There Can Be No Unity In An Arab Iraq

Exerpts from the current draft of the Iraqi constitution (which can be viewed at the Kurdistan Observer's website) are confusing and contradictory. The draft calls for the new nation to be an "Arab State" while insisting it will not tolerate marginalization of any of its ethnic groups.

Oxymoronic at best, and frighteningly ignorant at worst, the very language employed is marginalist. It specifies in several places that "Kurds" may use "both languages" (meaning both Kurdish and Arab), while elsewhere indicating that Arabic would be the state language for Iraq as a whole. It makes bold statements condemning Baathist and Saddamist Iraq, but weakly caters to Sunnis who would reinstate many Baath party members.

Jalal Talabani has indicated that Iraq must be a Muslim country. This may well be true, for it is clearly impossible for any constitution to be ratified without Islam's endorsement. Catering to fringe groups, however, and caving to Arab pressure is in itself the destruction of the free state so long labored for.

Kurds can not and will not be Arab. We are a Persian people. We do not speak Arabic, do not worship nor socialize as Arabs do, and many of our people died at the hands of Baathists who wanted Iraq to be an Arab-only nation. That this new constitution, with its marginalist language and circular thinking, is so contradictory is a warning sign. Iraq can not create a government for all of its people with frequent insertions of "and the Kurds, too, can do it their way."

Kurdistan is not ready for independence, but represents a third of Iraq. The very nature of the new government marginalizes Kurds and their state by constantly identifying the Kurdish people and their government as "other."

For Iraq to survive as a whole nation it must be neither Arab nor Persian, but a unified people embracing both while wearing neither label. Anything less will be counterproductive and hopelessly backward.

posted at 5:37 PM by Ahmed El Anjanar:: 1 comments: <"c112493995959216976"> I agree. Nice site. Big surprise. :D by  Chrissy, at 8:19 PM   <$BlogItemCreate$> << Home permalink

Ahmed, outside a mosque
being repaired after
2001 Jalalabad earthquakes.

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