This is the text of the talk Stafford Clarry gave at UH Hilo, which I attended, as posted in The Hawaii Reporter.
Read this rosy assessment:
"I also know this from the Kurdistan Region of today that is personally secure and politically stable. [my italics]. Any one of you, woman or man, can take the keys of my vehicle in Erbil and move anywhere throughout the Region, at anytime day or night, alone without armed guards. I do, and have always done so. You will not be harmed. We have virtually no crime. And we are virtually drug-free. (And we have no taxes.) We have other major issues to deal with, but not these issues. Yet.
It's a veritable Paradise, obviously, full of magnificent scenery, nice English speaking people and lovely girls in their colorful ethnic costumes. Go. Visit. Start a business.
Don't you long to be there?
Postscript: This is interesting. What I want to know now is how our people over there intend to handle the incipient war between Turkey and Kurdistan. Doesn't our weaponry come through Turkey into Iraq? Are they going to let Turkey move in and take over?
I won't say any more on this topic, because I don't know a lot about it. But Clarry set off all my alarm signals. I think he is either deluded or lying. I would be delighted to learn that I am wrong. God knows the people of that region, and all the people of Iraq, deserve peace and prosperity.
I read your letter of 10 October in Salon, and knew who the speaker was, because his speech was reprinted in part in the 7 October Hawaii Free Press. It's a bit optimistic in parts but I liked his family history.
I predict Iraq will become three countries: Kurdistan and two Islamic republics.
Posted by: Brandon | October 12, 2007 at 05:09 PM
Brandon: Unlike me, you are temperate and fair-minded!
Yes, Stafford Clarry makes a nice impression--he's friendly and relaxed--which is what we like around here. He's a "nice guy" from a nice family. But I wonder how his demeanor strikes the much more formal people of the Middle East.
I am truly reminded of Graham Greene's *Quiet American,* the optimistic yet destructive American who believes that everyone is really the same and we're all brothers and sisters with the same values. And of course the corollary that everyone, if they had their way, would rather be an American. His kind of success story is compelling, but it may not travel well. We like it: local boy, goes to college, becomes a big success. Not all cultures admire that.
The biggest problem to me is that he had to admit in answer to a question from the audience that he did not speak Kurdish beyond a few words, and yet he refers to the people there as "We."
Stats I've seen in looking around the web indicate that only tiny numbers of Kurds speak anything but Kurdish, which means his contacts with Kurds must be almost exclusively with the elites.
I'm trying to find out more about the literacy rate in Kurdistan. It was high (almost 100%)under Saddam before the Gulf Wars, but I don't know what it is now.
Posted by: Hattie | October 12, 2007 at 05:28 PM
Thanks for the comments. Usually I speak on particular technical aspects related to public policy to university groups, never in a public gathering because it's so hard to know an audience that I am not familiar with. But Hilo is my original home and I do believe there is a future for the younger people of Hawaii in international service, whether commercial or public service, because they are of Hawaii and all that that means when it comes to engaging the world. I agreed to speak publicly for them because they have a future. I will have served overseas 40 years next year and I know the value of being enriched by other peoples' cultures. The comments only underscore what I know, that we Americans have so much to learn about other cultures and how they approach their daily world. Despite our access to unlimited information and education, we don't do a very good job of understanding what this is all about. Iraq, of course, is a classic example.
In the States during these very divisive times there is always the danger that the Kurdistan Region will be automatically lumped with the rest of Iraq where there is so much appalling tragedy. Bad news drowns out good news, even more so in Iraq, even when the good news is so strong.
People here in the Kurdistan Region are frustrated by this because it has inhibited the investment needed to take at least this peaceful part of the country forward much faster.
Over the years, innumerable positive news articles and reports have been published on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, many republished on www.krg.org The Internet is full of information of what the Kurdistan Region is all about today, both good and bad, but the very real high level of personal security and political stability is not in doubt to anyone who has been here.
