Monday, May 29, 2006

KURDS AND RELIGION

“People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.” ~ Dave Barry.


I wonder, sometimes, why certain things make it into the media, while more important things don't. I saw just such an article last week. I didn't think it was important enough to write about but I suspected certain quarters would definitely comment on it, and they have started to do so.

I am referring to an article from The Washington Times, titled "'Good news' from northern Iraq".

About the whole question of Saddam's WMDs being sent to Syria, speculation about that was going around in Kurdish circles way back in 2003, so it's not news. About Georges Sada, who knows and does it matter? The guy claims to have said the things he said to the Ba'athi, and to Saddam and to Qusay, and he survived? That's one for Ripley's Believe It Or Not. I have only two words about this: Khidir Hamza.

Enough said.

On to the part of this that really concerns me, and that is the subject of Christians, and other minorities, in Kurdistan. The subject of Christians in Kurdistan is not new. Neçirvan Barzanî had an interview with Michael Rubin in the autumn of 2002, before the war, when no one was too concerned about Christians or anybody else in the region. In a reply to a question about Turkmen, Assyrian, Chaldean and Armenian status in South Kurdistan, this is what Neçirvan said in reply:


There is no thought of or need for reconciliation as there is no dispute between the communities. The great majority of Turkmen here support and participate in the democratic experiment of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. That support and participation is evident through their involvement in all areas of the Kurdistan Regional Government and in the local community. Turkmen practice the freedoms that are afforded the people of the region in general. Furthermore, the region's efforts to establish a civil society in which Turkmen as well as Kurds, Assyrians, and Chaldeans participate are actively supported by all communities. This is a willing and voluntary participation by the great majority of the people in the region with the aim of creating a better future for all.


As with any other group of people on earth, including Christians, there are idiots who engage in individual acts of discrimination, and Neçirvan admits that, too, in the interview. More recently, there was an article on KurdishMedia by a Christian from South Kurdistan, in which he remembers that under the Ba'ath regime, Kurds and Christians fought together against a common enemy, from before the time of the Ba'ath. Actually, none of that is news either, but it is common knowledge among Kurds and Christians in South Kurdistan.

Michael Totten recently completed a visit to South Kurdistan, and he mentioned the subject of Christians:


Arab Christians from the south and the center of Iraq are actually given money and housing by the KRG if they move north. Insisting on a purely Kurdish region or a purely Muslim one is the last thing on the establishment’s mind. What they want is geographic federalism or sovereignty. And they need as many well-educated, competent, and trustworthy people as they can find. They don’t care about race, and they don’t care about religion. They are concerned strictly with numbers and security. It's just that some groups are more trusted than others. Arab Christians will never join an Islamist jihad, as everyone knows. And the Kurds trust Arab Christians not to join the Baath either. Arab Muslims can and do move north to Kurdistan as well, but they need approval from the KRG and they are not given incentives.



I can confirm Totten's information myself. Last year, I happened to visit the Christian (Catholic) church in Ainkawa a couple of days after the election of the new pope. I was curious about the opinions of the Ainkawa Christians on this matter, as well as their general opinions about life in Kurdistan after the war. I was fortunate enough to arrive at the church while one of their charitible organizations was arriving for a meeting, and they were gracious enough to talk to me over tea. What Michael Totten wrote is the truth. The KRG does subsidize Christian refugees from Arab Iraq, while the Christians of Ainkawa help to find housing for newly arrived families--no easy task in a place where housing is at a critical shortage for everyone, including Muslim Kurds. The Christians of Ainkawa also check up on the refugee families to make sure they are all right, are settling in and are not cheating the charitible organization or the KRG.

The church runs its own school and is free to teach any subjects unique to the Christian community, which is a good thing because the town is teeming with young people. They have the freedom to preserve their unique culture and religion, something which, for example, Muslim Turks deny Muslim Kurds.

On one of my road trips with friends, we had the pleasure of the company of a Berwarî tribesman, who wanted to act as our guide through his tribal area. I'll call him, Azad. Azad also happened to be a veteran KDP pêşmerge, who had spent most of his life fighting the Ba'ath. We went through many tiny villages in the northern part of Dohuk governorate. Some of the villages happened to be Muslim, some happened to be Christian, some happened to be mixed, where one could view both mosque and church only a few hundred yards away from each other. All of these villages are now quiet and peaceful, far more so than anything I have encountered in the States, or anywhere else for that matter.

