The Wonder of Kurdistan

Excerpts from an article in the Berliner Zeitung, By Olivia Schoeller, June 14, 2005

While bombs are exploding daily in Baghdad, the northern Iraqis are experiencing an economic boom.

ERBIL/SULIMANIJA: Rashid Tahir Hassan's office in the Kurdish Ministry of Finance resembles a small Kurdish memorial. On the wall behind his gigantic black desk hang two pictures of the legendary Kurdish fighter Mullah Mustafa Barzani in heavy gold frames; on the console underneath is a plate with his likeness. The room is adorned with photographs of Kurdish villages and the city of Erbil, the seat of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. Hassan himself seems to embody the Kurdish mentality. When he has something positive to say, he looks melancholy. "Since the Fall of Saddam Hussein the Kurds have been born again," said Rashid Tahir Hassan, lowering his eyelids and pausing. He takes a sip from his glass of tea and glances out the window. Then he adds, "We no longer live from one day to the next; for the first time in our history we are planning for the future."

A glance out of the window of the Director General for Finance of the Kurdish Regional Government shows how far the future of Kurdistan has already flourished: around the Ministry of Finance, as in many places in the city, buildings are shooting up. Apartment buildings, offices, warehouses, it looks as if everywhere in Erbil is under construction.

Money, that is a key word today in the northern part of Iraq. You are never allowed to call it Northern Iraq because that offends every Kurd. To the Kurds the region is Kurdistan, liberated Kurdistan, as most residents call it today. Liberated from Saddam Hussein and years of oppression. Liberated from the religious constraints of the Islamists and seemingly ready for a new future that goes much further than the older generation can even imagine.

Travelling by car from Erbil to Suleimaniyah, it's difficult to believe that this part of Iraq has anything to do with the country known from the TV news. While car bombs explode daily in Baghdad and new mass graves are discovered around the so-called Sunni Triangle, the Kurds are experiencing a regular boom. Not only is Erbil under construction, but also in Dukan new roads are springing up, and in many villages vacation homes are being built. The demand for home ownership and the wish for improvement in the infrastructure are so great that the cement factory in front of the gates of Suleimaniyah has been put back in operation.

The clearest sign of the new boom in Kurdistan is the increase in salaries. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein a white collar worker earned 22,000 Iraqi dinar per month (around $148)--today 158,000, according to the Ministry of Finance. A clear sign of the upswing is the fact that Kurds have meanwhile become too expensive for some jobs. On the side of the road between Erbil and Suleimaniyah you discover tents with Iraqi and Chinese flags in honour of guest workers from China. Thirty-eight men from Beijing who speak neither English nor Kurdish nor Arabic are widening Kurdistan's highway network. They sleep at night on cots in tents on the edge of the construction site. In Suleimaniyah you find more guest workers from their own country.

Iraqis from Tikrit or Baghdad are moving to the north because there is work here and a better security situation. During the time of Saddam Hussein the Kurds suffered under the UN sanctions and the additional sanctions of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now the table has been turned. According to the Ministry of Finance, Kurdistan receives 17% of the receipts from petroleum sales. Under Saddam Hussein they received almost no oil money, according to Director of Finance Rashid Tahir Hassan. Kurdistan is today the most prosperous region of the country, and Suleimaniyah is the poster child of economic growth. On every corner of the city you find Internet cafes fully occupied, department stores opening, and naturally the inevitable Ma Donal, Kurdish for McDonald's.

In the streets of Suleimaniyah, not only is there more security than in Baghdad but also more freedom than in the southern part of the country. You see women with and without headscarves, you see them in black garments or in jeans with tight t-shirts, you see them openly drinking beer in the afternoons. In restaurants and on the streets you hear cell phones ringing, whose rings sound like pop versions of eastern music. According to young people, there is even a hill in Suleimaniyah which is called the Necking Hill. Lovers can spend an evening alone without having to fear the penalty.

And something else is different in Kurdistan: they like Americans here. Both US presidents, father and son Bush, are considered liberators of Kurdistan. The elder, because he imposed the 1991 no-fly zone, which made the Kurds more independent and laid the groundwork for today's turn for the better. They treasure the son because he brought down the dictator in 2003.

"We always believed that only communism would free us from Saddam Hussein. Now we've learned that we needed the Americans for that" said Nazar Kahailany, a Kurd. The Kurdish dissident was tortured under Saddam Hussein and fled to Germany 20 years ago. Now he contemplates the future of his country in the lobby of the Ashti Hotel in Suleimaniyah. Every evening he meets with politicians from Suleimaniyah, and most of the time his friend Nahamd Baban is also there. For him it wasn't difficult to understand the anti-war sentiment of the Germans. Nevertheless, as a Kurd he is still amazed that George W. Bush, in spite of all protests, had the courage to bring down this dictator, thereby liberating the Kurds.

Source: Berliner Zeitung (Translated from the original German by Donna Wiss, 17 June 2005.)

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