaders build palaces and motorcades.

Yet despite all this, we’ve chosen silence. Unlike other nations that stood up against tyranny, we’ve clung to cowardly proverbs and told ourselves, “Loose lips sink ships,” or “Just hold onto your hat.”

But here’s the truth: the wind didn’t just take our hats it took our dignity, our wealth, and our humanity. While the PUK and KDP solidify their grip on every institution, the people fall deeper into apathy. A small group teachers, journalists, and activists dare to resist, and for that, they face danger every day. They are silenced, imprisoned, exiled, or killed sometimes in front of a university gate, sometimes in their mother’s arms.

The rest of society has fallen asleep.

As the poet Barez so rightly said:

Oh poor Kurdish nation, do you know why you are poor and neglected?
Because you never rebel, and you sleep through your suffering.
You are the descendants of Salahaddin and Qazi Muhammad,
Yet you live under tyranny and call it peace.
The sun of your hope has set, and still you wait in the dark.
You are silent and so, you remain without bread, without water, without air.
Your value to the government is like a dot after a comma forgotten, ignored.
And as the ancestors said: If a nation is a flock of sheep, then surely a donkey will lead them.

We have thousands of reasons to rise not in violence, but in truth, in resistance, in solidarity.
But when we choose silence, we step closer to slavery. When we bury our voices, we lose our worth.

It’s time to let the wind take the hat and stand tall with our heads uncovered.
Let it carry away our fear. Let it carry away the lies. But not our dignity.