Newroz: Taking Stock of the Past Year
David Romano
In Iraqi Kurdistan, the past year saw the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) continue on much as before. For the one part of Kurdistan where Kurds can be genuinely free to live as Kurds, continuity represents success. The KRG continues to take a cautious approach in its foreign policy, avoiding deep entanglements in the crises of neighbouring states. This allows them to focus on increasing normalcy and acceptance of their autonomy by Baghdad and the international community, as well as economic development and institutionalization of their political system at home. All of these goals take time, and every year of relative normalcy counts as an accomplishment to be proud of.
The past year also saw the same disappointments plague the KRG as in every year since 2003, however. Kirkuk and other disputed territories remain as disputed as ever vis-à-vis Baghdad. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussein al-Shahristani continued interpreting Iraq’s Constitution in a way that leaves the Kurdistan Region no autonomy to speak of on the oil issue, meaning that the dispute over an ever elusive hydrocarbons law continues. The peshmerga still receive no financial support from central government revenues. Most of Nuri al-Maliki’s promises to the Kurds in 2010 remained what just about everyone thought they would remain – unfulfilled promises. At the same time, the Kurds maintained their role as the indispensable outsiders in Arab power struggles in Baghdad.
In Syrian Kurdistan, the now year-long uprising to oust the Assad regime from power drags on. Just as when the protests first erupted last Spring, Syrian Kurds remain torn between the devil they know and hate and the one they don’t know and can’t seem to trust. They have no guarantee that a Syrian opposition led by Arab and Sunni Islamist groups will treat Kurdish rights any better than any of the Syrian regimes since 1962. With such uncertainty, most Syrian Kurds seem justifiably unwilling to risk life and limb opposing Assad. They have limited themselves to a few relatively minor protests to mark the anniversary of their 2004 Serhildan uprising (which saw no demonstrations of sympathy from any but a few Syrian Arab opposition intellectuals) and to show sympathy for civilians being killed elsewhere in the country. Nonetheless, this Newroz brings with it a whiff of hope and renewal for Syria’s Kurds. Change for the better appears possible for the first time in a long time, although by no means guaranteed.
In Turkish Kurdistan, progress of previous years appears dead in its tracks. Mass arrests, a political process in stalemate and military campaigns that saw scores of Kurds killed and wounded, including over two dozen civilians in a single bombing incident in Sirnak province, left a bitter taste in the past year’s air. If any part of Kurdistan feels disappointment when taking stock of the past year, it must be Kurds in Turkey. Not too long ago, as the Turkish government held secret talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and pursued healthy reforms at home, hopes for a resolution to “the Kurdish problem” in Turkey abounded. One wonders if it might not have been better not to raise everyone’s hopes in the first place, only to see them shattered on the rocks of populism and electoral political calculations.
Many Iranian Kurds might disagree, of course. Both an ethnic and religious (mostly Sunni) minority in the country, they could well use something, anything, to raise their hopes. The regime in Iran continues to repress and arrest Kurdish activists. After sham trials often held in the dead of night, executions follow. Some of those executed have yet to even reach adulthood – children still in their teens. All of this occurs in a region forbidden to journalists, meaning outside the consciousness of most of the world. Given how the Council of Guardians in Iran vets anyone who would run for political office (allowing only some 10% of those who even bother to apply to be candidates), pursuing any significant change from within the Iranian political system appears impossible. Always relatively weak and peripheral to the main power centers in Iran, Kurds who would pursue other means of opposition to the current regime also face an uphill battle. It doesn’t help that the Kurdish opposition groups seem to grow more divided every year.
The few journalists who decide they want to talk to the Iranian Kurdish opposition have a bewildering array of choices: The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and its splinter groups, the different Komala groups (“nationalist” Komala and “Marxist” Komalah, and splinters), the Free Life Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PJAK), and various opposition intellectuals. Sometimes they seem more eager to attack and criticize each other rather than the mullahs in Teheran. Often journalists make an appointment to interview [nationalist] Komala at their base in Iraqi Kurdistan but accidentally end up at the nearby base of [Marxist] Komalah instead, or vice-versa. Each group happily invites the journalists in without informing them of their mistake, after which they hear about the misdeeds of the regime in Iran as well as the mistakes of “some misguided Iranian Kurds with no support who also call themselves ‘Komala’ but aren’t really.” Although anyone visiting these groups can’t help but be impressed by their principled positions (all determinedly avoid attacks on civilians, for instance) and unfailing determination, politeness and generosity, the rest of the world hardly seems to notice their struggle.
In any case, as Kurds in the different regions of Kurdistan take stock of the past year and think about their hopes and dreams for the coming year, something else bears remembering: They’re all celebrating the same holiday. What’s more, they’re celebrating a particularly Kurdish nationalist interpretation of the new year, with a focus on the legend of Kawa the Blacksmith, and average man, who successfully resisted the tyranny of King Dehak.