In one Christian village, as we stopped to take in the view and listen to Azad reminisce, children brought us glasses of cold water to drink, no different than the Muslim Kurdish children who immediately appeared with cold water from Shanadar Cave, after a friend and I made the hike up the mountain to see the cave.

Going through another village, an Armenian village, on the way to visit some old friends of Azad, we had to stop the car numerous times because the villagers saw Azad, and had to have a moment to chat with him. He had been a familiar face in the area for many years, fighting to protect everyone from a common enemy, regardless of whether they were Christians or Muslims, Armenians, Chaldeans or Kurds. The relationships between Azad and the people of the area were born during times of violence, when life or death loomed large for everyone, and everyone helped everyone else to survive. Nothing about these relationships is superficial, and that is, perhaps, the greatest thing about Kurdistan.

Another religious group can be added to the Muslim/Christian mix: the Yezidis. The holiest site of the Yezidis, Laliş, where Şêx Adî is buried, is not far from Dohuk. We decided to go to Laliş one day. We took off our shoes and socks before getting out of the car, as the Yezidis require that one go barefoot on their sacred grounds. We went freely through the temple, we inquired about the large, outdoor vats for storing olive oil, which is used to burn lamps, we drank the water as we exited the temple. Again, it was quiet, peaceful and beautiful.

Throughout the area, there are Yezidi villages and mixed villages. Dohuk itself is mixed and the next largest mixed town is Ain Sifne. As you come down into the town from the north, you can see mosques, churches and Yezidi temples, as their profiles reach into the sky above the town's other buildings. After a day on the road, this is a good place to stop and buy a beer and a few bags of pistachios, as I and my friends, a carload of Muslim Kurds, did. This will help to tide you over until you get to the little restaurant on the road between Baadre and Dohuk, and your kebabs are served to you with plenty of warm nan.

The only thing lacking, which would make South Kurdistan complete, are the Kurdish Jews.

We spent a few days in Silêmanî, to see the sights and visit an old friend of one of my Dohukî friends. We had the honor of hearing his father, a tribal chief from Xanaqîn, speak about his history. He is a great one, who began to resist the Baghdad government in the 1950's, fought under Barzanî Namirî, and later became a distinguished pêşmerge of the PUK. One of the things this great one wished to do, was to be reunited with his boyhood friends, friends who had left Kurdistan in 1948 to go to Israel. After so many decades, so many battles, so many hardships, this man fondly remembered the Jewish neighbors he grew up with, and longed to see them again.

What was that that Michael Totten said? "They don’t care about race, and they don’t care about religion. They are concerned strictly with numbers and security."

Uh, yep. That's about the size of it.

It seems that Masud Barzanî has no objection to a political relationship with the Israelis. Last June, UPI reported Barzanî saying that when an Israeli embassy would open in Baghdad, he would invite the Israelis to open a consulate in Hewlêr. More recently, Barzanî reiterated that sentiment, from the Hewlêr Globe:


“I wonder why we are always obsessed with this. The Israelis are present in all Arab countries and it is regarded as normal... We are a part of Iraq. We will let an Israeli consulate open in Erbil whenever an Israeli embassy opens in Baghdad,” Kurdish President Massoud Barzani commenting on possible Israeli-Kurdish relations during his visit to Kuwait.



From that same page, an editorial on the matter states:


It is almost a common agenda of those leftists of regional countries and Europe as well as radical Islamic groups to accuse southern Kurds of being puppets of Israel.

[ . . . ]

There is neither any logic nor any sense behind this shallow indictment. The Kurds as an oppressed nation have all the right to enter into relations with any regional or international powers. As long as these relations are based on Kurdish national interests, nobody has the right to accuse the Kurds for being pawns of those powers.

[ . . . ]

The KRG not only has the right to do so, but it should also have relations with Israel as long as this relation serves the Kurdish interests. If the Muslim Clerics, or other groups are sensitive towards Israel, they should also question the other Arab countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel. It would be advisable for the Kurdish leadership not to bind themselves with Baghdad on this issue. Baghdad may or may not have relations with Israel, but the Kurds should look for their own interests first.

