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Inquiry & Analysis -
Iraq/Reform Project
September 7,
2005
No. 238
The
Opportunity Before Kurdistan: A New Model for a Middle East Democracy
By Dr. Nimrod
Raphaeli*
To view this
Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA23805
Writing in the
London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Iraqi columnist Khaled Al-Kishtainy
invited the Arab world to "learn about the lessons of democracy from
Iraqi Kurdistan." "At this time," wrote Al-Kishtainy in an article
titled "The Opportunity Before Kurdistan":
"While the
South [of Iraq] is stumbling in backwardness, reactionism and
sectarianism, and [while] the Center [i.e., the Sunni Triangle] is
drowning in terrorism and in-fighting, hope remains that the Kurds will
raise the banner of freedom, rationalism, and modernism not only in
Iraq but throughout greater Kurdistan and the Fertile Crescent. The
road ahead should turn Iraqi Kurdistan into a torch for enlightenment
and an oasis for freedom and democracy."
Al-Kishtainy
concluded with a call to the Kurds to "light the candle of freedom, of
rationalism and of the equality of women and their progress" before
"darkness totally engulfs Iraq" and to "serve as the light for those
who may have lost their path."(1)
Sea of Blood
In a moving
interview published in the London daily Al-Hayat, Mas'oud Barazani, one
of the two leaders of the Kurds (the other being Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani) tells of his meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1991 after the
latter's defeat in the second Gulf War. When asked in the interview
about the first thing he had said to Saddam, Barazani answered: "I told
Saddam, I have come to meet you swimming in a sea of blood."(2) He was
referring, of course, to the gassing of the Kurdish population in
Halabja, and the Anfal operation which resulted in the destruction of
thousands of Kurdish villages, the murder of many of their inhabitants,
and the forceful relocation of Kurds to other parts of Iraq, outside
Kurdistan.
The No-Fly
Zone and its Implications
The defeat of
Saddam in Kuwait in 1991 and the subsequent enforcement by the Allied
forces of the no-fly zone of Iraqi planes over Kurdistan was a turning
point in the history of modern Iraqi Kurdistan.
The no-fly
zone, followed in 1996 with 13% of oil revenues being earmarked for the
"Northern Provinces" from the proceeds of the Oil for Food program,
which was to be managed by the United Nations, turned Kurdistan into an
increasingly prosperous part of Iraq, even while the rest of the
country was descending into abject poverty. This latter tragic
development was due largely to the country's reduced resources caused
by international sanctions on Iraq, introduced in 1990 following the
invasion of Kuwait, and by Saddam's own ostentatious projects that were
meant to glorify him and his regime rather than meet the basic needs of
the Iraqi people.
The progress
that was made in Iraqi Kurdistan did not go unnoticed in the rest of
Iraq, thanks to an uncommonly vivid and detailed report on the
situation in Kurdistan that was published in the Iraqi daily Babil,
owned by Saddam's son Uday, who due to his kinship was able to publish
material which would have caused any other publisher an untold amount
of personal pain.
In the report
from Kurdistan, Babil's reporter made these observations:
"This is
supposedly an Iraqi land, but no one utters the name 'Iraq'... Here
they use cellular phones called kurdistell, they watch a Kurd TV...
Kurdistan has escaped from Baghdad's grip since the end of the 1991
war, and is protected by the American and British no-fly zone...There
are 30 registered political parties [sic]. Its people argue that they
enjoy freedom unknown to neighboring countries. Unbelievable changes
have taken place here. Imagine: Most of the children born after 1991 do
not speak Arabic... The surrounding neighboring countries of Syria,
Turkey and Iran do not wish to see [Kurdistan] as a model for their
minorities, even though they represent 23 million people - the largest
group without a state in the Middle East."
The report
concluded with this friendly advice: "Current circumstances require the
Kurds to act with caution."(3) And caution has indeed been the hallmark
of Kurdish politics - before, during, and since the invasion of Iraq in
2003.
Economic
Progress in Kurdistan
Writing from
Baghdad, BBC correspondent Caroline Hawley talks of her recent
experience arriving at the new "glass-fronted 'gateway' to the world,"
the Erbil International Airport, which received its first flights from
Dubai, Beirut and Amman. The airport was constructed on a former Iraqi
air force base which had been used to bomb the Kurds of Halabja with
chemical weapons. The economic success of Iraqi Kurdistan is apparent
in Ms. Hawley's description of "the cranes dotting the skyline" of the
city of Suleymaniya:
"Everywhere
you look, bulldozers are at work. Things are booming.... People have
money, people are spending it, they feel it's safe to spend - and to
build for the future."(4)
Most of the
new construction work is financed by Kurdish businessmen who live
abroad. The French daily Le Figaro wrote about the new supermarkets,
hospitals, restaurants and milk factories. Land, in addition to a
five-year tax holiday, has been given to investors to encourage foreign
direct investments.(5) To encourage tourism, a 28-floor luxury hotel is
being constructed in Suleymaniya, a city that has always attracted
wealthy Iraqis seeking to escape the stifling heat of Baghdadi
summers.(6)
Kurdistan
Attracts Southern Workers and Professionals
The economic
prosperity of Kurdistan and the region's relatively high safety level
have attracted many day workers and, more recently, many professionals
from the southern cities of Iraq. According to the Iraqi daily Al-Zaman:
"At dawn,
hundreds of Arabs arriving from southern Iraq congregate near a mosque
in this Kurdish city [Suleymaniya] in northern Iraq hoping to secure a
job in one of the tens of construction sites. What started 18 months
ago as a trickling of a few poor and unemployed young men looking for
jobs and escaping from violence in areas where they live has become a
torrid flood."(7)
The brain
migration from the south to the north has included highly professional
people, with doctors leading the way. It has been estimated, for
example, that 25 ophthalmologists from Basra, and numerous other
medical specialists, have established medical practices in Kurdistan.
