Finding Perspective in Persecution
Anything Amir Albazi encounters in the cage still seems easier than what he has endured in life. The undefeated flyweight prospect spent much of his youth fleeing persecution. Now 24, Albazi has grown accustomed to overcoming impediments, which gives him a leg up on his pursuit of personal success in mixed martial arts.
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Albazi was born and raised in Baghdad following the first Gulf War. Life there was not easy, especially for those opposed to the tyrannical government.
“My father didn’t like Saddam Hussein and the regime itself,”
Albazi said.
That dislike was likely exacerbated by the fact that Albazi and his family are of Kurdish heritage, and being Kurdish in that region of the world can be quite difficult. Sections of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq make up what is known as the unofficial nation-state of Kurdistan. It has a large and unique ethnic population that has found itself as a foreign citizen in its own lands, especially in Iraq. Kurds have been victims of persecution and outright genocide for generations in the country. No greater example exists than what is known as the Anfal Campaign (1986-89). Al Hassan al-Majid, Hussein’s cousin, led Iraqi forces in an ethnic-cleansing crusade rarely seen in human history. Nearly 100,000 Kurds are believed to have been murdered by ground offensives, aerial raids, firing squads and, worst of all, chemical weapons. Despite those atrocities being publicized to the world and a war that later decimated the Hussein regime, life as an Iraqi-Kurd did not improve for Albazi during his childhood.
“If you say something about the government,” Albazi said, “they would kill you, as simple as that.”
For his father, a businessman, and his mother, an accountant, there was only one choice to be made: They had to leave the only home they had ever known.
“That was my family’s only chance at a better life,” Albazi said.
Uprooting a family was not a simple endeavor. The Albazis ended up in Sweden but first made yearlong stops in Kurdistan and Syria. Persecution followed them during their stays.
“To be honest, it’s always been like that for me wherever I stayed,” Albazi said. “In Iraq, they saw me as Kurdish, so already there was discrimination. I moved to Kurdistan and I couldn’t speak Kurdish -- I could only speak Arabic -- so they saw me as Iraqi.”
Albazi’s family settled in Sweden when he was 9. There, he was met with a cocktail of discrimination and culture shock, and he oftentimes lashed out through violent means.
“Everything was different, from the weather to the language to the clothes people were putting on, even how people looked,” said Albazi, who lived in Sweden for 10 years. “I didn’t see any blond people [before I moved there], just on TV. That’s why I got into a lot of fights, the misunderstanding. You sit in school [and] someone is making fun of you, but you don’t have the language to actually answer him, so I had to [answer with] my hands instead.”
His competitive nature added fuel to the fire. Albazi admits he had a chip on his shoulder and sought to test himself against others.
“In school, I always wanted to challenge myself against other people,” he said, “and sometimes it didn’t turn out that good and I’d end up in fights.”
Albazi does not believe he was a troubled youth. He thinks he had too much energy and did not have a proper outlet through which to release it. Albazi was not good at soccer, basketball or most other sports the kids in his neighborhood enjoyed playing. One fateful night in his early teens, he discovered the Ultimate Fighting Championship for the first time while watching Eurosport. He was amazed at what he saw.
“What attracted me was it was so free,” Albazi said. “You could kind of do your own thing.”
He became an avid fan of the UFC and Pride Fighting Championships, growing into a devoted follower of MMA icons like Kazushi Sakuraba, Fedor Emelianenko and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Albazi had finally discovered a sport about which he could be passionate.
“When I looked at it, I knew that I was meant for that,” he said. “I told myself, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
However, when Albazi set out to find a way into the sport, he ran into hurdles, not for ethnic or religious reasons but because he was small for his age. The first gym he visited in Stockholm refused to allow him to partake in the more rigorous forms of training and steered him to Brazilian jiu-jitsu instead. Albazi begrudgingly obliged and found that grappling came naturally to him. His development was so rapid in fact that he won national and regional championships in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and no-gi grappling while he was still a teenager.
Albazi eventually started his MMA training and made his debut at the age of 15. Despite racing out to a 4-0 record while training in Sweden, he felt he needed to go elsewhere to maximize his potential as a fighter. Then 19, he traveled to England to join the London Shootfighters gym. It was a difficult move, as it represented another culture shift.
“I left everything back home, moved here, and it was like déjà vu again,” Albazi said before crediting his coaches and teammates with helping him adjust to his surroundings. “They took care of me like their own.”
In the five years he has been in England, Albazi has learned English and earned a degree in sports and exercise science. He has also grown as a fighter.
“Every day I’m getting better,” he said. “Every day I’m improving.”
London Shootfighters has become a desired destination for a number of prominent mixed martial artists, from Bellator MMA welterweight star Michael Page to Ultimate Fighting Championship veterans Mike Shipman and Galore Bofando. In possession of a sparking 11-0 record, the 24-year-old Albazi once again finds himself as a ship with no port of call. His last two appearances came under the Bellator banner, and both were decisive victories. However, the Iraqi-Swede is not currently under contract with the promotion. While willing to compete in Bellator, Cage Warriors Fighting Championship or the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts, Albazi has his sights set elsewhere.
“UFC is what I have my eyes on,” he said, eager to return to action for the first time since he submitted Iurie Bejenari with a rear-naked choke at Bellator 200. “I started this sport because I love to fight [and] I love to showcase my skills.”
Although focused on his development as a mixed martial artist, Albazi’s homeland weighs heavily on his heart. He and his family have returned to Iraq many times since they first fled the war-torn country. Visits home can be disheartening, as running water and electricity remain luxuries that are available to most for only a few hours a day.
“Every time I go there, I see the situation in Iraq is not getting better,” Albazi said. “The state is still very unstable, and there are still a lot of problems going on. It hurts me a lot to see my people like that.”
While he has become a man of the world as a citizen of two nations who speaks four languages, Albazi recently decided to honor his roots as a member of Iraq’s newly formed Brazilian jiu-jitsu national team. The experience will afford him the opportunity to represent his homeland abroad and become a major influence in one of the nation’s fastest-growing sports.
“To be honest, I get a lot more support on the Iraqi national team than on the Swedish national team,” Albazi said. “It’s different there [in Iraq]. They don’t rank MMA as high as jiu-jitsu. I hope one day I am going to be able to change that.”
