Political culture and freedom of speech in Iraqi Kurdistan: A critique of the Kurdish political and religious authority

Besides the slogans of autonomy or self-determination for the Kurdish people in Iraq, the Kurdish parties, during their political and armed struggle, were raising the slogans of democracy, freedom and human rights which were violated by the dictatorial regime of Baath. Following the fall of the Baath authority in Iraqi Kurdistan in the spring of 1991 a new era was starting. For many people that meant building a democratic system and developing a political culture different from that of Baath, and under which the international criteria of human rights would be respected.

In this new era of political change, the Western countries were optimistic about the efforts of Kurdish leaders. Hopes were raised in Iraqi Kurdistan after the Baath fell and free general elections were held in the region in 1992 in order to establish political institutions and a multiparty system ; such freedoms were absent under the Baath party. Yet the first sign of the continuation of Baathist tyrannical and dictatorial culture appeared when the PUK, didn’t accept their defeat against Barzani and his KDP in the legislative and presidential elections of 19th May 1992; instead, Talabani and his supporters pressed to establish a fifty-fifty government partnership.

Consequently, a weak government was established. Party conflict, greed for power, and disputes over the customs revenue from the Ibrahim Khalil border point destabilized the government, and that political instability led to the outbreak of civil war throughout Iraqi Kurdistan. This war broke out in may 1994, two years after “the democratic process”, during which the peshmerga forces of the two parties committed crimes against each other’s sympathisers such as detaining, hunting down, torturing even killing them, and displacing the families who were sympathizers of KDP or PUK. These acts of crime were reminiscent of the Baath crimes, which were vehemently criticized by the Kurdish parties who pretended that they were struggling for democracy and human rights.

Kurdish culture is not separated from Middle Eastern culture. This one appreciates personalities and their power, such as, aghas, sheikhs, mullahs, and tribal chieftains. Nowadays government and party officials are viewed as strong and unchallengeable men. These individuals don’t allow themselves to be challenged or criticized, so they oppose every individual or collective act that threatens their status through seizure, torture, and killing. The aghast of yesterday became now the “modern” political officials. The traditional culture of aghas and sheikhs and the politics and prestige of “modern” officials produce submission, personality worship, obedience, applause, and praise; instead of freedoms of thought and expression.

Now in Iraqi Kurdistan, the government and party officials have the same mentality of aghas and sheikhs in terms of exerting a tyrannical power for their own personal interests. They like to be praised and applauded; they are arrogant and exploit their status to violate laws; such as not stop at traffic lights and hurting policemen - to summarize, they are petty dictators. Party and government can’t punish them because they represent these two institutions; any punishment may result in personal disputes that weaken their own party and strengthen their adversary party. This phenomenon was rather common during the civil war but still persists. These officials support their own family members and relatives and save them from legal punishment. Many people report these events.

We considered Iraqi Kurdistan as Middle East’s Switzerland and said that we could present it as a model for post-Saddam Iraq. Today that saying is shameful. No one can repeat it because Kurdish authorities didn’t present to the international community a very different model from that of Baath. Forbidding demonstrations against the Kurdish authorities, detaining political prisoners, kidnapping, torturing even killing ordinary people and journalists based on their political ideas and critics; threatening ordinary people to prevent them from criticizing President, party and government officials, and security officers. All these acts were noted by international human rights’ organizations. So if someone wants to keep his own job, continue to receive his salary, and stay at home in peace, he shouldn’t express his real political opinion unless he is prepared to be punished. During the election, political parties buy votes, and threaten anyone who doesn’t vote for their party; if not, he may lose his job. Many such events were recorded during the elections of 25th July 2009 and those of 7th March 2010. Moreover, the attack of the KDP men on the bureaux of the Islamic Union of Kurdistan in 2005 in Badinan and in some areas of Arbil was a clear indication of the absence of a democratic culture and the respect for human rights in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the era of Internet, satellite channels and the overture to the world, citizens are finding new free tribunes through which they express their discontent on the tyrannical power of the “president”, the “party”, the “government” and the “officials”. Their opinion is a logical reflection of this injustice and oppression against the society. This freedom of expression had been considered by the Kurdish parties as an honor against the Baath regime, but today the same freedom is considered as a taboo by the same political parties because it may endanger their authorities. These speeches have the same content and meaning either against the Baath or against the KDP and PUK because they are a defense of democracy, freedom, equality and justice. The oppressor of the people is the same regardless if he is an Arab Baathist or a Kurd from PUK or KDP, because for the poor and oppressed people there isn’t a difference between these two ethnic oppressors.

