Kurdish restaurateur lives the American dream, fears for those left behind

Friday, June 27, 2014, Vol. 38, No. 26

After double-checking the 25 half-pound lamb shanks roasting at 500 degrees for five hours, Hikmat Gazi steps from the Shish Kabob kitchen, eyes growing fierce as he sits down to attack jihadists.

“There is no way in hell any religion says you will have breakfast with God if you blow yourself up and kill children,” says this devout Muslim, who believes the recruiting method of promising willing virgins in the afterlife for those who kill themselves and others in God’s name is so much lamb dung.

Hikmat, 35, has been a Nashville resident since Saddam’s chemical weapons unleashed on the relatively peaceful people of Kurdistan and chased his family from their hometown of Dohouk.

His family found sanctuary in Turkish refugee camps before earning sponsorship and transport to Nashville, now home to “between 14,000 and 17,000” Kurdish refugees, he says. “And I don’t know how many Arabic Iraqis live here.”

While he retains ties to his homeland, there is no doubt Hikmat is proud of being a U.S. citizen on the pathway of the American dream.

The seeds to his career were planted when he worked in restaurants during his Hillsboro High School years. It wasn’t long before he became his own boss.

“This is my fifth restaurant,” Hikmat says, scanning his surroundings while Algeria and Belgium tussle for a World Cup victory on the flat screen above his shoulder.

“I love to cook,” says the young man who has carved out a successful Nashville lifestyle by opening, developing and selling restaurants and grocery markets catering to lifelong locals, as well as Kurds and other Iraqi refugees.

Religious fanaticism belongs neither in his restaurant nor in his world.

“Kurdish are about 45-50 percent Christian, the rest Muslim,” he says as a pair of extremely Southern businessmen hash out a business deal over succulent skewers loaded with lamb.

To step into Shish Kabob, in a nondescript strip mall on Nolensville Pike, is to emerge by accident into what could pass for the set of an Indiana Jones movie.

Ouds, buzuqs, santars and other exotic instruments fill the sound system with Middle Eastern comfort music, ideal accompaniment for dining in the darkened, plush interior. Music of home for Hikmat.

The American Baby Boomer, though, is carried by the tunes to the narrow alleyways where Indy met that murderous monkey.

The Persian music also brings to mind’s ear the 5½-decades-back giggly playground trifle: “There’s a place in France where the women wear no pants….” sung to a Looney Tunes version of the music of the desert.

“I may open another Persian restaurant in another year or so out near Brentwood or Franklin,” Hikmat says. “I have many, many customers out there.”

He climbs from his chair to check on the gentlemen who are wrapping up their lunch at a table near a trio of wooden camels.

“Thanks for coming. See you next time,” Hikmat tells the gents who step from this oasis of comfort into the hot-tar-and-exhaust-scented swelter of vehicles whooshing past 4651 Nolensville Road, in the heart of Little Kurdistan.

“In America, the No. 1 thing is customer service if you want to be successful,” Hikmat volunteers after the men leave. “You have to be like a fisherman and catch customers.”

This fisher of men, who warmly appreciates the patronage, excuses himself briefly to again check on the progress of the lamb shanks. “My chef is coming in late,” he semi apologizes.

“I like people,” Hikmat says. He’s especially fond of those who find their ways beneath the giant Shish Kabob cutout on the storefront and seek out his trademark tender lamb, beef – or both – on skewers.

While he loves his customers, he loathes the many thousands of Iraqis and imported terrorists engaged in bloody warfare in Mosul. In Baghdad. In so many places where George W. Bush’s war on Saddam played out live on TV to the delight of Americans who watched it like a sporting event, cheering the toppling of statues of the dictator much like they’d react to a 43-yard field goal with time expiring.

“They kill each other for religion. Makes no sense,” he says of the Shia and Sunni factions, as well as the terrorist group ISIS and others who have found killing contagious.

“It is quiet in Northern Iraq, Kurdistan,” Hikmat says, although there have been terrorist actions in that region.

For the most part, Kurdistan has been free of the violence that has crushed – or at least sent like a band on the run – the democracy that was heralded with “Mission Accomplished” bravado all those years ago.

Hikmat is not totally divorced from the situation in his homeland. He operated a construction company there until last year when he sold it.

He also went “home” to help his fellow countrymen – the American GIs – during the Bush war and occupation.

A civil service contractor, he worked for the Department of Defense, employing language and cultural knowledge to help American troops.

“There is a big difference between Iraq and what the soldiers were used to,” he says, explaining his reason for signing up for three years duty from 2005-2008.

“I was a GS-12, but I went out with the Army on missions. I would help with screening and interrogating.

“When they would catch these bad guys and bring them to the base, we got them to tell us their plans. A lot of the bad guys wanted to blow themselves up.”

He remembers vividly an incident near the Iraq-Syrian border in which one of “these bad guys, with TNT around his stomach” was primed and ready to explode, killing American soldiers at a checkpoint and ‘‘assuring” his ticket to a heaven filled with comely virgins for afterlife delights.

“They shot him before he blew himself up,” he says. “They had figured out what was going on.”

The gentle chef – “Back when I was with the Army, I’d cook for them every Thursday” – can’t fathom the extremist “Islamist” mindset.

“They are not human beings. They are animals. Worse than animals. Who else blows themselves up to kill children?

“They think they are doing it for God. It doesn’t make any sense to me. If I want to kill somebody, I’d just kill him and then run. I wouldn’t kill myself, too.” His laughter is dosed with the bleakness of that deadly daily Middle Eastern reality

A gentle stream of customers escapes Nolensville traffic hell and exchanges happy greetings with the restaurateur. Many of them watch the soccer game (as endless as most) flickering on the big-screen TV.

While the waitress takes the orders, Hikmat once more talks about the tragedy in Iraq.

“I knew it was going to happen. It always does. I’ve seen it happen one time, two times, three times. It will stay quiet for awhile, then it will happen again. It’s about religion.

“I only feel sorry for the innocent childrens and womens,” he says, describing TV pictures of mass executions of peaceful Iraqi civilians “who maybe was going to the mall and they get lined up and killed. If you are not an animal, you would not do that.”

Here, in his adopted homeland, politicians and disgruntled generals push a “boots on the ground” philosophy to “reclaim” the democracy. It’s already trickling in that direction.

Hikmat disagrees. Talk is cheap. People aren’t. The Bush war to kill Sadam “was just a waste of time. It was sad to have all those American troops die for no reason; leave their mothers and fathers and families, their childrens back here.

“All those soldiers died and the economy went like this,” he says, illustrating by pinching out all air between his index finger and thumb.

“The best thing would be, if the U.S. wants to help Iraq now, is (air) strikes….They don’t need to put soldiers there and lose another 10,000 for a country that will never, ever be peaceful.”

The lamb is almost done roasting as evening rush at Shish Kabob grows near, when conversation about hunger, satisfaction, soccer and war, will be uttered in a variety of tongues.

“I love the restaurant business,” says the former Army translator, escorting the tired Baby Boomer to the door.

“Tomorrow will be better than today,” he says, an optimism that fuels his passion for keeping lamb shanks in the oven.