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SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq -- Persian pop songs blasting
from shops compete with Kurdish music from passing
cars. Hotel bars and restaurants are packed on the
weekends, when people take strolls through peaceful
streets.
Kurdish cities like this one in northern Iraq have
been largely immune to the kind of violence that
much of the country has suffered since the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003.
History and language differences add to Kurdistan's
contrast with the rest of Iraq - differences that
will become ever more important when a new
transitional government takes power, with the
largely secular and independence-minded Kurds
playing a major role for the first time.
The key difference between "here and there," said
columnist Hiwa Osman, is the feeling of
responsibility that Kurds have toward their cities
and towns.
"If people see a suspicious car," for instance,
"they immediately report it to the security forces,"
Osman said. "In Baghdad or other areas, there's no
sense of ownership."
Kurdistan is exempt from a nationwide emergency law
that has been in force since November. Law and order
is largely enforced here, a far cry from the chaos
that reigns in the rest of the country.
"First of all, the economic situation is better
here, so is the security situation," said Noshirwan
Mustafa, a senior official in the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, the party that controls Sulaimaniyah.
Mustafa, who studied at Baghdad University in the
1960s, said although he still loves Baghdad, it's
too risky a place to venture out unless absolutely
necessary.
Almost daily bombings, kidnappings and murders have
driven many Baghdad residents to take refuge in
Kurdistan.
Here, they find a very different culture.
Plenty of shops sell alcohol openly in Kurdistan,
unlike in Arab-populated areas where Islamic
extremists have murdered liquor vendors.
Although Saddam's army fought a ruinous 1980-1988
war against neighboring Iran, Iranian films and
music are popular among Kurdish youth. Most Kurdish
youngsters speak Persian, and many were either born
or raised in Iran while their parents were exiles
during Saddam's regime.
The recent elections, though, have brought out a
nascent Iraqi nationalism in some Kurds.
"We finally feel we are Iraqis," Osman said. "People
feel they have a new identity."
Osman said the constitution, which the new National
Assembly is tasked to draft, has to recognize that
the Kurds are different from the Arabs, if there is
to be national unity.
"We have a young professional generation - at least
a million of them - who do not speak Arabic. You
can't force them to learn Arabic to become Iraqis,"
Osman said.
Most of the younger generation never lived under
Saddam, whose genocide against the Kurds led to the
deaths of some 200,000 men, women and children. But
the hatred lingers, even among the youths who have
never felt a part of Iraq.
Still, there are signs that the young generation may
be ready to bridge the gap between Kurdistan and the
rest of Iraq.
Ninth-grader Bafrin Najib wants to learn Arabic so
she can understand the subtitles to the TV films.
She also wants to understand the language of her
fellow citizens.
"I am very sad that I don't know Arabic," she said
in English. "I went to Baghdad and I couldn't speak
a word of Arabic. We are in Iraq, we have to speak
it. We are also Iraqis, not Turkish," she said.
For 13 years since the end of the first Gulf War,
Kurds lived in a semiautonomous region under Western
aerial protection, and Kurdish language and customs
ruled.
At the very least, the Kurdish parties now want a
secular, democratic and federal Iraq that will
protect the freedoms they already have.
With their newfound clout, they may well get what
they want.
The religious, majority Shiite Muslims were by far
the biggest vote-getters in the Jan. 30 election.
But because a two-thirds majority is needed to
control the legislature, the Kurds, who make up
about 15 percent of Iraq's population, are in a
powerful position to shape a new government.
Many Sunni Arabs, who comprise an estimated 20
percent, stayed home on election day, either out of
fear of violence or to support a boycott call by
radical clerics opposed to the U.S. military.
AP
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