Hypothetically, should Iraq declare war on Israel, would the Kurds have to follow the Arabs? The Israeli-Arab conflict is primarily an issue between the Arabs and Israelis; the Kurds do not have to take part in this conflict. The Muslim Clerics’ sensitivity on Israel is hypocrisy. Should they worry about their Muslim brothers’ treatment by Israel, why have they never displayed the same sensitivity over the Muslim Kurds’ treatment by other fellow Muslim countries like Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq?



Exactly so. And let me say that the words applied here to the Muslim Clerics, also apply to any and all non-Kurdistani Christians as well. To get an idea of what I mean, you can check some of the comments posted here. I really think there's whole lot of that "white man's burden" kind of thing going on with some of those people, which is too bad, especially considering that Western Christians didn't care what happened to Christians under Saddam. Think about it, does anyone remember hearing anything in the West about Christians under Saddam while Saddam was still in power?

Whether anyone likes it or not, it's long past time that Kurds considered Kurdish interests. That's called "politics." In the meantime, we should all think long and hard about who really needs whom in the Middle East [Hint: Who was the second most numerous ally in the Operation Iraqi Freedom coalition? And they weren't Christians.].


There's one other little item that I want to add before I forget. And it would be very easy to forget this because I have only seen one little AP report on it:


Report: Missile Parts, 'Dual-Use' Materials Illegally Shipped to Iran Through Turkey

Friday , May 26, 2006

ANKARA, Turkey — An Iranian-owned company, based in Turkey, has illegally shipped alleged guided missile parts as well as "dual use" nuclear-related material to Iran, including high-strength aluminum tubes, according to a recent Turkish government report obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

The company imported the material to Turkey, the supposed end-user, from dozens of firms around the world, including the United States, and then shipped them to Iran apparently after falsifying documents to hide the nature of the material, customs inspectors said in the report dated May 12.

Turkish authorities would not comment on the report, which was first published by Cumhuriyet and Milliyet newspapers Friday. A government official provided a copy of the report to the AP.

The rest of the report is here.

The silence over this little nugget is deafening, isn't it? But I am not at all surprised that Turkey is playing this little game with the US and Iran. Count Pakistan in on these kinds of arrangements too. In 2005, the Prime Ministers of both countries met in order to discuss, among other things, defence industy cooperation. Apparently both countries were unhappy with their relationships with the US, and were failing in other alliances. Some analysts seemed to believe that joint defence cooperation would allow Pakistan to access NATO technology through Turkey. If Pakistan can do that, and has a history of selling nuclear information to Iran, what's to stop them, and Turkey, from cooperating with Iran on further nuclear developments? Both Turkey and Iran claim they only want peaceful, energy-related nuclear technology.

With allies like that, who needs enemies?

14 comments:

Wladimir van Wilgenburg said...

Don't forget Pakistan's recognition of Turk Cyprus.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mizgîn said...

Ahmedinejad, your comment was deleted because it was TFB--Too Fucking Boring.

This blog is not a place for endless cybervolumes of religious texts of any flavor.

I don't give a damn what people choose to believe for themselves. I mean, they can believe that little green men from Mars are gods for all I care, but the moment they're in my face with it, is the moment they make an enemy for life.

Go proselytize somewhere else.

You're right, Vladimir, and that's another example of the close relations between the two countries.

Goran Z. Sadjadi said...

please visit:

http://kirmasan.blogspot.com/

Thanks.

Wladimir van Wilgenburg said...

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2903

Interesting story of one or two years ago. Turkey released a terrorist killing jews and let him flee to Iran.

Wladimir van Wilgenburg said...

Duhok

Mizgîn said...

Xelef, you are always welcome, heval. I have seen Dohuk/Duhok written numerous ways, including: Dahuk, Dihok, Dohuk, Duhuk, Duhok. There are probably half a dozen more ways as well. Baran Rizgar, from Mêrdîn area, prefers "Dihok," and if you listen to a real Dihokî say the word, I think that this must be the proper spelling in Latinî. Besides, Baran is Bakurî, how could he be wrong? ;)

I think I have noticed the use of "Dohuk" more in the States.

As for Turkey's release of this terrorist killing Jews. . . well, what should one expect, Vladimir, given Turkey's collusion with the Soviets to supply the Arabs during the '73 war, meanwhile refusing to allow the US to supply the Israelis?

So I guess a LOT of people are living in denial.

