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 inHalabja, 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 Halabjawith 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.
