The Kurdistan Observer 
By : Rashid Karadaghi
Mar 6, 2002

We are accustomed to reading or hearing statements about the “ indivisibility” of Iraq from Iraqis of all persuasions, in-and-out of government. The latest such statement comes, not surprisingly, from one of the leaders of the Iraqi Opposition in an article about his vision of a unified, “democratic,” and, certainly, “ indivisible,” post-Saddam Iraq. There is, of course, the obligatory call for building a “ democratic” Iraq ; however, in this and other Iraqi-grown versions of democracy there will be no room for any discussion of the ethnic or religious diversity of Iraq as if the country were a homogeneous society and not an ethnic patchwork imposed on the people by force. One cannot but ask, “What kind of democracy is it when you call for submerging ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and historical differences in the so-called “ national interest” (Read: “ Arab interest” ) ? As far as Kurds are concerned, Big Brother will always be in charge in Iraq, democracy or not. 

We are not surprised at all when we read or hear such views because when it comes to the Kurdish issue, an Iraqi is an Iraqi whether he is in or out of government. There may be a slight difference in approach among Iraqis regarding the Kurdish issue, but it is difficult to find many who would recognize the right of the Kurds to independence unequivocally and without any reservation even though those same Iraqis readily give this right to other oppressed nationalities that have less of a claim to independence than the Kurds do.

Iraqi Arabs have to ask themselves one fundamental question : Is the Kurdish demand of self-determination, including independence, legitimate or not? If their answer is “ Yes,” which is extremely unlikely, then there is no problem because that means that the Kurds and the Arabs of Iraq can live side by side as two sovereign neighboring nations with good, neighborly relations with all that the word “neighbor” implies. But if their answer is “No,” then, logically, we could justifiably say that all of Iraq should go back under Ottoman / Turkish rule, which used to be the case until the end of World War 1. Both Kurds and Arabs would reject this idea, of course, as they should. However, we have to ask Iraqi Arabs if there is any difference between the injustice of putting back all of Iraq under Turkish rule and that of keeping the Kurds under Arab rule, as has been the case for the last eighty years. Hasn’t the Iraqi Arab rule been much more horrible and inhumane in its treatment of the Kurds than the Ottoman Turkish rule was in its treatment of Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and other nationalities? Who exactly committed genocide in Kurdistan by eliminating a quarter of a million Kurds in the murderous Anfal operations of the late eighties if not the Iraqi regime? Who used weapons of mass destruction freely and in many places culminating in the massacre of 5,000 innocent men, women and children in Halabja if not the regime of Arab Iraq?  Who dynamited and razed to the ground practically every village and small town in Kurdistan if not the Iraqi  regime? Who is practising ethnic cleansing and the racist Arabization of the Kurdish areas still under Iraqi government control if not the Arab Iraqi regime? And who has been threatening the liberated part of Kurdistan with invasion, retribution, and re-annexation from the day it was liberated a decade ago if not the Iraqi regime? And how about the countless other unrecorded daily crimes that were perpetrated against the Kurdish people in order to break their spirit and cow them into submission? Surely, these crimes were not committed by people coming  from outer space.  Haven’t we been fooled long enough by the big lie of “ historical brotherhood” and “ common history” between Kurds and Arabs in Iraq?

The Kurds want to get out from under Arab Iraqi rule just as the Arabs wanted to get out from under Ottoman Turkish rule almost a century ago. If the Arab revolution against Turkification and Ottoman Turkish rule and for independence was legitimate then, and it certainly was, why isn’t the Kurdish revolution against Arabization and Arab rule and for independence from Iraq legitimate now, almost a century after the Arabs gained their independence?

We wish to ask one simple question of members of the Iraqi Opposition as well as ordinary Iraqis and even supporters of the brutal regime : Would they accept to live under Kurdish rule ( not that the Kurds have ever wanted or would ever want to rule Iraq ) ? There is no doubt that it would be impossible to find a single Iraqi who would be willing to live under Kurdish rule, or any other, for that matter. So, why do these same Iraqis expect the Kurds to live under an Arab rule that is known worldwide for its brutality and inhumanity? In fact, why should the Kurds want to live even within a post-Saddam, supposedly democratic, pie-in-the-sky Iraq when they can, and should, rule themselves in an independent and truly democratic Kurdistan much to the benefit of Kurds and Arabs alike? If some groups in the Iraqi Opposition cannot even bear to hear the name “ Kurdistan,” and all believe that to talk about the right of the Kurds to have an independent country they can call their own is a taboo, what hope is there for the Kurds in a  so-called  future, democratic Iraq?

Given the horrible record of brutality and inhumanity of various Iraqi regimes towards the Kurds since the inception of that country eighty years ago, which culminated in the eighties, and given Kurdish resistance to Iraqi rule from the very beginning, Iraqis should not be surprised if the Kurds want not only to be free from their hateful, present rule but to have nothing to do with any kind of Iraq, democratic or not, under any circumstances.

The division of Iraq would not be detrimental to anyone; in fact, it would be beneficial to both Arabs and Kurds alike because it would end a century of bloodshed between them and put an end to a terrible crime that was committed against the Kurdish people when they were forced by colonial design into an unworkable union against their will. For here is an artificially created country with two distinct, main nationalities, and a few minorities, each with its own language, culture, history, ethnicity, traditions, and aspirations and yet one of these two nationalities is denied the right to be itself and is forced to become the other and serve the other against all the laws of Nature and God. And, as we all know, the result of this forced, unnatural, unequal, dehumanizing, and horrible union has been constant warfare between the two sides. Unless we think anew and undo the terrible mistakes of the past, we will continue to be victimized by the past.

It is high time for all those who have upheld the myth of the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq, including the Western Powers, to have the decency, humanity, courage, and wisdom to stop perpetuating a big injustice done to the Kurdish people when they were robbed of their right to Statehood and realize that the division of Iraq into two independent  States, Kurdistan and Iraq, would be the best thing that could ever happen to that country.