Photos by Stewart Innes
In the busy, well-defended capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the verdict is unanimous: the days of a unified Iraq are over, and the Kurdish people should have their own, independent state.
The intensity of this popular desire, in the streets and souks of Suleimaniyah, is somewhat startling, given the subtle enthusiasm with which Kurdish political leaders have embraced their autonomy in the new Iraqi state crafted by the American-led occupying coalition.
Iraq’s 5 million Kurds, who hold the northern region of the country, and have been running their own affairs since the first Gulf War of 1991, appear to be the great winners of the last, tumultuous year. Their enclave, which includes the two chief Kurdish strongholds of Arbil and Suleimaniyah, is at peace, while no fewer than eight Kurdish politicians hold ministerial portfolios in the Baghdad Government. The construction of an open, democratic, western-oriented society may be an elusive dream in southern Iraq: it is a solid reality here. The Kurds even control their own territory with their own Peshmerga militia, separate from the Iraqi armed forces.
The Kurdish people, though, want more: and their wishes could spell the eventual end of Iraq in its present form. From the intellectuals to the bazaar merchants, the demand is clear: Kurdistan should be a free nation-state.
Public respect for the two key political leaders of the Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, is high: but those leaders always speak with utmost care in public, endorsing the present transitional arrangements in Iraq, praising the virtues of “pragmatism” and gradual progress towards Kurdish liberation.
But the general opinion has long been clear. Two months before the hand-over by the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority to the new central government in Baghdad, an independent plebiscite was organized here in north-east Iraq by a Kurdish professor, Halkawt Abdallah: more than 2 million people, a majority of the adult population, took part, despite the tense conditions, and voted overwhelmingly or independence.
Today, views are still just as determined. In the shops and crowded bazaars of Suleimaniyah, the level of political discourse, and political resolve, is striking. This is chiefly because the effects of Iraq’s recent history run through the lives of every family.
In the central souk, seated quietly at his clothing stall, Kader Amin explains the goals of today’s Kurdish politics: “We want Kirkuk,” he says, with great precision, referring to the oil-rich northern city, now divided between Kurds and Arabs, that remains the unsolved point of struggle on the Iraqi map:
“We want that city which is part of our homeland.” He continues, in a matter-of-fact style: “During the Iran-Iraq war, 12 years ago, we left everything, our lives, our homes – we lost everything. The villagers were displaced, and Saddam Hussein’s military security officers came looking for us, and for our families, and they took some of us away. They took me away to jail, and hung me up by one arm from a rack. I was kept there for a year. Perhaps now you see why I want independence from Iraq.”
It’s not an unusual experience, or an unusual view. A discreet stall nearby sells “klows” – traditional woven Kurdish caps, arranged in neat, bright-coloured piles. Ibrahim, whose family comes from neighbouring Iran, where 10 million Kurds lives in harsh circumstances, also has clearly defined opinions on the future:
“Independence is essential, of course. We Kurds, after so much oppression, have to make our own way, and be seen to make our own way. We’re not worried about what the neighbouring powers think, Turkey, or Syria, or Iran. It’s the United States that decides what happens here. All the Kurds should be part of a greater Kurdistan, and that’s what everyone here believes. Why wouldn’t we think that?”
Like almost all Kurdish people, Ibrahim is unmoved by the plight of Iraq’s majority Arab population, or by the grand design of a united, ethnically pluralist Iraq:
“It’s just not our affair, the future of Iraq,” he says: “ That’s an Arab problem, all that fighting. To be quite frank, we don’t trust Arabs. Everyone here will tell you that. We are chauvinists that way!”
Down the souk’s twisting alleys are the produce stalls, little universities of political debate, where old men and young squat on packing cases and flour sacks, and make their points. Kasem, the tomato seller, explains the low-key tactics of the present Kurdish National Assembly, which elects a regional government and has wide popular authority:
“It’s a good system we have now, and we have respect for it,” he says: “We don’t hear the government in Baghdad, so far away. We want independence, in the end, or federation in a loose Iraqi state right now. We know the options. The problem for Iraq is that the old dictatorship squandered its moral capital. Saddam Hussein, the killer of our people! I never expected to see him on trial, I never thought it would happen. It’s not an event from normal history – it was God’s will that things turned out this way.”
Issem Amin, at the okra stand nearby, is just as sophisticated in the political opinions he advances – indeed, the whole Suleimaniyah souk blazes with a kind of cool national spirit of determination:
“We’re happy now, we are free,” says Issem, “but we need our independence – to live alone and be truly at liberty. And there’s another reason. We need a national centre for Kurds. Turkey isn’t good to its Kurdish people, it’s against us, and so is Iran. Will they allow an independent Kurdistan? They don’t want the Kurds to have the right to happiness.
“For our politicians, you see, and for all of us, the tasks we face have to do with the future of the nation. As a people, we Kurds have to look after ourselves, and to think in terms of centuries, not weeks or months”.
(Copyright © 2003 Stewart Innes. All rights reserved)