Massoud Barzani’s Donation of Bread

Kuzhein Mahmood- Activists

Barzani’s Bread Distribution: A Contemptuous Act Echoing Marie-Antoinette’s ‘Let Them Eat Cake’

In a spectacle of political theater that could make even Marie-Antoinette blush, Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), has announced the grand gesture of donating one million loaves of bread during Ramadan. One might expect a wealthy oil-rich nation to invest in jobs, infrastructure, or even basic services, but instead, the people of Kurdistan are being tossed bread like pigeons in a public square. Is this leadership, or just a crude insult wrapped in the thin veil of charity? It is hard to decide what is more offensive: the act itself or the expectation that the Kurdish people should be grateful for receiving handouts from the very ruling elite that has stripped them of economic security in the first place.

The comparison to Marie-Antoinette’s infamous “let them eat cake” remark is almost too fitting. While the Barzani family enjoys lavish lifestyles, expensive properties abroad, and billion-dollar bank accounts, they expect the struggling Kurdish people to cheer for a few crumbs of bread. If Kurdistan’s wealth were managed with even a fraction of competence, no one would need a “million naan” initiative in the first place. Yet, under KDP rule, a region rich in oil has been reduced to a place where basic sustenance is treated as a luxury that the ruling class bestows upon the suffering masses. The real question is, where did all the oil money go? Because it certainly isn’t in the pockets of the ordinary people who now have to line up for free bread like they live in a war-torn wasteland.

Leadership is about ensuring a nation’s prosperity, not throwing breadcrumbs to a starving population while hoarding the wealth meant for them. The people of Kurdistan do not need a Ramadan publicity stunt from Barzani and his party; they need economic stability, transparency, and real leadership. No amount of free bread will distract from the reality that under the KDP’s rule, Kurdistan has become a region where the rich get richer, the poor get hungrier, and the ruling elite have the audacity to expect gratitude for their own failures. A million loaves of bread will not cleanse decades of corruption, nor will it silence the growing frustration of a people who deserve much more than the crumbs from the Barzani family’s extravagant table.