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Thursday, July 21, 2005
Kurdish Self-Determination… …is admittedly far removed from the concerns of this blog. But since UD’s husband is working in Kurdistan at the moment, she’s reading and thinking about it. Which doesn’t mean you have to, but I thought I’d share, anyway, some interesting remarks I’ve found in my Kurd-surfing. The first is by Shlomo Avineri, in the journal Dissent. That there are so many more Arabs (and Turks) than Kurds has determined attitudes toward the Kurdish people. The issue is, obviously, not only numbers. It is also a matter of the power of Arab — and Muslim — states. It entails concern for oil and Turkey’s strategic location. And finally, it concerns the fact that the Kurds are not only a small people, they also do not have powerful friends. They are a nation without many cousins abroad or fraternal allies. The second is something Christopher Hitchens said in a recent interview. This is the flag of Kurdistan in my lapel; but my Kurdish comrades say that …their main responsibility is for the new Iraq now. And they who would have every right to say we want to get out of this prison house of the state are willing to still cooperate to help to emancipate the rest of it. I think that's an extraordinary sacrifice on their part. Deserves more recognition than it's had. |