Global Courant
Doha, Qatar – Twenty years after the invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi people are still dealing with the consequences of Saddam Hussein’s rule and the years of unrest since its end in 2003. At the same time, the international community is grappling with the issue of whether the intervention that took place was the right way to go.
Despite all that, Ala Talabani told Al Jazeera, the Iraqi people love life and are excited about connecting with their “brothers and friends” in the Arab world and beyond.
The Iraqi Kurdish Sufi politician leads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan bloc in the Iraqi parliament and continues the work she started 16 years ago as a member of parliament.
With a strong focus on women, youth and changing the way business is done over the past two decades, Talabani, along with a number of other Iraqi officials who attended a lessons learned conference, explore whether there is a new way forward for the country. and the Future of Iraq, held by Georgetown University in Doha.
It is important for us as Iraqis to hear from others. … This gives me a clearer picture of what needs to be done for the next phase, to know if I’m on the right track
‘Knowing their rights’
She was part of a team that wrote a Cabinet-approved 2023-2030 strategy for Iraqi women, which requires all ministries to set aside a portion of their budgets and capacity for programs that benefit women.
As implementation of this strategy begins, Talabani is hopeful that Iraqi women will reach great heights, but she is also aware that this will not be easy.
“Women are fought for no matter who they are. Sometimes there is jealousy, and sometimes people just fight it. It’s this patriarchal thinking of, ‘Oh, there’s a woman and she has outdone and surpassed me. How did she surpass me?’”
Iraqi women today, she said, need awareness of their rights and laws that protect those rights.
“Women (who are not educated) must be (made) self-confident through education for certain sectors and… for women who are educated… through a spirit of resistance that will enable her to overcome the obstacles that society submits.
“For rural women – who are mostly uneducated and often persecuted, if we’re honest about it – we need them to be educated, to know what their rights are, so that they can stand up and say : ‘No, these are my rights. ”
Illiteracy is still a problem in Iraq, especially in rural areas, and twice as many women as men are illiterate.
Regarding legislation that protects women’s rights, Talabani said implementation should follow the adoption of such laws. “Today, women are in the Iraqi parliament through laws, by creating a quota for female representatives. That is why all parties and political blocs nominated female candidates; otherwise, in my opinion, this would not have happened.”
As the first female head of a political bloc in parliament, Talabani has first-hand experience of this issue.
Whenever possible, she nominated female politicians to serve on committees set up to address national issues. However, she noted that other blocs and parties only nominated men, even though they had many capable women in their party.
When she asked a male politician why his bloc did not nominate female lawmakers to committees, his response was: “I don’t have any.”
‘They meant that they had no women in their groups who were capable enough to serve on investigative committees. When I pointed out that they had several capable women, they said, “They’re not like you.”
“So we only exist as dispersed individuals. One capable woman here, a politician there, a successful minister, a Yazidi victim, a female IDP (internally displaced person) displaced by terrorism, … but to see a woman and a man on an equal footing, to really to believe that there is no We must change the view of society to understand that a woman can be many things – as a person.”
Things have changed
One of the biggest questions in Iraq today is the revision of the constitution, which was written in 2005, two years after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Talabani says a deep overhaul of Iraqi governance is needed.
“I support rewriting the constitution. When we wrote it, we were very much into it. It was the ‘mother law’ upon which all other laws followed. But there were implementation issues,” she said.
Politicians turned to the Federal Supreme Court to interpret certain clauses, such as those governing the relationship between Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, or the number of votes a presidential candidate needs in a second voting round.
“Unfortunately, some clauses were interpreted based on the prevailing political climate at the time, and that is not correct,” Talabani said, going on to outline how several groups, fearing a return of past persecution, negotiated power-sharing with those fears. at the forefront of their minds, trying to secure as many rights as possible.
The prevailing political climate has changed after the turbulence of the past two decades, she added.