Litmus said...

given Turkey's collusion with the Soviets to supply the Arabs during the '73 war,

Wow, connecting this to the release a terrorist suspect two years ago through some sort of consistent motive. I guess the part that says...

"How to deal with Iran has reportedly become a matter of contention between Turkey’s Islamist leaders and the country’s powerful military and security agencies."

...has no relevance.

Why not also say that Israel's arm sales and support to Apartheid South Africa back in the day is evidence that Israelis yearn to create an Apartheid state? You know why you wouldn't say that? Because that would be pretty fucking retarded, that's why.

Funny though that Sadat, the guy who started the 1973 war, was the one who offered the Israelis peace for the return of Sinai before the war (which the Israelis rejected)and who formalized peace with Israelis for the return of Sinai after the war. Had his objective been the complete annihilation of Israel, I don't think he would have gone and given a speech at the fucking Knesset after the fact.

Mizgîn said...

Hey, Litmus, can you explain why Mein Kampf was such a big seller in Turkey last year, too?

Who said that Sadat's objective had been the annihilation of Israel? I have never heard that.

Litmus said...

You mean this. Had your comment read, "What should one expect, Mein Kampf was a bestseller last year," that would have at least made sense (2005 > 1973). Cause otherwise one can counter by saying far-reaching stuff like: "The examples of Necdet Kent, Namik Kemal Yolga, and Selahattin Ulkumen. are indicative of the attitudes of all Turks towards Jews (i.e., what should one expect from such good people etc etc)."

The whole Jewish-Masonic conspiracy schtick gets played out here from time to time, though public in-fighting and bickering within the Mason organization in Turkey recently gave some people the impression that the Masons aren't in fact evil geniuses but actually quite retarded. Such conspiracy thoughts are not unlike the thoughts of wacked-out Jews such as Gilad Atzmon (the whole "see even a Jew says it, so it must be true," thing can go some ways in convincing people). And I even heard of pro-Islamist stuff being circulated that opposes Buyukanit's move to the top of the military on grounds that he is a "donme", ie coming from a line of Jews converted to Islam (as the saying goes, "once a Jew, always a Jew"). Perhaps they have Kamel Amin Tsa'abet in mind.

How much are people attached to such views? Well, how about noting another event that Turkey helped arrange last year...We wouldn't want to mention that would we?

Mizgîn said...

It's amazing to what lengths Turkey will go for Jews, Palestinians, or anyone else . . . except Kurds, eh, Litmus?

By the way, Heval, I have noticed the same mixing of "u" and "o" sounds among my Dohukî/Duhokî/Dihokî friends, too.

Anonymous said...

:Why not also say that Israel's arm sales and support to Apartheid South Africa back in the day is evidence that Israelis yearn to create an Apartheid state? You know why you wouldn't say that? Because that would be pretty fucking retarded, that's why.:

Uhhhhhhhh...I've been hearing the "higher-education geniuses" of Eurabia and the Islamic World spew precisely this bilge for more than 30 years. Of course, there was very little Net during the bad old days of the Red Empire, but let's examine just a few examples from Google:

"ISRAELI APARTHEID"--1461 pages

"apartheid israel"--229 pages

israel & "apartheid system"--394 pages

Pretty funny, since the real, unique apartheid state was effectively demolished in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected Prez...

Sorry, Litmus, but...

RETARDS RULE THE WORLD. :- (

Anonymous said...

Turkish gang planned attack on Erdogan!! Including 3 military officers!! http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/06/01/story261361.html

Really Turkey is unbelievable

Litmus said...

I've been hearing the "higher-education geniuses" of Eurabia and the Islamic World spew precisely this bilge for more than 30 years.

...Which is why I used the example in the first place. To be accurate though, most of them attempt to construct analogies between Israeli and the Apartheid policies and use the arms sale thing as icing on the cake. But to say that it is obvious that one country is equivalent to regime X simply by virtue of the fact that the country has aided regime X in the past is even a more contentious point. By that logic, one would have no trouble believing that the Iran Contra scandal is evidence that the US is equivalent to the Iranian regime.

Who said that Sadat's objective had been the annihilation of Israel? I have never heard that.

I was referring to his objectives as opposed to the objectives of Arab armies circa 1967. Whatever you think of either war, one would have to accept that going to war with the objective of removing a country's insulting presence on the map is slightly different than going to war in order to only get back a piece of land that was taken in a recent war while harboring no intention of further aggression.