Iraqi Kurdistan, called a "safe haven" since April 1991, is a land of destitute people. Wherever you go, you are confronted with countless faces: frightened, sad, stressed, tired. To borrow a phrase from William Blake's "London" poem (1794), in every face you see "marks of weakness, marks of woe." These people are destitute because they have seen their incomes drop by as much as 95% since 1992. Those who once had homes, modern appliances and furniture have sold them all to put food on the table. Men who once drove cars, wore expensive watches, took their families on vacations, now find themselves at a sidewalk sellingwhat little they have left: a few dishes, a blanket, an old radio, or a couple of shirts.
But these people are far more desperate than Blake's prostitutes and chimney sweepers. These people are also surrounded by enemies: Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west, and Iraq to the south. (All want nothing more than to prevent the Kurds from becoming a nation with a national signature.) And more recently by enemies within. On the one hand, there is Masoud Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party. On the other, there is Jalal Talabani and his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The two have become bitter rivals, and the hungry people of Southern Kurdistan are Davino the Drice. One afternoon this past July, Naze, a mother of two on her way to visit her sick mother, walked past a building housing a Talabani unit. The armed men glared at her; they stopped her; they told her angrily and rudely never again to wear yellow - a color which has been hijacked by KDP as its own. Naze, frightened, obliged tearfully.
When Naze arrived at her mother's, again it was the politics of color that was on everyone's mind. Her sister, Shahla, a high school senior, was telling of a fight that broke out that morning at school, at first between two girls, one wearing a green scarf - a color claimed by PUK as its own - the other waiving a yellow handkerchief in response. A crowd gathered, and soon almost everyone became involved in the battle of colors - including the teachers. Shahla left in disgust before the madness was over. Wlth the help of her mother, and to Naze's disbelief, Shahla was now throwing away all her yellows and greens, cursing the two parties for robbing her of her favorite colors.
But with or without them the likes of Shahla were not to be freed from the politics of color. This her cousin Nadia, a secretary at the Ministry of Justice, recently found out. Shahla wanted to take a week off so that she could be with her brother visiting from Sweden. She had not seen him for ten years. Her request was approved by her immediate supervisor, a PUK appointee, but was rejected by her boss, a KDP appointee. Caught in the middle, Shahla had to listen whlle they demonized each other. The PUK man told her straight out that he would approve her request only if she agreed to join PUK. She was equally harassed by the other side. Shahla quit in disgust. "I can't stand this anymore," she told her family.
Imagine three and one half million people fenced off from the rest of the world, not able even to send or receive mail from overseas, and wondering constantly whether the "safe haven" would be renewed for another six months! Poverty and uncer tainty aside, the people of Southern Kurdistan must cope with a more menacing reality: an all out war - really - between Barzani and Talabani. This past summer their peshmergas fought each other like sworn enemies, at times even executing prisoners they had taken. The fighting was especially vicious m May, with casualties in the thousands. Sadfy, the outcome has been a divided Southern Kurdistan: the eastern portion (including the cities of Koysinjaq, Rania and Sulaymania) has gone to Talabani; the northwest (icluding the cities of Dohuk and Zakho) has gone to Barzani. And the colors tell it all: every major buiEding in the east has been painted green; buildings in the northeast, yellow. Fortunately, Arbil, Southern Kurdistan's capital, remains mixed.
The polarization of the people into either pro-Barzani or pro-Talabani factions has become so pervasive that a dinner scene often erupts in a nasty confrontation involving members of the same family, far worse in fact than what James Joyce so vividlv renders in the opening pages of A Portrait of theArtist as a Young Man. And of course the question on everyone's mind is why. Power is no doubt one reason. Each side wants more. At this point, Barzani controls the border checkpoint into Turkey where, from an expanding trade, he reaps hefty taxes, thus insuring himself a steady source of revenue. He also imposes an exhorbitant tax of $500 on Iraqi Kurds going abroad, a sum on which a family of four can hve for a year! Talabani has no access to this revenue, and very little trade goes through his side of the border adjoining Iran.
But I think the major reason for this bitter rivalry goes beyond the thirst for power. You see, these two leaders are still trapped in the language of dictatorship, a language they learned from Saddam Hussein; they still use its methods and styles. Like Saddam's, life-size portraits of Barzani are everywhere in the area he controls, sometimes on the same billboards that once pictured Saddam. Like the newspapers of Saddam, Barzani's newspapers carry his portrait on the front page daily. And some of the exact words used by the Iraqi media to glorify Saddam - "the great leader," "the respectful leader," "the leader with a vision" - are used by Barzani's media to glorify him. What is more, like Saddam, neither Barzani nor Talabani can take criticism. They dismiss everything they dislike as lies, fabrications of sick and inferior minds
True, Talabani's pictures are nowhere to be seen in the region he controls, nor are they carried regularly by his newspapers. But his television station resembles that of Saddam in portraying "the leader." Evening news always begins with Talabani's daily reception of this or that dignitarv. We see "the leader" and his guests; never do we hear what they say. Instead we are treated to background music. This is vintage Saddam.
Meanwhile, the Nazes and Nadias and Shahlas continue to wake up every morning wondering if this madness will ever end. -------------------------------------------------------------------
Azad Sulaiman returned to Iraqi Kurdistan last summer to visit his family.
This article originally appeared in Dialogue (September 1994), and The Kurdish Life (Summer 1994).