“You have Shia groups that have been persecuted for so long. They wanted a constitution that would guarantee that this despotism would never return, so they argued against the centralization of power, and against the formation of many federated provinces, such as Kurdistan. Sunni politicians at the time opposed this idea, fearing it would fragment Iraq.”
Power was concentrated in the hands of the Sunnis under Saddam Hussein, but since then the tables have been turned.
The Shiite blocs, Talabani explained, now want a more centralized system, while Sunni groups are asking that Anbar, a Sunni majority province in western Iraq, be allowed to self-govern in the same spirit as the Kurdish region in the north. They are now pushing for decentralization because they feel they have been sidelined since the rise and fall of ISIL (ISIS).
“We need to look at the things that affect the governance of the country, that affect the relations between the center and the provinces… in a way that works after two decades of implementing – and often violating – the Constitution. ”
Is the future Iraqi?
Iraq’s economy is struggling to create enough jobs for its youth, causing resentment and jeopardizing plans for an economic recovery.
Most families want their children to go to college and study “classic” majors that will qualify them for jobs as doctors, lawyers and engineers, preferably in the public sector where jobs are secure and retireable. But this results in a glut of skilled graduates that any government department would find difficult to absorb.
A democracy-building organization, Leilan, heads Talabani and works with Iraqi youth to “encourage them to set up small projects. Because we have unemployment, it is difficult to ensure that all young people can get government jobs.
“And in reality (the public service provision) is ‘masked unemployment’, putting people in state institutions when we already have so many of them. (The youth) have great ideas, but they need training, … how to enter the market, how to access loans from banks.”
A recently approved government budget for the period 2023-2025 earmarks large amounts of money to create public sector jobs, but these, according to Talabani, will not be productive and will not develop competitive skills.
Proudly wearing an ensemble created by a designer who started her own small studio, Talabani said developing real skills for youth is more effective because it enables private sector growth that ultimately creates real employment.
University graduates who choose the “traditional” majors often end up in the corporate world anyway, Talabani added, meaning majors like IT or business make much more sense.
“Many of the young people we train have finished or are graduating from ‘familiar’ majors, and we help redirect them. For example, we supported a dentist in setting up her own company that makes illuminated advertising panels.”
Ideally, there would also be much more focus and support on training to increase the number of nurses, technicians, builders and more, expanding society’s concept of what constitutes an acceptable job, she said.
Iraq’s many challenges
“Foreign interference in Iraq, Turkish shelling, Iranian shelling, other external interference, … we do not have one vision or one uniform way to address the outside world. Who determines Iraq’s foreign policy?
“The next wars will be over water for the Arab countries and especially for Iraq. We have many climate challenges, and I am not sure that the policies we currently have in place under the Ministry of Environment will be enough. Iraq faces desertification; costing thousands of jobs and livelihoods in areas like the swamps.
Iraq’s severe water shortages have led to talks with Turkey to request that the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which start there and run through Iraq, be opened to release more water for Iraq. Turkey, in turn, is negotiating with Iraq over the presence of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an armed group also known as the PKK, in areas close to the border the two countries share.
Another issue between Iraq and Turkey is the export of petroleum from the Kurdish region to Turkey, which bypassed Baghdad until it was halted when Baghdad turned to international arbitration and won.
“All these issues are currently on the negotiating table,” Talabani continued. “In my opinion, some of it is political, but some of it is interests and can be resolved. I think it was an important step by the current Prime Minister to launch the Development Road project, which will benefit Turkey.”
“It connects the port of Faw with Turkey to transport goods and people from the East to Turkey and Europe, a kind of replacement for the Silk Road. Turkey will benefit because this huge transport artery will allow Turkish companies and ministries to easily enter the Iraqi market – and, in my opinion, it will make solving the water crisis easier.
“We cannot keep threatening and complaining that Turkey is not giving us enough water. We need to talk about mutual interests, and this is how things can be resolved with Turkey and with other countries.”
