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Talk Radio in Iraqi Kurdistan
31.8.2008
By Don Kahle in Iraqi Kurdistan region
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August 31, 2008
SULAIMANIYAH, Kurdistan region "Iraq", — The
taxi driver is listening to talk radio and Azad has
had enough. Azad Ali Mohammad points and shakes his
head. “They are debating how to interpret the
constitution. Hakim Sheik Latif is telling listeners
they don’t understand Iraq’s new constitution. He
says they are interpreting the words with too much
flexibility. Words may be elastic, he says, but the
ideas are not.”
Azad graduated two months ago from the University of
Sulaimaniyah with a degree in English. He can get
translation work easily, but it’s mostly computer
manuals. He’d rather become an interpreter, helping
people understand each other. Language skills are
only the beginning. Empathy is the extra measure for
a good interpreter. If you translate well,www.ekurd.net
but lose the shape of
what was said, important parts of the communication
can be lost. Urgency is conveyed when words are
short and close together. Sympathy sounds more like
the song a mother might sing. Interpreting is harder
work and there’s less of it, but it’s more
rewarding. |
Azad Ali Mohammad |
Azad’s senior thesis
addressed the theme of alienation in Samuel
Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” How long can a people
wait before hope gives way to despair?
Iraq’s constitution is not yet three years old, and
already there are originalist and activist
interpretations. The originalists insist the
document be viewed only through the discerned intent
of its framers. Others insist those framers never
could have anticipated the changes the country has
seen since, and that the constitution must be seen
as a “living” document, adapting to current
conditions.
It all sounds eerily familiar.
In Iraq, the “strict constructionists” lean to the
left politically. It is the religious and cultural
conservatives here who are labeled “activist
judges.” And talk radio’s role seems exactly the
same.
“People don’t understand the principles of
discussion,” Azad complains. “Everybody wants there
to be only one voice. But an arrangement needs many
voices.”
“Arrangement” — it’s such a good word; and better
than “compromise.” More active, less automatic.
I wish I could tell Azad that three years is not
enough time for people to learn how to live with
“many voices,” but 220 years doesn’t seem to be
enough time either, based on the American
experience.
The hot-button issue Iraqi Kurdistan concerns
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution. It guarantees
a referendum for Kirkuk. This cosmopolitan city can
choose to align itself with the three Kurdish
provinces that surround it on three sides. Or it can
remain aligned with Baghdad and the central
government to the south.
Kirkuk represents a microcosm of Iraq. It’s home to
a mixed bag of traditions and ethnicities. Many
sorts of people have lived side-by-side there,
peaceably and for generations. But this sort of
diversity has fallen on hard times in Iraq. People
prefer “one voice.”
The so-called “Surge” has succeeded in large part
because of a unified effort between military,
police, and tribal authorities to move people into
safer neighborhoods. That has meant moving them to
areas already dominated by their own tribe or sect.
Neighborhoods have been “cleansed” of minority
voices. Baghdad has become more civil as it has been
made into less of a society. Kirkuk resists this
strategy, and hopes to reverse it.
Does talk radio help or hurt? I can’t tell.
Kurds want Kirkuk to show the way to a truly
democratic city and eventually an independent
democratic state. But then, Baghdad could lose 40
percent of its oil revenues. Neighboring countries
worry what expansive visions might take hold in
Kurdistan if it became suddenly wealthy. Ethnic
cleansing as payback by the Kurds is an
international concern.
The taxi passes a line of cars, snaking onto the
road and backed up for half a mile or more.
“Petrol,” Azad mutters. “The state sells gas, and
it’s cheaper but there’s not enough. People wait
half a day to fill their tank. Or you can buy at a
higher price from middlemen.” They line the road
like lemonade stands, one chair under an umbrella
beside rows of five-gallon containers, each filled
with yellowish liquid. “The dealers come mostly from
Iran, and the quality is not always good. You have
to taste it first if you buy on the street.”
Iraq has more than enough oil, but lacks the
refineries to make it into gasoline. What gas it
does produce is not distributed in an orderly way.
Cronyism, corruption, and competence are unknown
variables that shape people’s lives. It’s shaping
the lives of a hundred drivers, pulled over and
waiting on this street, right now.
“The oil is more trouble than it’s worth,” Azad
asserts. “If Kurds could have Kirkuk, but not the
oil,www.ekurd.net
that would be better.
Everybody worries about the oil, but not the Kurdish
people. We would rather be left alone. Freedom is
all we really want. The oil will get us too much
attention. If we could be either independent or
wealthy, no Kurd would choose wealth. But now it
looks like we can be only neither or both. It’s
sad.”
An “arrangement” has been sought, but troubles have
emerged. How much flexibility does the constitution
require? The Kirkuk referendum was originally
scheduled for November 15, 2007, then delayed six
weeks, and then delayed again for six months. The
last official deadline for the vote was June 30,
2008, but no extension was passed. So now, is the
vote moot, because the deadline has not been met?
And what exactly is a vote, anyway? Must it be a
vote of the people? Wouldn’t a Parliamentary vote,
weighted to reflect the population, suffice? It
surely would be easier, and it might avert violence
in the streets. After all, Americans use an
Electoral College, and their current president got
the job without winning the popular vote.
These were the lines of the debate in early August.
Then the Parliament went on vacation, without making
a decision. Now, as before, the people of Kirkuk,
Kurds longing for freedom, and drivers needing
gasoline, wait.
Don Kahle is writing this week from Iraqi
Kurdistan, where he has been part of a delegation
for the Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, Dksez
com
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