Kurdistan will you ever arise?

In the north of Iraq, Kurdish patriotism is on standby, ready for action. Kurds continue to speak for themselves as if they already were a country, and assert territorial integrity. Yet at the same time they are also heavily involved in Iraqi politics too, sending a proportion of their peshmerga with the National Guard, and Talabani to the cabinet.

But a little incident this week has shown the weakness of this whole enterprise. Talabani, president of Iraq, went back to K’stani for a couple of days to go over “local K’stani laws” that are being laid out by Barzani’s men. The president of Iraq had to oversee local, K’stani laws. Barzani and Talabani are major opponents if truth be told.

Talabani was always more of a politician that a military man, unlike Iran-born Barzani. He joined the Kurdish Democratic Party as a young man but eventually created his own socialist Patriotic Union of K’stan [PUK], a slightly more intellectual, and less tribal entity, based in Al Suleymaniah [South K’stan, N-E Iraq]. If Iraqi politics were ever to modernize, he could well appear as leader of a multi-ethnic socialist coalition.

The Kurdish Democratic Party [KDP/PDK] however, remains a problematic, unstable tribal and military group, still operating under cheap populist politics led by the apparently charismatic Massoud Barzani. It will always be a problematic bunch because it will always seek to help and strengthen Kurdish militias in Iran and Turkey –directly bordering the KDP heartland.

Now consider this: Some Kurds claim an area the size of France!

Of course, one can’t ever befriend everyone. But that still makes a lot of people watching K’stan’s every moves. With the chance that Iraqi Kurds might one day claim a territory several times the size of Iraqi K’stan, no wonder no one wants to help them achieve any autonomy. This would undermine Turkish territorial integrity as Barzani could not resist to support the Kurdistan Worker’s Party [PKK] in Turkey. This is the very militaristic, tribal and previously Marxist organization, headed by Abdullah Ocalan.

So if the Kurds want to get serious about equal rights and self rule, they need to clarify what they will never claim; and they need to make sure that what they do claim does not mean trampling on someone else’s rights, because that will always be used against them.

Yes, they are trying to be modern and democratic. But they have to get much more serious. Turkey will not stand to fear its southern regions. And everyone will jump at any Kurdish mishap or abuse. This is where other Iraqi minorities of so-called K’stan come in. Iraqi K’stan overlaps [read: has appropriated itself] regions where Assyrians/Chaldeans, Turkmen and other minorities lived predominantly.

Throughout the last century and before, because of Kurdish, Turkish and Iraqi massacres, much of the Assyrian population has left; but there still remains contact between the Diaspora and the few hundred thousand still in the homeland. Should Kurds abuse of those people, everyone will use that as an excuse to deny their rights. In truth, Kurdistan will not be able to afford to stand on territories claimed by other undermined groups, which will attempt to replicate the Kurds’ self-rule achievements.