Citizenship before secession maps!

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The concern expressed by the leadership of the Iraqi Kurdistan region regarding the American withdrawal is worth contemplating. It reveals that the relationship between the components of the Iraqi state still requires a guarantee that comes from outside the borders.

I understand the reasons for this concern, in light of a long history of repression and broken promises. But the question that I consider more important is: Why is the nation unable to reassure some of its people, so they seek safety with a distant power whose priorities change as its interests change?

This is happening in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and a number of our countries, as one of the national components searched for safety through an alliance with forces outside the country. To me, this is an indication of the immaturity of the national state, and this is an issue we must work to become aware of.

The Iraqi Kurds achieved the strongest experience of self-rule among contemporary Kurdish experiences, and then the 2005 Constitution approved the Kurdistan region and its existing authorities. Accuracy requires saying that they did not obtain an independent state. They now have a parliament, a government, and institutions within Iraq. These were great gains for a people who had known tragedies, including the Anfal and Halabja massacres. However, the transition from these gains to full independence collided with calculations of geography, economics, and the positions of neighbors and major powers.

In September 2017, more than ninety-two percent of participants in the region’s referendum voted in favor of independence. The majority was overwhelming, but the desired state was not born. Baghdad rejected the referendum, neighboring countries opposed it, and Washington did not give it the support that its owners had bet on. Then the region lost control of Kirkuk and disputed areas. Here is a lesson worth reading: popular mobilization can produce an electoral result, but it does not eliminate the balance of power and does not alone create the conditions of the state.

In Syria, Kurdish forces established de facto self-administration during the war, but it did not transform into a recognized independent state. In Türkiye, the Kurdistan Workers' Party fought a long armed struggle, without achieving independence. It is not correct to reduce Türkiye's Kurds to that party, including those who chose political action and elections. The goals of the Kurdish movements themselves also differ between cultural rights, decentralization, autonomy, and secession. Ignoring these differences distorts the diagnosis and turns diverse human groups into a single image.

The issue is broader than the Kurds; The Middle East is crowded with national, religious and sectarian identities, some of whom experienced real grievances, and for some of whom the memory of pain turned into a permanent political project. Its leaders invest in fear, and offer separation as a ready-made recipe for salvation. Then a regional or international power enters, gives weapons and promises, and uses the issue in its bargaining. I believe that the most dangerous illusion is the perception that the external shepherd adopts the group’s dreams as its children adopt them. He has his own calculations, and he may leave and she will remain in front of her neighbors.

This does not mean asking the oppressed to remain silent, or granting central governments a certificate of innocence. The authority that bans the language of its citizens, or discriminates between them in jobs and the judiciary, or bombs their cities, forces them to search for ways out. It is easy for the ruler to raise the slogan of unity, and then run the state as the property of his group. Therefore, serious defense of the unity of nations begins with reforming authority and guaranteeing rights. Citizenship is an obligation on the state first, before it is a demand directed at the people.

Switzerland provides a useful example. Four national languages, and different religious and cultural traditions, came together within a federal state. The condition of belonging was not for the French speaker to abandon his language, or to imitate the German-speaking region. The distribution of powers, recognition of diversity and political participation helped build a common interest in survival. Experience is not a recipe that can be conveyed in its entirety, but it shows that respecting privacy can strengthen the state, and that strict centralization is not the only synonym for national unity. In Canada, Quebec voters rejected the sovereignty project in a 1995 referendum by a narrow majority of 50.58 percent. The political dispute remained, and supporters of secession continued to express their position, without the province turning into an arena of civil war.

The importance of the example to me is that there are institutions that allow and regulate disagreement. The citizen who can object and resort to the law has tools that go beyond taking refuge in fanaticism. A state that is confident of its justice does not consider every demand for privacy as a declaration of hostility. As for South Sudan, it achieved its independence in 2011, then civil war broke out in 2013. Raising the new flag did not end the struggle for power, and divisions spread within the nascent state. This does not eliminate the previous grievances of southerners, but it puts before us a painful reality: a group may succeed in secession, and its elite fail in building a state. Hence, the practical question goes beyond drawing borders to how to manage governance, hold officials accountable, and protect those who are different within the new borders.

The struggle that deserves effort in our region is to build a modern and just civil state that accommodates identities and does not distribute rights according to them. Iraqi first, then Kurdish or Arab, Sunni or Shiite. Syrian first, then Kurdish, Alawite, or Druze. Lebanese first, then Christian or Muslim, Shiite, Sunni or Druze. What is meant is to arrange the relationship with the state, not to arrange the value of people or erase their memory. This is achieved through an independent judiciary, the transfer of power, a fair distribution of wealth, and implemented constitutional guarantees. Without these conditions, the call to citizenship becomes a beautiful speech that people hear but do not find in their lives.

In our region, we need the citizen to feel that his future is shaped by his competence, that his security is protected by the law, and that his dignity does not need a sectarian mediator or a foreign embassy. We also need education that acquaints children with each other’s history, away from treason and artificial heroism. People learn coexistence in school, work, and the neighborhood, and it is corrupted by a policy that makes the neighbor accused because of his name, sect, or language. Homelands are settled with justice before anything else.