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Kurdistan Region, Iraq's north is a beacon
of hope
29.12.2006
By CASSANDRA GROCE |
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December 29, 2006
The British and
Foreign Commonwealth office changed its advice
against all but essential travel to a section of
Iraq on Dec. 23.
The Kurdish Regional Government-controlled provinces
are now safe for travel, according to the KRG Web
site. You won’t find Kurdistan on any map of the
Middle East, yet you can ask any Iraqi where
Kurdistan is and he or she will point to the
northern part of Iraq.
The three provinces in Iraq that make up the largest
portion of heavily Kurdish populated areas are Dohuk,
Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.
Seven parents of soldiers who were lost in Iraq
recently visited the KRG portion of the country,
approximately a month before this amendment, in
order to better understand Iraq and for closure over
their children’s death.
The parents were picked through a nonprofit
organization called Move America Forward. The trip
was done in secrecy and the KRG helped orchestrate
it.
I understand the families desire for closure and
wanting to understand Iraq. I spent a year there and
I still would like to understand some of the people.
I sympathize with their loss and I think it is
wonderful to visit the Kurdish provinces — they have
a history of fighting for freedom that could echo
our own, the countrymen without a country.
However, “Kurdistan” is like day and night in Iraq
(they even have a Web site entitled “the Other
Iraq”).
A lot of Kurds in the Iraq Army wear the Kurdish
flag on their shoulder instead of the Iraq flag,
much to the disdain of not only our military forces,
but their own command. However, no matter how
frequently they are told to remove their patches,
they still sneak them back on.
Perhaps their stability, their passion and their
desire to see Iraq succeed stems from being one of
the most oppressed groups under the Saddam Hussein
regime.
A lot of the families expressed frustration over the
media’s lack of attention to this area of Iraq — in
fact I didn’t know that area was declared safe for
travel until I started this editorial.
The media does focus purely on the desolation of the
rest of Iraq and completely blows over Iraq’s hope —
the northern provinces. But perhaps that is because
the Kurdish nation makes up a minority of Iraq and
many Sunni and Shi’a tribes really don’t care about
them, which has been their story for centuries.
Perhaps the most beautiful piece of human
understanding is when people from opposite
hemispheres, with different cultures, religions and
philosophies can connect with each other. |
Erbil - Hewler (Kurdistan region (Iraq)
Nature in Kurdistan
Sulaimaniyah city, Kurdistan region (Iraq)
Photos: eKURD.NET |
In the case of the families that traveled to
Kurdistan, they found that. In one outlying village
they met a woman who took a photograph of one of the
slain soldiers and put it with a framed picture of
her own two sons and husband that were killed during
Saddam’s rule.
“Now your son is my son,” she told the family. This
kind of understanding however, seems to be
completely lost between even some of the Shi’a and
Sunni who live in the same 100 mile radius.
I and some of the soldiers I worked with use to
always joke that we should give the country to the
Kurdish people because then we would have a stable
political government, however that probably won’t
happen.
Until the Sunni and Shi’a learn to play nicely
together, there will constantly be civil unrest in
the region to the detriment of not only their own
society, but ours as well.
I hope future families who make the pilgrimage to
Iraq understand that while Kurdistan is a shining
beacon of hope for a stable Iraq, this beacon is
greatly dimmed once you travel a few miles south.
glasgowdailytimes com
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