Bulletin de liaison etd'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-l)entrp de la Prensa-Basln Ozeti
ted out that-when Iraq wasfounded in thebe~g of the last çen.tury, some citizens were more equal than others.
The rights of the Kurds, the Shi'ites and those of minorities such as Turkomen, Assyrians; Chaldeails, Yeiidies, Jews
and Sabia's, were both recognized and violated.
Burdens grew and became worse, but the catastrophic deterioration occurred under the present regime. Iraq is now
considered one of the most closed statesin the twenty-first century. Reformation and democratisation of Iraq is possible
when the people of Iraq and the world democracies unite their efforts to facilitate this reformation and democratisation.
Dictatorship cannot bring stability. Denial of communal rights c~ates instability, and breeds evil totalitarian
approaches in the streets as well as in the palaces of the despots. Recognition of people's rights is an essential
ingredient in bringing stability and prosperity. '
The next three speakers, Paul Hist, Faleh Jabar and ~ Zubaida were from London University's Bribeck College.
Paul Hirst described the are three basic elements of demQCracy: representative government; a liberal framework of
political norms and social and institutional pluralism. Some people give much greater emphasis to one of the three
and often the relationship between the three is confused in our everyday politicallanguage.
Hist drew attention to the huge wave of democratisation that has taken place in the last twenty years and said it was
obviously better than a wave of authoritarianism but many of these new regimes are weak democracies with shallow
foundations. When people argue about systems of government one thing that becomes absolutely clear is that
whatever the faults of democracy, anything else is worse. The fundamental reason is that if government does not
involve consulting the people who are affected by decisions then those qecisions will tend to be bad and self-interested.
Faleh Jabar concluded that there is a new co-relation between the state and society. The total hegemony which was
achieved by the Baath Party, through oil revenues, through psychological hegemony, its security apparatuses and
even by the success of the socÎél1services is cracking. The very pillars of these successes are cracking. Some of them
have crackéd beyond recognition. This will create a new window of opportunity for civil society and perhaps some
sort of democratisation.
, Sami Zubaida drew attention to the factthe countries in the region which have a measure of real pluralism although
not often of liberalism or of the rule of law are Turkey and Iran in very different ways. In both Turkey and Iran very
few of the politiCal forces and the centres of social power are democratic. But at the same time the very fact that there
is a multiplicity of power centres, and each one of them may be ~emocratic, promotes the possibility of democracy.
This was also true of pre civil war Lebanon. You don't have an Abdel Nasser, of Saddam Hussein or Qathafi who will
just hold all the power within a clique in the centre but for historical reasons you have a dispersion of centres of social
power.
So the road to democratisation is really a very difficult one. I can only conclude with the reported response of the
Irish peasant who was asked by a tourist how do I get to Dublin from here? He replied: If I were I would not start
from here at all.
In his analysis of Turkey's attitude towards democràtisation in Iraq Dr William Hale from the ~partment of Political
Studies at SOAS said that Turkey has some difficulties over this: it doesn't want to push this as a major point since
its main efforts are concentrated on democratisation at home, and dealing with its own Kurdish problem. It also probably
doesn't want to annoy Saddam unnecessarily, and insists merely that he must comply over weapons inspections,
etc. However, in principle it strongly favours a more democratic and stable Iraq, provided this can be achieved
withoùt a period of chaos or dismemberment of the country.
Turkish reactions to the extension of the war on terrorism to Iraq are not quite certain. For instance, Turkish
Ambassador in Washington, told the US journal Defense News in November that 'we would definitely rather the war
did not spread to a neighbouring country .... However, if credible evidence is given that Iraq was behind the terrorist
attacks on the United States then Turkey would not ignore the matter, it would review its standards vis-a-vis Iraq.'
Similarly, on December 19th the Defènce Minister, Sabahattin Cakmakimlu, was quoted as saying that 'we have frequently
stated that we do not want an operation directed against Iraq. But new conditions could bring new assessments
onto our agenda'. ' '
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