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Minorities reserve equal rights in
Kurdistan (Part 1)
24.3.2010
By Baqi Barzani, a longtime contributing writer for ekurd.net |
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March
24, 2010
Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arabs, Armenians
Sadly in scores of nations, failure to appreciate
and revere diversity has led to the erosion of the
rights of persons belonging to minorities, often
involving their seclusion from effectual
contribution in social, cultural, political aspects.
The expression minority often insinuates less than
half of the whole. When related to people, however,
the term does not necessarily refer to statistical
proportion. Some minority groups have more members
than the dominant group. For instance, African
Americans in the United States have formed a
majority of the population in some cities and
counties in Southern parts. Such is also the case of
the largest Christian city of “Enkawa” in Iraq.
Today, minority rights have gained greater
visibility and relevance all over the world.
Kurdistan is no exception to it being a
multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic and
multi-cultural society. Diversity of all types is
the very spirit of Kurdistan. Kurds are exceedingly
hypersensitive to states that flout minority rights
due to their own preceding history of victimization.
South Kurdistan is home to more than six million
inhabitants, mostly Kurds but also there are other
minority groups such as: Turkmen, Assyrians,
Chaldeans, Arabs, and Armenians. Kurdistan is a
Sunni-majority society, but the government is
secular. Non-Muslim and non-Kurds have coexisted in
sync with Muslim Kurds for centuries and millenniums
in harmony.
Assyrians and Jews are said to be the oldest
religious groups to live in the region known today
as Kurdistan. According to historians, [2] three
millennia ago, Assyrian used to control an empire
that extended from modern-day Syria to Turkey,
included northern Iraq and parts of Iran. Their
native language is Aramaic, which is thought to be
the language Jesus spoke. Assyrians are Christians
and belong to the Assyrian Church, a Catholic rite,
the Syriac Orthodox Church. As for the Jews, [3]
there is an ancient tradition that relates the
Kurdistani Jews as the descendants of the ten tribes
from the time of the exile of the Assyrians in the
6th century BCE. The Kurdistani Jews speak the
eastern dialect of the Neo-Aramaic language, akin to
the language of the Babylonian Talmud. According to
the Bible, after the year 722 BC Jews settled in
Mesopotamia and Media, today's Kurdistan area, the
settlement of the spread of Judaism and Jews.
Kurdistan is the birthplace of the most ancient
human civilization.
Every religious and ethnic minority in Iraq
immensely suffered during Saddam tyrannical regime.
When the sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart
between the years 2005-2008, hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi belonging to every tribe, faith and
ethnicity sought shelter in Kurdistan. Kurdistan has
transformed in to one of the most noninterventionist,
tolerant and protected heaven for the members of
minority groups, the destitute and unwaged, orphans
and internally displaced individuals. Just on the
occasion of the Kurdish New Year (Nawrooz), some
35,000 Arab families have come to spend vacations
along with their families in discrete parts of
Kurdistan. Kurdish hospitality, generosity and sense
of nursing in proportion to aliens settlers has
never gone unnoticed.
History has corroborated that despite the existence
of fundamentalist Islamism in Kurdistan, they have
scant backing among the Kurds. The vast majority of
Kurds are “cultural Muslims” rather than strict
pietists. Submission to radical Islam is therefore
generally distrusted in Kurdistan. In most Islamic
nations where “Zionism” is the worst affront in the
local fanatics’ lexicon,www.ekurd.netthe
Kurds have cultivated a peerless relationship with
the state of Israel, and they seem more or less
immune to anti-Semitism. Saddam Hussein had at
various times characterized the Kurds as “Zionist
agents” due to their lack of prejudice and affinity
to the Jewish state. With its secular authority and
moderate conformist version of Islam, Kurdistan is
even despised by radical Islamic fundamentalists.
Since 1991 Assyrians and Chaldeans have been able to
publish newspapers, run television and radio
broadcasts in their own language, and establish
their own political parties. [4]
The cultural, linguistic, national, political rights
of minority groups have been well enshrined and
guaranteed in the Kurdistani draft constitution.
There are many clauses of the constitution that
explicitly refer to this topic:
For example, Article 6 of Kurdistani constitution
states” The people of Kurdistan-Iraq consist of
Kurds and other nationalities, Turkmen, Chaldeans,
Assyrians, Armenians, and Arabs, who are citizens of
Kurdistan Region in accordance with the law”.
Article 14 further elaborates: “First: Kurdish and
Arabic shall be two official languages in Kurdistan
Region, and this Constitution guarantees the rights
of citizens of Kurdistan Region to the education of
their children in their mother-tongue languages such
as Turkmen, Assyrian, and Armenian in Kurdistan
governmental educational institutions according to
educational regulations. Second: Turkmen and
Assyrian languages are two other official languages
besides Kurdish and Arabic in the Administrative
Units densely populated by people speaking these
languages, and this shall be regulated by law”.
Article 18 touches on equal rights:” Citizens shall
be equal before law in their rights and duties
without discrimination on account of sex, race,
color, language, social origin, religion, creed,
social or economic status, or political and
ideological affiliation”.
Baqi Barzani is a
Kurdish citizen of Sought Kurdistan [Iraq]. He
advocates the notion of " establishing an
independent Kurdish state". He contributes to
various Kurdish media outlets, especially ekurd.net.
Copyright © 2010 ekurd.net. All rights reserved
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