genocide

my eye fell on this post by Robert Halfon, Tory MP for Harlow. A man whose name I have heard quite a bit lately. He asks, whose story today is the most similar to that of the Jewish people, in terms of persecution, marginalisation, genocide and revival? The answer might surprise you, he says. But the answer was immediately obvious to me, and no surprise. The Kurdish people. Their homeland, if they can really be said to have one, is in Iraq, and Turkey, and neighbouring places. They have in effect their own nation now in Iraq, built on the mass graves dug by Saddam's slaves. In this context I would highly recommend Michael J. Totten, who, unlike so many who pontificate about the region, has actually spent a lot of time there and talked with many of the major figures. There is to be a debate in the House of Commons on recognition of what was done to the Kurds as genocide. The debate is to take place on 28th February. If I were in London I would be in the Strangers' Gallery to hear it. As I am not, I hope person or persons will live tweet it for my benefit. Oh and Robert Halfon, if you are ever in Strasbourg, let me buy you a cup of coffee or a glass of the finest Alsace pinot blanc, and shake you by the hand.

lack of intervention leads not to peace but war

in Syria, of course.  The shameful lack of intervention to stop the slaughter of Syria's people by its government has had regional repercussions which were not hard to foresee.  I speak of course of the Kurdish issue.  Turkey's brutal suppression of its Kurds is well known, and Syria has previously been helpful in this, booting the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) leader Abdullah Ocalan out of Damascus and enabling him to be arrested and extradited to Turkey, where he remains, serving a life sentence which will never be commuted.  But now, as the regime in Syria becomes increasingly savage and desperate, the various Kurdish groupings in the region, most of which do not trust each other or work together, are mobilising, to Turkey's dismay.  There have already been shootings and shellings across the Turkish-Syrian border, and there will be more.  With each Turkish life lost the rattle of the sabres is louder.  But NATO is deaf to it.  Turkey invoked the NATO charter this week, but was more or less ignored.  You can read a good piece by the excellent Michael Weiss here.

NATO's geopolitical reasons for its unwillingness to support its member state, Turkey, are for it to explain.  But it is worth noting that the only place in the wider region where the Kurds live at peace, not much repressed, and with a measure of self-determination, is Iraq.  And it was intervention that gave them that.

Kurdish issues

outside my workplace there is a permanent vigil, so described, for Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) who is serving I believe 99 years in Turkey for terrorist offences.  They say they will stay there until he is released.  They sometimes march and chant, and a couple of times have got into one of the buildings.  Well, Ocalan is never coming out, is my firm belief.  The Kurds are the largest population group in the world without a country, and as they are in the Middle East, and Muslim, but not Arab, and as they are, pretty  much, hated by the leaders of all the countries they are in (with the possible exceptions of those unlikely bedfellows Iran and Israel), it's going to be difficult for them to find one.  There are of course emigre Kurdish communities in most of the world, including the neighbourhood I live in in Strasbourg.  Successive conflicts, persecution and massacres have driven them away.  Michael Totten has spent a lot of time in Iraq, including with the Kurds there, and has written some interesting dispatches which he has now edited into a book "In the Wake of the Surge" which is worth reading.  Like me, he was plunged into profound gloom at the slaughter which took place after the overthrow of the Saddam regime, and depressed by the gleeful Guardianista wallowing in gore at that time.  But the surge, the brainchild of General David Petraeus, did the job, and Iraq is stable now, much more so than many in the region.  Totten cites an index of liberties which places Iraq third in the region (not including Israel in the count, obviously) after Lebanon and Morocco.  Unlike me, Totten has spent years in the region, is well connnected there, and has a deep knowledge of the politics and issues.  So, while he may not be right about everything, he is writing from experience and what he has seen, rather than from Guardian editorials as too many do.

Anyway, the Kurds have a measure of self-determination in Iraq now.  Good.  They like the US and Israel and are cheerfully, and disgracefully, racist about Arabs from anywhere.  Women are not covered ,and the sexes mingle socially.  Opposition parties and media flourish.  Iraqi Kurdistan is not a paradise - there is huge corruption - but I'd rather visit there than, say, Saudi Arabia.