Today the KDP and the PUK and their leaders are still pretending to have a “revolutionary legitimacy”. They are saying that they have struggled for the Kurdish people and thanks to their political and armed struggle the Kurds have now a “free region” and their own government. That is why they pretend that they have an exclusive right to benefit from political and economic power. But their acts of monopolizing the political power and the economic resources of the country, as well as the oppression of people, prove that they were not struggling for the people’s salvation, but rather for dollars, beautiful cars and land rovers, palaces and beautiful girls. The officials’ children enjoy studying and spending “the people’s money” abroad with girls and going to coasts and casinos. Then they return back to Kurdistan to become “officials”. The Kurdish people can’t afford this situation. Those who are courageous express their discontent and criticize, but they may be eliminated, like Soran Mama Hama, Dr. Abdulsatar Taher Sharif and Sardasht Osman, and others who were killed because of their opinions, critiques, and political activism. The party and government authorities continue to threaten, detain, and torture the criticizers.

The Kurdish officials came down from the mountains, returned from Iran and other foreign countries to find a new situation in which they easily gained political and economic power. Their economic and social status changed rapidly from poverty to wealthy. Their past “struggle for the rights of the Kurdish people” and easily gaining the riches gave them hereditary privileges. The political power and its privileges give them a big opportunity to become famous, rich, and to easily realize their personal desires and dreams, make them try anything to stay in power, such as falsifying the elections and the democratic process; intimidating, torturing even killing the free criticizers; repressing the opposition by preventing it from doing its normal activities; collaborating with foreign countries and compromising with them in to order to stay at power.

International human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published reports on the records of human rights in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan in which they criticize the KRG and both Kurdish main parties the KDP and the PUK for imprisoning, torturing, or killing citizens based on their political affiliation or opinion. This is especially the case of killed journalists. Simultaneously, these two parties accuse the ‘foreign hands,’ by which they mean Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, or ‘internal hands,’ by which they mean Islamists, or the political opposition in Kurdistan of trying to destroy the security and stability of the Kurdistan Region and weaken the position of the KRG in the world by killing the criticizers and journalists!

The acts of the Kurdish authorities could be only described as a new authoritarianism. Unfortunately, although Kurdistan was freed from the Baath it is now confronted with ‘Kurdish authoritarianism,’ and can only be freed by a strong, broad-based, courageous opposition. This opposition must encourage civil disobedience in order to gradually transfer power from the political traders to the opposition or must exercise democracy through elections and policies that bring about liberty and equality. The intellectuals can play an important role by awakening the people and guiding the political opposition so as to bring about systemic change in the framework of a political and Cultural Revolution. In doing so, they separate themselves from the Baath and the feudal system and its culture. They must take steps toward a political system and culture capable of securing and assuring rights, liberties, and equality for the people. This new political culture will be characterized by participation, checks on government power, and discontent displayed through civil disobedience or punishment vote rather than submission, applause, or political indifference. Political power plays with the life, dignity, and destiny of the people, and that is why it is necessary to participate in it and orient it toward the peoples’ rights and interests, rather than in the service of some families and tribes.

The Kurdish leaders often emphasize the importance of the institutionalization of democracy and the respect for human rights and liberties. That is right! These two steps are important: any political development and progress can be made in Kurdistan. Such political stability then paves the way for economic growth. And certainly in the heart of a destabilized Middle East, if the Kurds can establish a developed and solid political system, they will give the international community a positive image of a people that, for centuries, suffered under the authority of other ethnic peoples. But is this ambition compatible with today’s Kurdish cultural and political realities? The 18 years of the Kurdish self-rule experiment shows that they aren’t very different from the neighbor peoples: particularly, as we mentioned, in terms of the religious and tribal mentality, and the individual and familial authoritarianism that are a big obstacle towards democracy and morality of human rights. Civil war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, falsifying the elections, and exercising pressure on the voters, and detaining and murdering civilians and political opponents because of their free opinion don’t help to make any difference between the Kurdish government and parties on the one side and the Baathist government and party on the other side!

When Kurdish authorities were criticized by the international human rights organizations, surprisingly, those politicians rejected these critical reports, which were proved by facts, and said that these organizations were lying or exaggerating! This reaction was similar to the media they released during the dispute and conflict between the KDP and the PUK’s destructive civil war that lasted from 1994-1998, as if they are in a media war against these humanitarian international organizations!

Besides the Kurdish political “secular” authority, the religious clergy and the Islamic parties also exercise a considerable pressure on free speech and writing. They threaten writers who express their ideas about Islam in general, mullahs and Islamic parties in particular. These parties are not in political power, if they were, they could be worse than the Islamic regime in Iran. They exercise pressure on the political authority to punish journals and magazines which publish critical articles on Islam, but more dangerously, some radicals try to murder secular critics or Kurds who convert to Christianity. Unfortunately, the Kurdish authority behaves opportunistically by supporting the religious actors against the secular critics. This act is dangerous for the future of secular political and social struggles for the political and social modernization.

To conclude, I would like to say that in light of the current political reality of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish authority (party and government) can’t pretend that it is democratic and respectful of the rights, liberties and dignity of the citizens in this Region! For change, we need courageous intellectual elite, and a strong and active independent civil society. I’m sure that my article is not pleasing to Kurdish authorities but it is, of course, in the interest of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan and their ambition to live in a progressive, developed, democratic, and prosperous Kurdistan. Without critique we can’t progress.