Most anyone and everyone who has been here highlights the forest of building cranes, the new (first) aqua parks and bowling alleys, how US soldiers, in uniform, walk through the markets without their weapons, and how roaming the urban areas and mountains without feeling paranoid is such a normal everyday thing to do.
Last February, CBS 60 Minutes did an excellent segment 'Kurdistan: The Other Iraq' that visually shows what the Kurdistan Region is about when it comes to security and stability:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/60minutes/main2486679.shtml
Over the years, Christopher Hitchins has written a lot about Kurdistan. 'Holiday in Iraq' in last April's Vanity Fair, about Kurdistan, was featured by Jon Stewart on 'The Daily Show'. Please don't miss his article at: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/hitchens200704
The January 2006 issue of National Geographic featured "The Other Iraq" in its cover article. It's all there in black and white text and convincing color photographs. If you collect NatGeos look for the August 1992 issue. The same photographer, Ed Kashi, did the photos. I was there. See how far Kurdistan has come since those terrible times.
And there is so much much more. No end really. If all this is not convincing then I can only suggest we deeply contemplate why the obvious eludes reality.
The Kurdistan Region no doubt has its issues and problems, some very serious, it's not paradise, though some say its paradise compared to the rest of the country. Expatriates from Baghdad love to come to Kurdistan for a break from being cooped up in the not so safe 'green zone'. When General Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne in 2003-2004 his soldiers came to Kurdistan for R&R.
With security and stability, which are fundamental to everything else to happen, Kurdistan's issues and problems have a chance of, finally, being seriously addressed. Real development has only just begun. I don't do projects with foreign assistance that deliver goods and services of the 'Quiet American' type. I work with local officials in developing their policies for their Kurdistan, policies that are culturally sensitive, involve the people of all socio-economic levels, and consider environmental factors.
This is not a poverty stricken third-world situation. Kurds are wonderfully friendly and hospitable. We have been through some very difficult times since 1991 and we are very comfortable with each other. Communication in such an environment is not much of a problem. I do speak some Kurdish but not to the level where I can discuss politics because those I would discuss politics with speak good English.
Iraq is a country that had the best health and education services in the Middle East, which have seriously deteriorated, but that still leaves a lot of doctors and engineers and other educated people who know good English. Newcomers have little, if any, difficulty getting around and getting things done. English speakers are everywhere. Good English writing, though, is a different story.
The Kurdish Diaspora is quite large and more are returning from Europe and America where they went as refugees two or three decades ago. This is not an elitist society where segments of the population isolate themselves from each other. Far from it. Not yet anyway. Stratification in terms of socio-economic levels is quite weak. Yes, there are income imbalances that need to be addressed, but no one starves, partly because families are large and family ties are strong.
Communication is relatively easy and familiarity is wonderful no matter where I go, with whom I go, and with whomever we meet along the way. I always travel with local people to meet with local people. The engagement among Kurds is always very respectful and friendly regardless of social standing. This is indeed a pleasure. I lived in India and Bangladesh for 18 years and very well know the difference.
There's a tremendous amount to learn about Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region. The Internet offers an unlimited array of material, for free. Life goes on no matter how much people have been through periods of genocide and the destruction of their homes in over 4,000 communities. Much of my work has focused on reconstruction and resettlement, and I continue to be amazed at the cheerful disposition many people have expressed in rebuilding their homes, perhaps for the fourth time. They do it because it's their home.
Below is one article fresh off the press. We attended this trade show yesterday.
Regarding current tensions with Turkey, I have a lot to say but this is already very long. Next time.
The leaders and people of the Kurdistan Region, despite serious challenges, are very optimistic. Why shouldn't I be? Optimism in the midst of appalling tragedy has gotten them this far.
Stafford Clarry
Erbil, Kurdistan-Iraq
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Toronto Star
01 Nov. 2007
Iraqi Kurds taking care of business
Annual trade show attracts firms from 20 countries as construction booms while war rages in south
Oakland Ross, Middle East Bureau
The Star's Oakland Ross is in Iraq this week. This is his first report.
Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq – The fires of civil war continue to rage south of this rambling, low-rise regional capital, and now military tensions are mounting to the north as well, along the rebel-infested border between Iraq and Turkey.
But here in sunny, ancient Erbil, they're having a trade show – and Hogr Salih Qadir, for one, is feeling pretty good about it.
Spokesperson for a local cellphone company, Qadir was presiding yesterday at what was likely the busiest of 300 or so booths at the third annual Erbil International Fair, a five-day extravaganza of luxury automobiles, widescreen TVs, air-conditioning systems, heavy industrial equipment, computer supplies, tractors, and non-stop schmoozing.
"We're making a special offer for the fair," said Qadir.
His company, local firm Obitel, is offering a new technology, developed in China, that lets customers sign on to the Internet or make video calls from their cell phones, and it is marking the occasion by selling heavily discounted cellphone memory chips – an excellent deal to judge by the throngs of eager purchasers all jostling for position around the booth yesterday afternoon.
"People need a new technology," said Qadir.
No doubt, they do.
Still, what most Iraqis seem to need, far more than a new technology, is a new ideology – one that doesn't involve car bombs and kidnappings and suicide attacks on civilian targets, near-daily occurrences in Baghdad and other southern cities, where U.S.-led military forces have been unable to calm storms of ethnic hatred that erupted here following the ouster four years ago of dictator Saddam Hussein.
Here in Erbil, however, people seem to have found the answer.
With its new, glass-walled airport terminal, its plethora of construction cranes, and its general air of peace, bustle, and purpose, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan remains a blessed anomaly in a country at war with itself and often at deadly odds with a range of foreign armies.
Contrasts separating northern Iraq from the rest of the country were typified this week by the trade fair that began here Monday and winds up tomorrow.
Companies from about 20 different countries – including Austria, Brazil, the United States, Lebanon, and Estonia, but not Canada – are participating in the show, all vying for a slice of the billions of dollars in business activity either underway here or just around the corner.
In Erbil, unlike other parts of war-ravaged Iraq, buildings seem to go up rather than come crashing down.
So do electrical power lines, telecommunications facilities, water and sanitation plants, and agricultural projects – all parts of the ambitious development schemes plotted for the coming years by the Kurdistan Regional Government led by President Massoud Barzani.
The city even has an extensive family amusement park – the Diana Games City, a Kurdish equivalent of Paramount Canada's Wonderland, built by a local contractor, the Darin Company.
"We have many projects under construction," boasted Maissam Sabah, a spokesperson for the firm, which had its own booth at the trade fair.
"If it's possible, we would like to do projects in other countries because we are a very big company."
Severely persecuted under Saddam, the Iraqi Kurds have slowly united and, especially in the years since his overthrow, they have won a high degree of political autonomy and now in some ways operate almost like an independent state.
The Kurdish flag is far more visible here than the banner of the Iraqi republic.
Lately, however, the region's political outlook has been clouded by worsening tensions between the Turkish government and militant Turkish Kurds fighting for an independent homeland who stage cross-border raids from their redoubts in the remote mountains of northern Iraq.
Clashes are more frequent since the Oct. 21 ambush carried out by Kurdish rebels that killed 12 Turkish soldiers, and kidnapped others.
Fears of a possible Turkish ground invasion into Iraqi territory to uproot rebels in the Kurdistan Workers' Party continue.
But such worries seemed far away yesterday in the cavernous, 10,000-square-metre exhibition hall at Sami Abdul Rahman Park on the outskirts of Erbil, where local men and women – some in traditional dress but most in Western clothing – lollygagged among the booths as loudspeakers blared North American pop standards.
If anyone was complaining, it wasn't about politics or war or occupying armies, but about the popularity of the fair among ordinary folk, not all of whom enjoy multi-million-dollar investment budgets.
"Ninety per cent of the people in here are just workers," groused Amar Saad, president of a Jordanian company that markets South African-made police equipment. "They are not decision-makers."
Maybe not. But they were peaceful.
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Posted by: Stafford Clarry | November 01, 2007 at 02:36 PM