Why Don't We Have a "Country" Yet?

By: Dr. Rashid Karadaghi

April 15, 2005

Someone once said, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." If we take this wisdom as our guide, anything that keeps us from focusing on our "main thing" is a distraction and, thus, a waste of time and energy. When it comes to the Kurdish cause, for me, there can be one, and only one, "main thing" and that is the establishment of a free, democratic, independent Kurdistan.

The question is: "Are we Kurds keeping faith with the 'main thing,' or are we letting side issues distract us and take us further and further away from it? Regardless of how much we may philosophize or rationalize or equivocate about the "practicality" of what we all admit in our heart of hearts to be our main and ultimate goal, I do not believe that we are keeping faith fully. Fighting for governmental posts in Baghdad, no matter how high or low or numerous, is nothing more than a distraction and a waste of time and does nothing but delay achieving our main goal. If getting a few jobs in the government of Arab Iraq is what we are after, then all the unbelievable sacrifices that our people have made for almost a century and all the pain and suffering they have endured will have been for nothing.

Whether we are a free nation or a subject nation, despite the federalism that only the Kurds acknowledge, is a simple question which any Kurd can answer. And if we are not a free nation, which is certainly the case, why aren't we? What is keeping us from having a recognized "country" on our own land and a seat at the table with the community of nations? Why must we remain strangers in our own home, kicked around by foreigners who claim to own what has rightfully been ours from the dawn of history? When will we finally throw out the invaders, those who have brought us nothing but death and destruction throughout history? When will we wake up to the simple truth that you cannot call those who want to annihilate you your "brothers."

Iraq is known as an "Arab" country throughout the world whether we like it or not. Changing the name of the country or its flag does not change that. And even if Kurds were to fill every high government post, that still won't change anything about the basic fact, which is that they will have to serve the "Arab" cause if they are to survive.  Iraq is a member of the "Arab" League where there is no mention of Kurds or their plight, the Kurdish foreign minister notwithstanding. It is said that Iraq has now come back to its natural, "Arab" sphere, and if Kurds are part of Iraq, they will be, by necessity, part of that sphere, too. What an achievement!!

So, where does that leave us Kurds? Do we really belong in that misbegotten   construct called "Iraq," or will we always be an alien element in it regardless, just as we have been since we were attached to it by force? I believe that as long as we remain part of Iraq, our existential problem remains hanging, for we will be nothing more than diligent laborers in a factory owned by someone else, tenants in someone else's house, a footnote in other peoples' history, an advocate of everybody's cause but our own. It is time we moved from the forgotten margin to the body proper of history --- our history. It is time we wrote our own history. It is time our contributions to human civilization are recognized. It is time we had our own recognized identity symbolized by our own independent country. It is time we advocated our own independence at least as much as we advocate others'. Charity begins at home.   

On the issue of the emancipation of Kurdistan and the Kurdish people from Arab Iraq,   there is, I believe, no disagreement among us Kurds on what we want, as was shown by the 98% vote for independence in January of this year, confirming last year's unofficial Referendum results. So, why are we pushing the will of the Kurdish people under the rug? Didn't the people speak through their resounding vote for freedom from the nightmare called "Iraq"? How long are we going to thwart the will of the Kurdish people and scale down their demands just to pacify those whose mission in life has always been to keep us as their colony within and beyond Iraq's borders? How long will we postpone reclaiming what is rightfully ours?

Our poets, writers, and thinkers have been calling for freedom from foreign (Arab, Turkish, Persian) tyranny from as far back as the great poet Ahmedi Xani four hundred years ago. And our political leaders used to call for the same thing. The immortal Sheikh Mahmood proclaimed himself King of Kurdistan eighty-five years ago right after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, before the formation of the instrument of our torture, Iraq. And even though his plans were foiled by British colonialists and local imperialists, he never gave up the dream. Twenty-five years later, in 1946, with the great Mustafa Barzani at his side coming from the Iraqi-occupied part of Kurdistan with his brave men, Qazi Muhammad proclaimed the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in the Iranian-occupied part of Kurdistan. The Republic was doomed because of the usual unholy alliance between the superpowers of the time and the local imperialists, but it made its mark in Kurdish history.

Now, that is our history, a history we can be proud of. We insisted on independence in an age when oppression, not independence, was the order of the day in most parts of the world, as many nations were subjugated by other more powerful ones. But the fact that that was not an opportune time for freedom did not deter us from demanding our full freedom. Yet, now in an age that has witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain and many other tyrannies, including Saddam's, an age when most of the oppressed nations of the world have been freed, we are retreating from the goal that has been sacred to generations of Kurds and accepting to live in the executioner's prison again as if we have forgotten his ways and as if all the Halabjas and the Anfals of the last eighty years were for nothing.

We are helping the executioner get back on his feet only to come back later on and do to us what he has always done. Why should we feel obligated to recreate from the ashes, uphold, and defend a country whose main preoccupation during its entire existence has been to devise ways to diminish us, kill us, burn and demolish our homes, kick us out of our homes, and still accuse us of disloyalty to it? I have yet to see or read about any people who have, of their own free will, worked so hard to rehabilitate and rearm those who have done them anywhere near as much harm as Iraq has done to us. We are the only people who have worked so hard to rebuild a collapsed prison and walk back into it after making so much sacrifice to tear down that same prison. Ours is a very unnatural case that defies logic and explanation, for instead of saying "Never Again!" to our oppressors, we are, in effect, saying to them," You haven't hurt us enough; hurt us more."

Our demands are not anti anyone; they are simply pro Kurd and Kurdistan --- which is not a crime. We are totally within our right to wish to be what we are and not be forced to be what we are not. Let us face it. If the two unofficial Referendums within one year have proven anything, it is that the Kurdish people don’t want to be Iraqis. They want to be free of Iraq and establish their own identity in their own independent country, which should not threaten any reasonable people because the Kurds have never had designs on their neighbors at any time in their history, something that cannot be said of others in their neighborhood. They have not attacked anyone; it is others who have waged war against them and invaded them. They simply want what is theirs back.

And what about America's role in denying the Kurdish people their "country"? We don't want to dwell on the pre-1991 betrayals here. The Kurdish people are grateful to America for keeping Saddam at bay by declaring the no-fly zone in 1991 and maintaining it till Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, keeping them relatively safe from Saddam. Even though it came about at France's initiative, the no-fly zone would not have lasted for as long as it did and as robustly had it not been for the US leadership role, supported by Britain. But as far as the Kurds are concerned, and despite outward appearances, the US has taken on the role that the British colonialists played following WW1 in denying the Kurds their independent country. This role contradicts not only the declared goals of Operation Iraqi Freedom and every speech given by President Bush regarding the Middle East, but the very idea of America as the beacon of freedom for the oppressed peoples of the world. To be true to its ideals, America must not stand with the oppressor against the oppressed, which is precisely what it is doing where Kurds are concerned.

Some call establishing an independent Kurdistan an unrealistic goal, a dream. They view the world the way it was thirty or forty or fifty years ago; they are stuck in the past. To many, the Soviet Union, the Berlin wall, Yugoslavia, and other anomalies were here to stay forever. Where are they now? Where are all the empires of the past? Borders have been drawn and redrawn throughout history. There is nothing sacred or immortal about the borders that were drawn around us against our wish; they can be demolished just as they were erected if there is a will --- and no one should discount the will of the Kurdish people. To hear our enemies put us down is understandable, but when we do it to ourselves, it is something else. Defeatism is not the way to lift an oppressed nation's spirits. In this world, nothing is impossible --- including the birth of a free, democratic, independent Kurdistan.