By John Davis
Special to THE DAILY

Ian Klaus will make a good historian. He is on his way, as a doctorate student of that discipline at Harvard, but perhaps more so because of the year he spent abroad teaching English and American ways to Kurds in Iraq.

In his excellent work, “Elvis is Titanic,” we see him engage his Kurdish students as a visitor from abroad who comes not to lecture as a colonialist, but to inform as a hopeful representative of democracy. He allows them free flow of ideas, first to better their English, but mostly to help them think as a free people.

This is a study of his year in Kurdistan, that northern part of the persecuted land of Iraq. Ian Klaus went there as a sort of pilgrim, for he wished to convey what is best about America to those first experiencing life under something other than a tyrant or an all-powerful government. What a year he had.

In the flush after Sept. 11, many wanted to do something. Some wanted to “fight terror” and joined the Army. Others sought to better their fellow man somehow.

Then came the invasion of Iraq by America. Klaus sought to go abroad after the invasion and teach Iraqis about cultures to be found in the West, and to instruct in some way the secular mechanisms of the modern university.

Teaching the teacher

What began as a sort of literary and English language class for students of great age differential became over time a reflection on what the democratic interchange of ideas means. Both students and teacher learned as well.

We learn for instance of his students, of Zaid, the eternal optimist who fled death squads, or Dr. Abdullah, who had fought against Iran in the ’80s.

Reactions

Others were charming, others silent. Some of the women finally spoke in his class, while one sullen Islamist student waited until the last day to denounce Klaus, America and the West for all known things, particularly hypocrisy.

He was roundly hooted down by his fellow students.

Klaus is a master of insight. He sees from the perpetrators of Sept. 11 that a secular education is not the panacea for terrorism, although draining the lack of opportunity and education in some Eastern lands is at least part of the solution.

Racism in America must be wrenched out if we are to serve as a model for the world. Our greatest authors, as his English class showed, could demonstrate more about us than all our politicians combined.

Hemingway is more powerful than a battalion, and Michael Jackson more mighty than a division.

Klaus was keen to detect how formerly oppressed people sought friendship, and why Kurds admired America so.

We are their latest hope for an independence, of sorts, in a land filled with enemies. History, culture, a media of rumors, misunderstandings and all the panoply of a foreigner meeting natives are covered in this remarkable book.

You will learn much about Kurdistan and its people, about America’s image abroad, and what we can bring when we bring our best, in this well-written and wise book.

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