SCOTS VOTE PRO BARZANI & BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE (CHARLES EDWARD STUART)

TODAY’S MESOP SATIRICAL OPINION : SCOTLAND THE BRAVE !

Lot’s of convincing similarities : “There are plenty of similarities between the two regions. Both are mountainous, northern, and sparsely populated, with two main cities”

Lessons from Kurdistan for the Scottish Independence Campaign

By George Richards – RUDAW – 6-8-2014 – Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Region, has announced his intention to hold a referendum on self-determination for the Kurdish people in Iraq. Far away in Europe, another region will hold its own referendum on independence on 18 September 2014: Scotland, which seeks to end the union with England that has held since 1707 and break away from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

There are plenty of similarities between the two regions. Both are mountainous, northern, and sparsely populated, with two main cities: a conservative capital with an iconic citadel, and a second, left-wing city renowned for its culture. Both are inhabited by peoples with ethnic identities distinct from those of their southern neighbours, and with a common history of a romantic warrior race subdued by the southerners — both even have medieval national heroes: Saladdin, and William Wallace. Both regions, after a period of seemingly interminable economic decline, have more recently begun to exploit reserves of oil and natural gas that could underpin the economy of an independent country. Both have achieved autonomy within the structure of a multinational state and, after a period of power-sharing coalition governments, have each seen the emergence of a dominant political party: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Scottish National Party (SNP).

But there the similarities end. The Kurds’ road to near-independence has been bloody: most notoriously at the hands of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the Anfal campaigns and the gassing of Halabja, but also during the Kurdish civil war of the 1990s, and the terrorist campaign of Al Qaeda, the radical Islamist organisation, that followed the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The Kurdish leadership, traditionally a coalition between the KDP and the Patriotic Union for Kurdistan (PUK), has resisted encroachment by the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad on the KRG’s autonomy, and has unilaterally built strong trade (and diplomatic) relations with powerful neighbours: Turkey and Iran. And the KRG has pushed its luck. It has begun exploiting its natural gas reserves with investment from foreign energy companies, built transnational export pipelines, and entered into sales contracts on the international market, all in defiance of Baghdad (which claims legal authority over all Iraqi natural resources, their exploitation and sale). At going to press, a tanker sits off Texan waters filled with Kurdish gas bound for American buyers.

This, together with a construction boom led by foreign investors, has contributed to the relative economic success of Iraqi Kurdistan and its claim to be “the new Dubai”. This boom has benefited from the security provided by the Peshmerga, the modern defence force which is a successor to the irregular Kurdish guerilla units that fought against Saddam Hussein. This is in stark contrast to Iraq proper, which has been plagued by instability in the face of a long-running insurgency ever since 2003. Iraq has now lost significant territory to the Islamic State, a newly-established entity straddling the Syria-Iraq border and comprising the conquests of Isis, a force of Islamist extremists that recently splintered from Al Qaeda.

Fortunately for Scotland, its more recent history has been peaceful and the path to the September referendum cut by the highly-successful political campaign of the SNP, which won the 2010 elections to the Scottish parliament (under devolution measures enacted in 1998, Scotland has its own parliament in Edinburgh, with legislative powers over a number of policy areas, including education, health and transport.  This is distinct from the parliament in Westminster, London, which governs England and UK policy.  Wales and Northern Ireland, the oher constituent members of the UK together with Scotland and England, enjoy varying levels of devolved authority).

Faced with the perennial risk of an incumbent government of losing the next election, and as a party defined by its pro-independence policy, the SNP has cast the die on an all-or-nothing independence referendum. But recent polls suggest that the SNP’s pro-indepence “Yes” campaign is failing to close the gap on the “Better Together” campaign, which has the unified support of the three main Westminster parties: the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats.  And time is running out.

For all the similarities between Scotland and Iraqi Kurdistan, what might the SNP have learned from the Kurds, had they looked eastwards? A key distinction is the KRG’s campaign of disobedience to Baghdad, which has led the Kurds to a position of autonomy, most importantly on economic issues.  Notwithstanding the latent wealth of the oil reserves in Scottish waters, economic issues have been the chief weakness of the “Yes” campaign, exploited mercilessly by their opponents, who have painted a bleak post-independence picture of an isolated country, expelled from the European Union, beset by customs tarrifs and other obstacles to trade, denied the pound sterling and forced to revive a medieval coinage, the groat.

The “Better Together” campaign has also threatened military isolation, raising the spectre of Scotland losing its membership to the mutual defence pact of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and publicising plans to withdraw key military assets, including Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet at Faslane, south of the border. By contrast, following the recent defeats of the Iraqi army by Isis, and the grim defiance of the Peshmerga against the same enemy, military autonomy is a matter of pride to the KRG.

The Scottish people may yet still choose independence in September, but these are lessons that the SNP and “Yes” campaign could usefully have learned from the Kurds. After all, as well as the superficial similarities of the two regions, it has long been noted how similar the Scottish and Kurdish peoples really are. Writing in the 1930s, Archibald Hamilton, the engineer who built the majestic Hamilton Road from Erbil through the Rawanduz gorge and himself of Scottish descent, noted of the Kurds that: “these professional huntsmen rarely speak, even amongst themselves. In this, they are very like the Highland shepherds in Scotland. There are indeed many other points of resemblance between the Assyrians and the Kurds and the Scottish Highlanders”.

George Richards is a writer covering Middle Eastern affairs and has reported for Rudaw.  http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/06082014