A review of “Kurds don’t need a country to build a successful state”

Note: this review has been published with Kurdish Aspect (http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc010310KH.html)



A review of “Kurds don’t need a country to build a successful state”


Published on January 31, 2010, the article [1] presents a distorted reading of Kurdish right to state-formation through misuses of facts, distorted concepts and expressions. I am sincerely concerned about the credibility of Chatham House – a teaching an educational institute long has been praised for an “independent thinking on international affairs”. There are three main areas which I have reviewed: the writer’s intentions, the distorted concepts and the distorted facts.

After such a long period of denial of Kurdish genocide, the project for complete invasion of Kurdistan Region by Iraqi government which began in 1970s, it reached its peak during expulsion, deportation of Kurds from the country side in late 1970s and 1980s, the chemical bombings of 1980s, the mass-exodus of approximately 4 million Iraqi Kurds to the border regions with Turkey, Iraq and Syria in early 1991, sanctions and middling by Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq in to the affairs of Kurdistan Region – Iraq between 1991 – 2003, the Kurds did survive and progressed to formalize and to attain international recognition of federal arrangement between Kurdistan Region and Iraqi central government.

Kurds and Kurdistan have paid very heavy price to achieve the present condition of progressive stability and growth in Kurdistan Region. This stability has been accomplished under the formalization and internationalization of Kurdish and Kurdistan rights, freedoms and responsibilities. About 40 percent of outstanding political economic, territorial rights of Kurdistan region has remained to be returned to Kurdistan Regional Government.

Kurdistan Region in Iraq is a federal region within Iraq – administered by Kurdistan Regional Government are the provinces of Slemani, Hewler, and Duhok. The remaining Kurdish towns and cities have been left to be returned, and to rejoined with Kurdistan Region under the legal framework provided in Article 140 of Iraq’s Constitution. The regions of Kurdistan which have to rejoin Kurdistan Regional Government administration are parts of province of Neineua, the province of Kirkuk, parts of province of Diyale.

The author of “Kurds don’t need a country to build a successful state” pretends that there are not any outstanding Kurdish financial, economic, political, territorial Kurdish rights which are legally ingrained and guaranteed in Iraqi’s constitution left to be consented to by the Iraqi government. The author intentionally trivializes, under states Kurdish rights and freedoms.

He along with the Arab countries owe serving the Kurds and the people of Kurdistan a viable just approach in assessing and establishing a Kurdish state as their duty of good neighbourly relations with the Kurds and the people of Kurdistan. If they want to be considered accurate, justifiable, and accepting of in their relations with Kurdish neighbours, whom are about 40 million living in Kurdistan proper and outside, they must not discriminate.

A few of the main ill-intentioned approaches are: “The Kurds understood that the international status quo would forces them to reconnect with Baghdad. Thus, they moved to their second best
option: they rejoined Iraq but made sure it would be a federal union that would give their northern regions enough cultural, economic and political independence”.

First, it was not the international community which pressured the Kurds. It was the hasty and greedy neighbours of Kurdistan which made trouble and objected to Kurdistan’s independence. Contrary to the position of Kurdistan’s neighbours, the international community gets along with Kurdish region very well and most of members of the UN do not object to Kurdish independence.

Second, in the definition and application of rights and independence – there are not categories of “enough independence” and “enough right” as the author points out. In legal terms, “independence” is absolute, it is the sovereign that is independent and has independence, which is undividable. Less than that degree of independence, sovereignty can not be complete, and it can not be reduced to dependent and to dividable entities.

A “right” is defined in law, i.e., Kurdistan has the right to be independent under the right of nations to self-determination. Independence and rights are measured, defined in relation with similar international entities, which have the right to independent and they are independent, for example, sovereign nation-states. Further, the author makes the following statement “Meanwhile, the Kurd’s quest for an independent state has all but vanished”. This is a naive and a disturbing fellow whom wants to deprive a nation of 40 million from their rights. There are too many of his or her kind – unfortunately they are not all close-by each other.

In the title of the article “Kurds don’t need a country to build a successful state”, the concepts of “country” and “state” are distorted. This is another example of intentional distortion of English language and lack of understanding of the correlation between a whole range of category of concepts which contribute to knowledge of fields of political science and various interdisciplinary approaches to the studies of the state, government, sovereignty and administration …etc.

If the author thinks – Kurdish attempts to obtain national rights, a category of rights which all the nations have been granted to have, is a dogmatic approach, why would not he apply his theories of dogmatism to his own home country of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations – I am certain he will get a very tough response. The author states “In 1986, Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussien ordered Operation Al Anfal, killing close to 150, 000 Kurds over the course of three years”.

According to the United States Foreign Relations Committee study report undertaken in late 1980s, and made public in early 1990s: 180, 000 Kurds were killed in “operation Al-Anfal” (the genocide of the Kurds) in 1980s by Iraqi regime.

The author states many other distorted facts. For example, the internal conflict among the Kurdish forces. An explanation, description of that time period and the disparities must be ingrained with viable research, which brings to the fore the hidden projects, plans and conspiracies of the Turkish, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi governments created conditions of poverty, health problems…etc in Kurdistan Region.

The author has not achieved the necessary level of accuracy in presenting the facts without dispute. Thus, he has not achieved the level of consistency in answering his readers precisely the simple question of “what is”? This means – the author does not have sufficient knowledge about Kurdish and Kurdistan’s history, society, politics and the current state of affair. Thus, he can not be entrusted to undertake this project as a fellow in Chatham House for four main reasons.

First, he has presented distorted knowledge of the field of the study of government, state and state-craft, which means lack of knowledge of political science. Second, the evidence shown provides language games, and/or lack of knowledge of the language of the fields which has led to the distortion of English language.

Third, Kurds and Kurdistan never accept this type of project, because it has mobilized certain techniques to cover highly disturbing biases against Kurdish rights and freedoms to state-formation. Fourth, the production of such studies can not be accepted as knowledge.

At the end – I leave the writer with one simple question and a simple response. Is the writer of “Kurds don’t need a country to build a successful state” an author, a viable academic, researcher? The answer is: “No”, he is not. He is the distorter of the rights of 40 million Kurds to self-determination and state-formation.

Karim Hasan is an independent Kurdish scholar: karim.hasan@hotmail.com
Page: http://www.xing.com/profile/Karim_Hasan

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1. I do not think the name is accurate “Hussian Abdul-Hussain” the author is supposedly a visiting fellow with Chatham House, London, in the United Kingdom: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/directory/view/-/id/154/ The article is published on United Arab Emirates “The National”: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100201/OPINION/701319960/1006
Republished: http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2010/2/independentstate3470.html