The NYT on "Kurdistan."
January 22, 2003
Dreams of a Kurdish State Die Down, at Least for Now
By C. J. CHIVERS
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Jan. 21, A common and curious sight in northern Iraq is a glossy color map about the size of a doormat on display in many homes and on sale in every bazaar.
The map defines a territory beginning at the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea and extending east, north and south, ending more than 200 miles inside Iran. Its name is "Kurdistan," the limits of a land claim spanning large parts of four nations.
It is also the name of a fifth nation, which does not exist.
Since this region's borders were drawn by Europeans after World War I, Kurds have struggled to shrug off the governments of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, hoping to achieve a nation of their own. They have never succeeded.
Throughout this period, no group of Kurds has come as close to this dream as the roughly 4 million Kurds of northern Iraq, who have been living an experiment in self-rule since an uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
Now, just as Iraqi Kurds sense Washington's growing momentum to unseat Mr. Hussein and to rearrange the region's political shape, this central ambition of Kurdish political life ? the notion of a greater Kurdistan ? has been withdrawn.
Kurdish political leaders in Iraq have almost unanimously embraced neither nationalism nor independence, but the idea of incorporating Kurds into a democratic, federal Iraq. In public life here, independence is passé. Federalism and Iraqi citizenship are in vogue.
Whether this new vision means Kurdish leaders have truly forsaken the statehood goal is unclear. Some admit it is partly a strategy of convenience to gain favor with the United States and perhaps push for independence at some undefined point after Mr. Hussein has been removed from power. Others worry that seeking independence now could incite such strong objections from Iraq's neighbors that it would be doomed to failure.
"One of the ironies of our lives in free Iraq is that this experience has taught Kurds to be realistic about their nationalism," said Dr. Barham Salih, prime minister of the eastern portion of the Iraqi Kurdish zone. "We want to be part of Iraq and to live as Iraqis. This is part self-confidence, and part political maturation."
Of a greater Kurdistan, that large territory on the nationalist map, he added that Iraqi Kurdish leaders now eschew "maximalist adventures."
How the large Kurdish populations in neighboring countries feel about this shift among Kurds in Iraq is unclear; there have been no significant discussions between them. Estimates of the total number of Kurds vary widely, but it is thought that less than 20 percent live in northern Iraq.
It is clear that within the self-governing territory, the notion of nationhood, long an organizing principle of Kurdish resistance, has assumed the character of a dream deferred.
"We will have a kind of national identity within the framework of a state," said Jalal Talabani, a former nationalist rebel and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls the eastern Kurdish zone. "We will have a homeland in the framework of Iraq."
Kurdish officials admit privately that they have been under pressure from the United States to tone down nationalist rhetoric in order to be part of the American-led effort against Mr. Hussein. In this climate, support for federalism and Iraqi citizenship is a pragmatic stance.
"When you talk about yourself as a Kurd, others can accuse you of being a separatist, an agent of a foreign power or someone who seeks the destruction of an Arabian state," said Safwat Rashid Sidqi, an advocate for the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization and a supporter of federalism. "If you talk about yourself as an Iraqi, they cannot challenge you."
Every Kurd wants independence, he said, but people must also take stock of the world. "We should learn from history," he said. "If Palestinians accepted the division of Palestine in 1948, they would be a well-established state, and the lives of thousands and thousands of Palestinians would have been saved, along with their properties and resources."
Kurdish leaders here are now calling on Iraqi Kurds to participate in a post-Hussein democracy, with a degree of regional autonomy over areas where Kurds have traditionally lived, but also with a role in a national authority in Baghdad.
The plan for federalism is still an abstraction, not yet clearly defined, and it remains to be seen how it would be accepted by the roughly 19 million Iraqis still under Mr. Hussein's rule. But in its roughest sense, it means that regions of Iraq now in Kurdish control would be organized into something like American states, with their own budgets, rights and powers, while subordinating themselves to the larger republic and its rule of law.
Kurdish leaders, whose tribes and parties have suffered miserably under Baghdad dictatorships, describe federalism as a means to distribute government powers, safeguarding against a repeat of past abuses by Arab rulers, while ensuring a Kurdish stake in the potential benefits of Iraq's future.
"All of the successive regimes in Iraq have fought us, and they have oppressed our people," said Nerchervan Barzani, prime minister of the western side of the Kurdish zone, controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Strong regional powers are regarded as necessary, given Iraq's demographics, because Kurds, estimated to be about 20 percent of the Iraq's 23 million people, are unlikely ever to achieve a majority in Iraq. If democracy were established, the majority role would most likely be played by Arab Shiites, thought to comprise 50 percent to 65 percent of the Iraqi population.
The ambition of federalism, first expressed in a Kurdish parliamentary vote in 1992 and reaffirmed in a vote last October, as well as in the recent Iraqi opposition conference in London, is a compromise rooted in a calculated game.
Since breaking from Mr. Hussein's rule, Kurds here have had a taste of self-determination. They have created their own newspapers and television stations, schools and mobile phone networks, police forces and armies, Parliament and government ministries. Kurds have rebuilt many of the more than 4,000 villages Mr. Hussein had razed. In their cities, they have opened Internet cafes.
It is an imperfect system, dependent on United Nations aid and American military protection, and largely dominated by two autocratic parties that rule in part through a system rife with patronage and fealty. Human rights conditions, while improving, have at times been bad. Corruption persists.
Still, for all the flaws of the current system, Kurds know that what they have now is far better than what they had under Mr. Hussein, and Kurdish officials fear that if they strive for too much, they could lose all.
Accordingly, many say they do not want to strike out for independence, and inflame longstanding tensions with Syria, Iran and Turkey, who all worry over the ambitions of their own independent-minded Kurdish minorities.
But this stance also has a cost. Some Kurds wonder: have their leaders chosen the surest course, or have they sold out?
Today the territory on the map is home to 25 million to 45 million Kurds, a number that is impossible to fix with precision, as government censuses in the region are erratic and widely distrusted.
Some Kurds see their ethnicity, and their numbers, as an irrepressible force. Najat Al-Sourchi, head of the political bureau of the Kurdistan Conservative Party, said he accepts federalism, but only as "a stepping stone" toward independence. He said Kurds should carry word of their dream to the world, appealing both to the West and Arab states to begin bringing all Kurdish people together under one flag. "Why do the Arabs have 22 countries, and want a 23rd for the Palestinians, but for the Kurds, no?" he said.
Rashid Karadaghi, an American citizen who was born in a village near here and is now an Internet columnist on KurdishMedia.com, holds a similar view.
To Mr. Karadaghi, northern Iraq is not a proper name. He calls this region South Kurdistan. He said Iraq's Kurds should resist incorporation into any government that has oppressed them, except perhaps as a temporary measure on the road to nationhood.
"Kurdish land is not Arab land, it is not Turkish land, it is not Persian land," he said. "It is Kurdish land. It is in the hearts of Kurdish people. Everybody, everybody, wants to be free." |
