.Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Rßvue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Ozeti
ties say he is perfectly weIr They explain
that his relations and lawyers have been
unable to visit him only because of bad
weather. that, say the lawyers, is rubbish.
Mr Ocalan, who founded the PKK, led a
viplent 1s-year campaign for independence
for Thrkey's 12mor so Kurds,until he
was nabbed by Thrkish special forces in
Kenya:.After being sentenced to be hanged
for treason, he abandoned demands for
KurdiShindependence as the price for saying
his life. He called on his men to .stop
. fighting and told them to withdraw to
Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, where
about 5,000 PKK fighters have since remained.
His sentence was commuted to
life imprisonment after Thrkey's parlia-
,ment abolished the death penalty last year
to boostthe country's efforts tojoin the BU.
. The Thrkish government may be isolatmg
Mr Ocalan in order to disrupt communication
(via his lawyers and family) with his
fighters,who apparently still obey his every
. word. As part of a proposed deal between
Thrkey and the Americans, Thrkish forces
are poisedto enter northern Iraq ifa war
begins, while thousands of American
troops using Thrkey as their base will open
a second front against Saddam Hussein's
forces (see page 43). In addition, the Thrks
will try to preventan influx of Kurdish refu- .
gees from Iraq. They are adamantly opposed
to the Kurds having their own
state-in Iraq or anywhere else. In other
words, while keeping Mr Ocalan out of
touch with his people, the Thrks may be
tempted to give the PKK another bashing. _
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Occupational hazards .'By Willianl pfaff
U.S~plans ignore Iraq's clans
PARIS
Last week I was on a platform with Gudrun
Harrer, the foreign affairs editor of the Vienna
daily Der Standard and a Middle East
specialist. She had just returned from the region
and was asked her expectations about the war
that seems about to take place.
She said that until recently she had thought U.S.
forces would probably overrun Iraq relatively easily
but that she'd changed her mind when Saddam Hussein
declared he would hold the tribal or clan leaders
of the country respo~sible for defending their.
own regions and was armingthem accordingly. This
made a serious difference, she said, particularly as
. the Iraqi dictator would undoubtedly have any of th~
.. leaders who faltered killed, as an example to others.
. To talk seriously about societiessuch as lraq, it is
essential to appreciate the family or clan structure
that provides most of its members with their fundamental
social attachment, and which is the basis 9f
their political and military commitments. .
Iraq is a manufactured state, which only came into
existence in 1920,as a British mandate, although
Iraqi (or Mesopotamian) society itself has existed
since the beginnings of civilization.
Before 1920, the people had been members of
three Ottoman Empire provinces. No doubt they
would have identified themselves first as Muslims
and th~n as subjects of the distant Sultan.
, Real authority in most' matters was exercised by
"more or less self-sufficient communities ruled by
their own forces, authorities and hierarchies, with
the Ottoman state as a remote imposition with a predominantly
fiscal concern, " according to the British
scholar Sami Zubaida, writing in the May 2000 issue
of The International Journal of Middle East Studies.
The state collected taxes, not always successfully,
and imposed military conscription, "a particularly
detested and resisted practice."
After World War 1 destroyed the Ottoman state,
the fractious communities of what became Iraq
were pulled together by a British-imposed monarchy.
It controlled resources and their allocation,
state emr.loyment and education, which provided
the qualIfications for employment and imposed a
standardization of language. Out of this emerged a
"national" intelligentsia and political class.
However the fundamental components of Iraq remained
communal or clan, regional and religious.
Clan or faIpily was the one solid and secure relationship
people possessed. Family gave protection
against tivals and the arbitrary power of the state. Careers,
state commissions, business investments, contracts
and jobs came mainly through through family
members well placed in society or in government.
Wealth and possessions were also held by the
family group. This encouraged consanguineous
marriage amongcousins and related families. It in'"
tensified the bonds of family and the webs of advantage,
abd kept clan wealth concentrated.
On the other hand, secular political forces affecting
the new Iraqi state included Arab nationalismthe
idea of an independent Arab state made up of all
the Arabs. This idea was launched in Lebanese
Christian circles in the 1920s and inspired the
Ba'ath parties ofboth Syria and Iraq.
Saddam Hussein is a Ba'ath ruler. The Ba'ath idea
is of a secular Arab nation (which is why Christians
originated it and support it today), rather than one
defined by Islamic religion.
'.
Today's Islamic fundamentalists and the Saudi
Arabians and other theocratic Muslims condemn
the Ba'ath idea. In Iraq's early years, the political dividing
line was between the pan-Arab idea and the
emerging notion of an Iraqi nation, dominated by
the Sunni minority, which is what Iraq is today.
Zubaida nonetheless warns that to say the Iraqi
nation is a reality "is not to imply that this reality is'
one of solidarity or loyalty." The vital forces remain
its component ethnic or religious groups, and it~
clans and families.
Last week representatives of the Bush adminis-'
tration explained to a Senate committee its sketchy
plans for rebuilding Iraq as a democracy. There wiil
be revised laws and a constitution. There will be
."advisory committees" made up of returned Iraqiexiles,
bureaucrats, professionals and local leaders
to advise General Tommy Franks during the military
occupation. The officials differed on whether
the occupation would last two years or more.
There was no discussion of the relationship of
laws and advisory committees to Iraq's real social
structure. A critic might say they sounded like babes.
in the woods discussing the gingerbread house they,
are going to rebuild after knocking it down. They
were also talking about all this with a confidence
that suggested they just might be tempting fate.
1\ibune Media Services International
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