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Kirk Johnson to Receive the “= ;CHS Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement”

 

On Saturday, October = 11th Kirk Johnson will be honored as the first recipient of the CHS Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement.&= nbsp; Kirk, a 1998 CHS graduate, will be recognized at the Homecoming week= -end Gala Event sponsored by the CHS Education Foundation. This event will be he= ld at the Holiday Inn in Carol Stream at 7p.m.  The Class of 1998 will = also host their ten year reunion at this event.

 

If you are interested= in attending please call the Education Foundation at (630)876-6242.=

 

Kirk Johnson is an extraordinary humanitarian, an Arabist and expert on Near Eastern Languages= and civilizations.  When the United States entered Iraq in March 2003, Kirk want= ed to help establish democratic institutions and aid beleaguered civilians.  By 2005, Johnson was serving Baghdad and Fallu= jah as regional reconstruction coordinator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  In this service to his country Johnson worked with Iraqi citizens who bravely served alongside our American troops and USAID workers translating = and providing information, expertise and protection.  These courageous Iraqis were fully screened and vetted by the U.S. government and given security clearance in and out of the Green zones to do their work.  These Iraqi ‘fixers’ as the U.S. troops called them, were labeled ‘co= nspirators’ and ‘collaborators’ by some of their fellow Iraqi citizens.  These translators were hunted down, kidnapped, threatened with death and chased out of the country.  Kirk decided to help those who had protected him and thousands of our troops and workers.  Kirk is working on the U.S. government to protect those who prote= cted us by issuing them visas for sanctuary in the U.S.  Only approximately 500 Iraqis have= been admitted into the U.= S.  These translators are the most hun= ted class in Iraq.  The lethal stigma they bear as ‘collaborators’ transcends sect or tribe and they are being systematically targeted for assassination.=  

 

In 2007 Kirk Johnson = founded The List Project, a U.S. non-profit with the belief that the United = States government has a clear and urgent moral obligation to resettle to safety Ir= aqis who are imperiled due to their affiliation with the United States of America.  Kirk’s work with The List Pr= oject has been featured on Sixty Minutes, in New Yorker Magazine, the Sunday New = York Times and is the subject of an Off-Broadway play.  The play entitled ‘Betrayed&= #8217; won the prestigious 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play.  Johnson has testified before Congr= ess several times.  Kirk’s parents, = Former State Representative Tom Johnson and Ginger Johnson, are housing the first = two persons on The List.

 

Kirk’s interest= in the Middle East was initially sparked by a trip to Egypt with his grandmother du= ring his sophomore year of high school.  She considered travel to be the best form of education and tried to = take each of her grandchildren on an international trip. When they returned he b= egan studying Egyptology, first on his own and then at adult education classes at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.  During his junior year he studied = Arabic at College of DuPage, then later with a private tutor at the Egyptian consulate in Chicago.

 

After graduating from Community High School District 94 in West Chicago, Kirk returned to Egypt to study Arabic at the Arabic Langua= ge Institute in Cairo<= /st1:place>.  He then enrolled at, and graduated= from, the University of Chicago.  His honor’s thesis was on the History of Political Islam in Egypt.

 

As a Fulbright Schola= r he studied a trend in political Islam, that of Islamic pulp literature.  “Books of this sort abound t= hrough the Middle East,” he said.  “You find them piled up on sidewalks, at gas stations and around fruit and vegetable stands.  They usually cost about 50 cents e= ach.  These are considered the most wide= ly sold books in the Middle East, although = little research has been done on what these books are saying.  They’re written by mechanics= , taxi drivers, college students, general laymen.=   For fifty dollars you can print a few hundred copies of your own political or religious treatise.”

 

According to Johnson = most of the books are written in simple Arabic and deal with issues of death and th= e Day of Judgment, Ame= rica and the Middle East, Islam and other fai= ths, and relationships between women and men.&n= bsp; He worked on a systemic categorization of the types of books and the= n on the themes and trends within the writing.&= nbsp; Kirk states “At the same time I am meeting with authors and political figures who I studied while in the university, in efforts to deep= en my own understanding of this powerful political trend that defies any simplifications.”

 

In addition to his re= search Johnson worked as a volunteer for the New York Times Middle East Bureau translating articles and op-ed pieces.