It’s Iraq but It’s Not: Part I 7.1.2011
By Yasmine Mousa



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





January 7, 2011

ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — On a recent trip to the Kurdistan region north of Iraq, duty required us to drive to a place here in its capital that we didn’t know. My colleagues and I, all Iraqis, stopped by the first police officers we spotted, naturally enough, to ask for directions. We asked in Arabic, then I tried in English.

The young officer did understand us, which is how I discovered the language barrier that is slowly emerging here, dividing the country not only linguistically, but also generationally.

We were in Iraq, so we presumed that Arabic remained the common language, but the trip to the Kurdish region, my first since before the war, taught me that Arabic will only go so far.

A pattern emerged. Person after person, especially the young, spoke almost exclusively Kurdish, struggling with Arabic if they spoke any at all.
Minare park in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo: flickr
This, too, is a legacy of Saddam Hussein’s rule. After the Persian Gulf war in 1990-91, the international community created a protectorate for the Kurds in the north, patrolled by aircraft in the “no fly” zones.

The region, nominally autonomous since the 1970s under the Baath Party, began to separate itself from the central authority in Baghdad. The Kurdish language’s revival became part of a broader move toward freedom, if not independence outright.

Now, over time, a new generation has emerged, still Iraqi, but not necessarily Arabic speaking. Only the older people, it seemed, speak Arabic well. In a government office, for example, the mayor spoke it,his younger aides, like the police officer, spoke hardly a word at all.

Not everyone is pleased by the evolution.

Khudaida Haj, 55, learned Arabic in school and Kurdish from his family. After the war, he said, “For nine years not a single word of Arabic was heard.”

Standing by Mr. Haj’s side was his niece, 10. “She is in the fourth grade,” he said, “but she barely has one lesson of Arabic a week. The rest is in Kurdish.”

He mused about her future, noting Iraq’s newly re-elected president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. “What if she wants to run for parliament?” he said of his niece. “How could that work?”

Then, as if thinking out loud, “We are in Iraq, after all.”

We found a simple fix to the reporting challenges the language barrier posed. We sought out the elderly. A man gave us precise directions the police officer could not.

At restaurants, too, we passed the young waiters and headed directly to the old man sitting, inevitably, behind the cashier. To him we gave our orders, and the young men would politely, but silently, bring us our traditional dishes of kebab and tikka.



It’s Iraq but It’s Not: Part II
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/1/state4504.htm

This is the second of two posts that look at the difference between life in Baghdad and the country’s northern Kurdish region. Read Part I

January 8, 2011

ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — We arrived at the checkpoint that separates Iraq from Kurdistan and waited to get in, counting the seconds. It felt as if we were in a prison and now waited to be released to a place where other Iraqis feel free – and fearless.

We live in Baghdad, the capital, which in most countries would be the cleanest and most developed city. Now, nearly eight years after the invasion, we feel only disappointment. The lack of security and services made us excited about leaving.

We were traveling to another part of Iraq, the Kurdish region in the north, but it felt like we were visiting another country.

The checkpoint, on the road from Kirkuk to Erbil, feels like a border. You don’t need a visa, but you can’t just cross either, the Kurdish authorities checking everyone, especially Arabs from the rest of Iraq.

The Arab-Kurd divide in Iraq is often called a potential flashpoint, a “trigger line” of a conflict not yet resolved. It’s more than a political barrier; it is an ethnic one, a social one, a psychological one.

“That checkpoint seems to be a separate line – between paradise and hell,” one of my colleagues said.

We passed into Kurdistan and started making plans, just like tourists. We didn’t want to waste a single moment, to take photos of everything.

One of the most striking things in Erbil – almost inconceivable in Baghdad today – is a shopping center, the newly opened Majidi Mall.

It could be in the United States or Europe, in another country in other words. “It looks like we are in a dream,” my colleague said. “The lighting, the floor, the shops – and even the people are different.”

He complained, not unhappily, that the quality of the goods for sale “took my attention and took my money.”

Such a mall is new to Iraqis. In Baghdad, despite improved security, such a place would just be a target for attack.

Most Iraqis would love to see the time when one could be built there, in Baghdad. Another friend back home told me he dreamed of a place where he could go with a girlfriend “watch a movie and eat popcorn as any other man in the world.”

Maybe that day will come. Until then, we have Erbil. On the road back to Baghdad, getting closer to the checkpoint again,I felt sadness again, but also eagerness to return the next time.