When my sister told us she was planning to go and live in northern Iraq for a year my dad’s reflex reaction was pretty much in the ‘over my dead body’ ballpark. She flew out in early September. Four months later the rest of the family (myself, my mother, father, and sixteen year old kid brother) spent the New Year in Iraqi Kurdistan with her, my father having succumbed to the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ philosophy beloved of delusional losers everywhere. I took it as my duty, as a self-appointed ambassador for a generation unsullied by the previous age cohort’s malaise of assuming a default position of suspicion and fear towards unfamiliar cultures, to treat our trip as a remarkable opportunity to see a part of the world written off as a suitable tourist destination by the stodgy and blinkered establishment but surely packed with edifying sights, smells and experiences. But as our gaudily upholstered Austrian Airlines aeroplane cruised above the Turkish-Iraqi border, the view out of the window of unfeasibly jagged and seemingly otherworldly mountain ranges spreading for miles as far as the eye could see, did little to quell the fear of the alien we were all pretending we weren’t feeling. When they piped ‘The Beautiful Blue Danube’ through the aeroplane’s intercom as we landed, I couldn’t help but laugh (got a few funny looks, I won’t lie). Turns out the universe did want me to think of this trip as an odyssey into the unknown, regardless of my vow to prevent hackneyed preconceptions of 'the other' from polluting my appreciation of the reality of my experience.

 

It is just as well to explain here that Kurdistan is about as representative of the Iraq we hear about in the news as Barney is of real life dinosaurs. The Kurdistan Regional Government is just about as autonomous as it could possibly be without being a nation state in its own right, something which a majority of Kurds wish to see and may yet become reality within our lifetime. Their cause is complicated by fact that the Kurds consider areas of four countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey – to be ‘theirs’, and Turkey’s hitherto indefatigable opposition towards the formation of a Kurdish nation which could see the secession of a large chunk of Eastern Anatolia, whose population is overwhelmingly ethnically Kurdish, is a major barrier. Nevertheless the Kurds in Iraq are experiencing a period of self-determination and freedom from oppression since the 2003 war which must have seemed unimaginable during the horrors of Saddam’s genocidal Anfal campaign in the 1980s or the Kurdish civil war of the 1990s. Erbil, the capital city, has been heralded as a ‘second Dubai’ in some circles, as oil revenues fund a veritable orgy of development. Access to a glut of consumer durables has proliferated at a prodigious rate in the last five years, to the extent that flat-screen televisions and washing machines have become must-haves in a society fixated on the outward display of prosperity in a way that we might consider vulgar or unhealthy. This, while the majority of the population is still without 24-hour electricity (even in the capital), might suggest that the KRG have got their priorities wrong. But to the Kurds vigorous consumerism makes perfect sense, if you think of it as a strategy to emphasise the region’s desire to embrace Westernness and, to put it crudely, to define themselves as the polar opposites of their Arab neighbours.

 

A conscious attempt is being made to ensure that this development is not happening at the expense of the indigenous cultural heritage of the Kurds – as evidenced by the remarkably eccentric Museum of Textiles we visited which showcased the ancient Kurdish art of weaving located in the impressive Citadel at the heart of the city. But the way in which photos of various visiting Western ministers and ambassadors (with a picture of Presidential candidate John McCain pride of place) at the museum entrance hints at the dilemma faced by the Kurds: the need to woo Western support for the ongoing legitimacy of a small, quasi-independent Kurdish polity whilst retaining that unique Kurdish cultural identity which forms the foundation of such a legitimacy. The fusion of western and Kurdish traditions created by this delicate geo-political situation was most strikingly captured when we visited a chaikhana (teahouse) in central Erbil where the Kurdish male tradition of socialising over sweet tea and games had been transformed into a strange emulsification of traditional and modern: Kurdish popular music blaring through a high-end speaker system whilst masses of Kurdish men crowded around rickety Formica tables under multicoloured disco lights to take part in marathon Rummikub sessions whilst drinking inordinate amounts of chai.

 

New Year’s Eve was spent in the bite-the-back-of-your-hand beautiful surroundings of Soran, a fast-growing provincial town on the edge of the mountainous region which divides secure and prosperous Iraqi Kurdistan from the badlands towards the Turkish border where the armed insurgency of the PKK (a freedom fighter group or a terrorist organisation – take your pick) fighting for Kurdish sovereignty, is ongoing. As a limited but much-appreciated clutch of fireworks sporadically erupted at around midnight from the bizarre holiday village of Pank perched above Soran, at the edge of a canyon so dramatic it could have its own seven part series on HBO, I considered my brief but brilliant experience of Kurdistan. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot. In a country where it is considered iber (socially unacceptable or disgraceful) for a woman to ride a bicycle, or walk along the streets unaccompanied after dark, plenty of what I saw was not what I would want in my own country. Having said that, the friendly and inquisitive individuals whom I was lucky enough to meet and talk with left me with an overwhelmingly positive perception of a people that is not only beginning to come to terms with an unprecedented level of freedom but that wishes to grasp this opportunity with both hands.