LONDON - Ibrahim Dogus, a businessman, community activist and the man behind the British Kebab Awards, has his sights set on becoming the second-ever Kurdish member of the British Parliament.
A long-time activist for the opposition Labour party, he told Rudaw he was preparing to campaign to become the party’s candidate for the Enfield Southgate constituency in north London in the next general election in May 2015.
He should know in the next few months if he is the candidate, he said in an interview at his restaurant, Troia, near the giant London Eye ferris wheel on the South Bank. “My priorities are the NHS (National Health Service), young people, small businesses and care of the elderly.”
On foreign policy, he said he believed Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, made the “right call” in opposing military intervention in Syria.
I was on the edge of quitting university, but then people would have said I failed because of politics so I thought it was my responsibility to complete the course. 
If Dogus is elected to the House of Commons, he will join fellow Kurd Nadhim Zahawi, who was born in Baghdad and is a member of the Conservative party that currently governs Britain in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
Dogus was born in Turkey and moved to London with his family when he was 14 in 1994. He had a long struggle to successfully integrate into British life and become the confident leader he is today.
Barely speaking any English, he failed his school exams. “I had to leave my first school because of bullying. The other kids thought I was dumb," he recalled.
Eventually, he got through school and earned an undergraduate degree in politics at the University of Greenwich. This was when he became involved in local community organizing.
“My community work along with working evenings in a restaurant in Mayfair meant I wasn’t studying full-time,” he said. “I was on the edge of quitting university, but then people would have said I failed because of politics so I thought it was my responsibility to complete the course.”
He then set up Troia, whose Middle Eastern fare has proved highly successful at its central London location close to much tourist traffic, before doing a masters degree in international studies and diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
He maintained his political activities throughout. They included founding the first UK-based newspaper in Turkish and Kurdish called “Telgraf,” which sold 25,000 copies a week.
He also supported local authorities in their efforts to encourage active social participation and citizenship amongst Turkish, Turkish-Cypriot and Kurdish communities. In addition he tried to help entrepreneurs by building bridges between corporations, small and mid-size companies and community representatives.
He has worked to encourage more members of the Kurdish community to join the Labour party across London and rejected suggestions they joined simply to support his bid for the candidacy.
He says he is well-placed to understand the frustrations and difficulties of young Kurdish-Britons who may be having an “identity crisis”.
“The first generation of Kurdish immigrants had a lot of problems and was stuck in their own small community. They ran their own small businesses because they weren’t fully engaged or felt they weren’t part of a bigger picture,” he said. “Many young people now have an identity crisis and are under-achieving in schools. There are a lot of issues like gangs, prison, and suicide. Part of the problem is their parents are from one culture and they are part of another one.”
But he was optimistic the situation would improve and looked to the experience of previous waves of immigrants such as South Asians and Jews who eventually integrated successfully.
He says he is well-placed to understand the frustrations and difficulties of young Kurdish-Britons who may be having an “identity crisis”
He calculated the Kurdish community in the UK to be about 250,000 strong. Part of the problem in calculating an exact number lies in the fact that in a censuses people identify themselves differently, for example, Turkish-born or British. “Lots of kids don’t see any benefits in being seen as Kurdish,” said Dogus.
In 2011, he set up the Centre for Turkey Studies, which organizes talks, panel discussions and events in Parliament, at think tanks and academic institutions. The Centre is run with the help of volunteers.
Dogus hopes that the current stalemate in Turkish-Kurdish peace talks will be overcome and supports the Labour party’s policy of moving forward in talks on Turkey’s bid for membership of the European Union.
Married with one son, Dogus is also busy with his business activities, which have expanded to include an Italian restaurant, a wholesale company, and a recycling company.
Last year, he also organized the first ever British Kebab Awards after being inspired by a similar organization that promoted the best of Indian food in Britain.
“The majority of kebab restaurants are run by Kurds from Turkey even though they might be advertised as Turkish or even Lebanese, rather like many Indian restaurants are actually run by Bangladeshis” said Dogus.
