Why not us, too?
01December 2004
KurdishMedia.com - By Dr Rashid Karadaghi
Following Yasser Arafat’s death over a week ago, there were renewed calls, and rightly so, by just about everybody, from President Bush to Prime Minister Blair to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and others, for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The Kurdish people have always supported the right of the Palestinians to their own state and Kurdish representatives have stated this on numerous occasions, and all past Kurdish political literature is replete with this fact.
But the question on the minds of millions of Kurds today is: When will any leader from any country or the UN call for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan just as they have all been calling for an independent Palestinian state? When will any Arab or Middle Eastern leader or writer or man in the street call for the establishment of an independent state for the Kurds just as the Kurds have called for the same for the Palestinians?
Can we at least ask: When will the leaders and opinion-makers and decision-makers in the West and in the East and in the twenty-two Arab countries stop their totally fallacious and baseless claim that an independent Kurdistan ---or even a Federated Kurdistan within Iraq --- would be the most serious threat to peace and stability in the Middle East and, maybe, the whole world, as if the Middle East has been an island of peace and stability from time immemorial and an independent Kurdistan would ruin that peace and stability!
Not only have the movers and shakers of this world not called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan, but they have ignored the suffering of the Kurds at the hands of all their oppressors in their divided homeland. They haven’t said a word, for instance, about reversing Saddam’s ethnic cleansing (Arabization) that has destroyed the lives of about three hundred thousand Kurds from the Kerkuk province and other areas of Kurdistan. We have yet to hear a word from Kofi Annan or any other leader condemning this crime now after the fact or when the crime took place. Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Bosnia, and elsewhere was deemed a crime, and correctly so, by the international community but in Kurdistan it has been business as usual.
Despite Kurdish support of Arab causes, even the most progressive Arabs haven’t had a good word to say about the Kurds and Kurdistan. They never go beyond the meaningless and empty clichés about the supposed "Arab-Kurdish brotherhood," and "our common history," forgetting the undeniable, historical fact that the only history the two peoples have shared has been one of wars, subjugation and killing of Kurds and plundering and occupation of their homeland by Arab an Islamic armies. If we reflect honestly on the history of Arab-Kurdish relations, then we have to admit that it has not known a day of peace and brotherhood, a history that has known nothing but waging war by one side against the other, with all the terrible consequences of that for both sides, especially the Kurds.
And as a result of this kind of so-called "brotherhood" no Kurd in South Kurdistan wants to remain part of Iraq in any way, shape, or form as evidenced by the Referendum Movement which has collected two million signatures, which is practically every Kurdish adult who could sign, demanding a referendum on the future relations of South Kurdistan with Iraq. It is not hard to predict the outcome.
Whenever there is any talk of Kurdish rights and Kurdish statehood, even the most liberal-minded among Arabs say they don’t want to see "a second Israel" in the region. Even though this charge is totally absurd, the ultimate scare tactic in Arab political lingo is the accusation of any similarity, real or imagined, with Israel, which is why Arabs use it against Kurds who dare to advocate reclaiming their right as a free nation.
It is becoming increasingly clear to the Kurds that despite the Kurdish-American alliance on-and-off the battlefield since Operation Iraqi Freedom began almost two years ago, and despite the fact that the Kurds have proven to be the truest believers in, and practitioners of, Western democracy, the US and Britain would rather entrust Kerkuk’s oil to the terrorists and the would-be terrorists and the enemies of the West than to its rightful owners --- the Kurds. They were quite happy when Saddam was in control of the oil for three decades, including the Oil-for-Food period during which he is said to have diverted billions of dollars (some say twenty) for his diabolical schemes, but they are adamantly against any Kurdish control of their own oil for fear that it would upset the states occupying Kurdistan. One can only conclude that as far as the Leaders of the West are concerned, it is safer to deal with the Axis of Evil than with the Kurds!
There is an inexplicable mistrust of Kurds by the West going back to World War 1 when the victorious Allies carved up Kurdistan among its current four occupiers and denied the Kurdish people their legitimate right to statehood. The Kurdish people are still paying the price of that fatal injustice committed against them almost a century ago primarily by Britain, whose prime minister still insists even after the continuous genocide of Kurds by Iraq (let alone all the suffering that is the lot of the Kurdish people in all parts of their occupied homeland) that "Iraq’s territorial integrity must be absolute."
By all accounts, near-miraculous developments have taken place in all aspects of life in South Kurdistan since the Kurds themselves took charge of the liberated parts of South Kurdistan in1991 . This is a testimony to their ability to run their own affairs in a democratic and civilized manner, which their neighbors have not been able to do. A look at what has been happening in Arab Iraq since the liberation over a year and a half ago (with a helping hand from its neighbors), as compared to South Kurdistan, tells the whole story. Despite all of this, the West would still rather leave the forces of evil and darkness in charge of the Kurds and their homeland than let the Kurds be in charge of themselves.
And to make this perfectly clear to the Kurds and reassure the anti-West forces who have been torturing them for the last eighty years that they will continue to be in charge, US and British officials miss no opportunity to reiterate that "Iraq must stay whole," and "Iraq’s territorial integrity must be absolute." Even mentioning the words "Kurds" and "Kurdistan," let alone recognizing the Kurdish people’s right to their own independent state, is still a taboo to the champions of freedom and democracy. To them, we do not deserve to have any name but "his own people."
Kurds wonder what exactly they must do to change the international community’s mindset that is so dead set against them and supportive of their oppressors. So far, they have been playing by the rules in a civilized, non-violent manner, yet this has not made even a dent in the international community’s blind support for the occupiers instead of the freedom fighters.
The leaders of the Western democracies keep repeating the same old clichés about the "territorial integrity" of the occupying states as if the current maps had come down from God at the time of Creation with the Commandment," Let the territorial integrity of Iraq and its neighbors not be disturbed!" forgetting that they were the work of a bunch of arrogant and ignorant British colonial officers who cared only about the British empire’s perceived interests and not at all about the well-being and rights of an entire nation. The leaders of the Western democracies choose to ignore the fact that the injustice that was created by man almost a century ago with catastrophic consequences can just as easily be dismantled and made just by man, with positive results for all parties, including their own countries.
The Kurds have a lot of legitimate grievances against the leading Western democracies, because they are excluded from the fruits of the freedom and democracy that they say they are spreading. The Kurds want to see some tangible evidence that spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East is for real and not just an empty slogan. So far, they haven’t seen any tangible results from the campaign that gave them hope in the beginning but has so far proven to be more of the same old policies that supported the oppressor and trampled on the rights and hopes and aspirations of the oppressed.
To be credible, Western leaders, politicians, writers, and opinion-makers must think anew instead of treading the same dead-end paths that have lead to bitterness and suffering. They need to get themselves out of the box that they have constructed for themselves and change the mindset that has gotten us into the current vicious cycle.
By any standard, the Kurds deserve the same kind of support that Western democracies have given other oppressed people in many parts of the world in the last fifteen years to help them achieve their freedom and independence.
http://www.kurdmedia.com/reports.asp?id=2289