In the last two years, 40 Arab professors have joined the University of
Sulaymaniya alone.
In Kurdish
schools, the Kurdish language dominates, and many young Kurds do not
speak Arabic, the language of the Iraqi majority. In fact, the
secondary school curriculum devotes fewer hours to the teaching of
Arabic than it does to English. For many young Kurds, the Arabic
language is identified with Saddam's oppression. The dean of the
college of languages at Salah Al-Din University in Erbil says: "For
1400 years, we were in conflict with the Arabs. Their language is the
language of the executioners [jalladoun]. English is the language of
modernity and globalization."(8) In the judgment of a teacher
of Arabic, the level of comprehension in Arabic of the Kurdish students
is quite inadequate, and very few could pass the test for the Arabic
language in their baccalaureate examination. (9)
With the shift
to the Kurdish language came a major revision in many of the history
and geography textbooks, which in the past had made no mention of
Kurdistan, let alone of the Kurdish struggle for freedom and self
determination. In short, the process of "Kurdization" is moving rapidly
and unimpeded.
Kurdistan - a
De Facto Democratic State
For all
intents and purposes, Iraqi Kurdistan has acquired most of the symbols
of sovereignty. It has its own constitution, its own parliament which
was democratically elected, a regional president and a regional prime
minister, a flag (which differs from the Iraqi national flag), a legal
code, elected local government, and an organized army known as the Pesh
Merga.
Kurdistan
maintains a secular society, with women enjoying equal rights in
government employment. They are active in politics and they have
noticeable presence in the Pesh Merga. The region is also served by
multiple satellite television channels, and the Kurdish people have
access to multiple newspapers in both Kurdish and Arabic. Indeed, an
environment of democracy and freedom appears to prevail across Iraqi
Kurdistan.
Kirkuk, the
oil-rich city which the Kurds aspire to include in their region, could
strengthen their economic base enormously. It could also provide the
means for a future deal, preferably with Turkey but possibly also with
Syria, to exchange oil for access to a port on the Mediterranean and
the rights for a flyover should Kurdistan opts for, or forced into,
independence.
The Position
about Independence
The official
Kurdish position is that an independent Kurdistan is not a viable
alternative to a federated Iraq in which Kurdistan maintains a large
degree of autonomy. While the Kurds have sought, and so far failed, to
introduce the principle of self-determination into the draft
constitution that will be submitted for referendum on October 15, the
aspirations for independence remain alive, as evidenced by a petition
signed by two million Kurds seeking such a status. However, it was
President Jalal Talabani who put the question of independence in the
perspective of realpolitik:
"The Kurds,
like all other peoples, aspire to self-determination. But facing the
reality, we [Kurds] recognize that this is not possible even if our
neighbors attack us [even] without closing the borders. [An]
independent Kurdistan cannot survive."(10)
Turkey, the
most dominant neighbor of Kurdistan, has been unambiguous in its
opposition to anything resembling independence, and has threatened
military incursion into Kurdistan if anything of this sort were to take
place. Recently, Turkey tightened the screws by declaring, "We do not
recognize a region called Kurdistan."(11) At the same time, however,
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently visited
Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in southern Turkey, where he
declared that "the Kurdish problem" could not be solved through "purely
military means." This statement led The Economist to suggest that "the
Turkish prime minister [was paving] the way for a deal with the
Kurds."(12)
* Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is
Senior Analyst of MEMRI's Middle East Economic Studies Program.
Endnotes:
(1) Al-Sharq
Al-Awsat, August 30, 2005.
(2) Al-Hayat,
November 9, 2002.
(3) Babil,
(Iraq), October 16, 2002.
(4) BBC News,
August 12, 2005.
(5) Al-Zaman,
February 15, 2005.
(6) www.portaliraq.com/news (July 15, 2005).
(7) Al-Zaman,
August 10, 2005.
(8) Al-Sharq
Al-Awsat,, May 25, 2005.
(9) Al-Zaman,
May 25, 2005.
(10) Al-Zaman,
April 14, 2005.
(11) The
statement was made by Namek Tan, the spokesman of the Turkish Foreign
Ministry, on August 31, 2005, and recorded by PUK Media on September 1,
2005.
(12) The
Economist, "Peace be unto you," August 20-26, 2005.
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