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Houzan: Well,
it's a difficult one. It's not an easy task. It's a
very, very difficult and dangerous battle in my
opinion. Our alternative is for returning the power
of people to have a say and choice and direct
intervention into setting up any kind of society.
We believe in, secularism, equality between men and
women, abolishment of capital punishment, freedom of
expression, freedom of thought, freedom of protest
and strikes, labor rights, worker's rights. In our
program, if the Kurdish people want independence,
they should be able to. They have the right to
determine this by themselves, not to have this
dictated upon them by political parties.
BW: And yet, you oppose the Kurdish
nationalist parties.
Houzan:: Yes,
because the Kurdish nationalist parties are using
the issue of Kurdistan. I'm from there, and I know
that the majority of Kurdish people want
independence, they don't want to be part of Iraq
anymore—because they have suffered so much ethnic
cleansing and oppression, and it's always a threat.
Now, the Shiites in power just say Iraq is a Muslim
country, Iraq is an Arab country—so when you say
that, of course, Kurdish people will feel
threatened, because that's exactly the same
statement that Saddam was making: Iraq is an Arab
country. So all the others are second-class
citizens.
People don't want to go back to that, because in
1991, when the uprising took place, a lot of people
were killed. It was a big uprising, with so many
people sacrificing their lives just to be freed from
Saddam.
BW: And this is a cycle that had just
repeated itself for the past 20 years before that in
Iraq. There was the campaign against the Kurds in
1988 and then in the 1970's as well.
Houzan: So,
yeah, that is one of the IFC's programs as well. If
we manage to get into power, the Kurdish question
needs to be solved.
BW: But do you see the potential for some
kind of solution short of separatism for Kurdistan?
You say, in fact, that you oppose a federalist
solution for Iraq and that you prefer to see it as a
unitary state.
Houzan:
Federalism is a reactionary solution. Because that
means that [local authorities] in their own areas
can do whatever they want. If the Sunnis have their
own area, the Shiites to have their own space, and
Kurds in the North, they can just carry on with
oppression of women, or killing workers, and killing
socialists and activists, and just carry on with
Islamic Sharia law and say, well, this is my culture
and this is my area.
I'm not for that, I'm against it. In my opinion, the
best solution is to have a secular, egalitarian
state system, whereby people—everybody, every person
in Iraq—are considered equal citizens regardless of
whatever their origins are. Then people will not
feel so much degraded. You are not divided or
classified as a second-class citizen because you are
Sunni, or because you are Shiite you have more
power. This is the problem, this is what creates
inequality and problems.
BW: OK, so you do see the potential for a
solution for Kurdistan short of secession.
Houzan: Well,
with this current setting, in this puppet regime,
there's no solution at all, and people are always
threatened. There's a lot of protests in the North,
in Kurdistan, and people are really angry...
BW: Big protests in Halabja recently, against
the Kurdish nationalist parties which are in power
there...
Houzan: Exactly.
They are very unhappy with the way they are dealing
with the issues of Kurdistan and using the
oppression of Kurds just to stay in power. So I
don't see any solutions with them. They have never
represented the desires of Kurdish people anyway.
BW: But it the IFC achieves its aim of a
secular state, you believe in the possibility that
the state could include areas in the North?
Houzan: Yeah,
but there should not be any force to keep them in
Iraq. They just have to go ahead with it, and have a
free referendum for the independence of Kurdistan.
And that's what I think is the best solution,
basically.
Transcription by Melissa Jameson
www.ww4report.com
http://www.ww4report.com/node/1798
- Full Interview
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