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A Visit to Iraqi Kurdistan
6.5.2008
By Dr. Eyad Harfoush
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May 6, 2008
I had a gratifying expedience to visit Iraqi
Kurdistan during a business trip, throughout which I
had a relatively embellished opportunity to
materialize factuality and get encompassed with
realities of Kurdistan region particularly and Iraqi
affairs collectively. Benchmarked on the insights I
had from readings and outside brooding, I had some
of my previous assumptions confirmed and many others
altered and changed.
Asserted Contentions:
The inflammation on Iraq ground now, while being
conducted through Iraqi hands, is highly curried,
supported and financed by exterior forces, US, Saudi
Arabia, and Iran being on top of the list. While the
internal conflict benefits the states through
exhausting the Iraqi bullets into Iraqi flesh, in
the stead of using it to resist occupation. For
Iran, Iraqi land became the soft belly wherein they
can agonize Americans to decrease the international
pressures resulting from the Iranian nuclear
activities. Moreover, the foundation of a Shiites'
state alongside the west shores of Iran will offer a
strategic friendly horizon. Finally the Saud family
worst dream has been always to see the Eastern zone
Shiites revolting and dominating over the oil rich
zone of the kingdom. Foundation of a Shiites' state
in Iraq will be a triggering and a supportive
element to the Shiites tribes in Saudi, who suffers
oppression despite the whole kingdom is financed
through the oil in their territories.
Ethnic, political and religious figureheads and
barons are the inflaming fuel of the masses, each
for his very own agenda of ambitions and glories.
The political breach now in Iraq is overwhelming the
local leaders to seek boundary spanning. For the
simple man in the streets, like everywhere in the
world, he is seeking security and basic needs´
satiation for his family and himself. Nonetheless,
he can not help being a part of the uproar whenever
his herd is altered, as explained by the herd
leader, only as well as every simple man in the
world too.
Whatever is going-on is a common blameworthiness for
both Saddam and Baath regimen on one hand and USA
with the rightist gang on the other hand. While
Saddam system sinned ignoring and inhibiting the
diversity of a harlequin society, harboring
different ethnicities, Arabic, Kurdish, Turkmen and
Assyrian. Plus a diversified religious profile
including Shiites,www.ekurd.net
Sunnites, Chaldean
Catholics, Syriac Orthodox and minorities of
Mandaeism, Baha´ais, Shabak and Yezidism also
exists. Absolute ignorance of such a highly
diversity together with oppressions being drove by
the ethnic and religious belonging of Saddam, who
was an Arab and Sunnite, amplified the gap of
mistrust between the mosaic elements, and inflamed
hatred among individuals as well as groups. When the
US blinded tirade broke the oppression bung with the
fallen Ba´ath regimen, without even knowing enough
about the mosaic composition of the nation, they
granted an opportunity to both hatred and influence
lust to unleash its evils, resulting in the cloudy
blood bath we all see today.
While I grasp the motives of the initial coalition
between Peshmerga and US invasion forces in 2003, a
thing that gathered PUK and KDP forces to work
together, maybe for the first time in their history,
my trip did not give me any justification to the
extended alliance with the invasion army of USA.
Letting go of a totalitarian through a coalition
with an invader with his eyes kept on the national
wealth of Iraq, I do not see as a good move
politically, leave alone its ethical constrains.
Altered Contentions:
Kurds represented in some of their intellectual
elite are showing limited interest in furthering the
self-governance autonomy they have today into an
independent state. This altered my previous belief
of the Kurdish everlasting strive for a pan-Kurdish
state. However, this is not necessarily reflecting
the standpoint of Kurdish masses. Elite is elite,
and if mankind followed the knowledgeable elites
pathways from Socrates down to the present time,
life would have been very different.
The pleasurable feeling I had among the Kurdish
partners over there exceeded my apprehensions; it
turned the talks about Kurdish allergy and
prejudicial antipathy toward Arabs to be
blasphemous. I witnessed a genuine hospitality and
embracing attitude that goes beyond the business
protocols to express an outgoing extroverted
personality of the Kurds. Apart from our friends
there, walking in the streets, talking to people in
Arabic, I felt no xenophobic manner at all. I am
sure there must be some ethnic zealots, like
everywhere in the world, nonetheless, I can affirm
they are not the masses of Kurds.
The security and normal life flow in Kurdistan,
apart from the troubles in the middle zone and the
tension in the south exceeded my expectations and
turned any cautions we through about before the trip
to be meaningless.
Swayed by the views of Peshmerga forces, I was
prepared to meet fundamentalist Shafi´i Sunnites,
this was the most false expectation I had. Kurdistan
is a country that is well prepared through its
intellectual elite to be a secular state.
The level of dedication of Kurdish youth to their
self-governed region was surprisingly high. The
degree of eagerness with which the traffic police
and the security forces operates shows something
beyond fulfilling a duty, it can be only expressed
as categorical loyalty.
However, this should not at all distract us from the
urging risk of extended civil war in Iraq, a thing
that will limit the chances of one unified Iraq,
giving a wider room for tribalists and communalists
to seed more and more hatred very deep in the
masses. While coming back from my visit to Iraq, I
found my head exploring the possible actions that
can represent a road map out of today's maze,
something that can be conducted if, and only if,
someone overthere is still caring for unity more
than personal agendas. I found myself fantasizing
about a new Iraq, under a slogan of "Prosperous
Unity...Esteemed Diversity". A scenario that
capitalizes more and more on the intellectual,
civilian and business elite more than the
conventional tribal and religious leaders who took
Iraq to what it is today. This we shall discuss in
the coming article.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
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