Is the Faili Kurds really trapped between their ethnicity and faith?

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Exclusive to iKurd.net

The Faili Kurds were oppressed for many years even before Saddam Hussein came to power. For most of their history, the Faili Kurds have been the victims of subjugation by the neighboring countries. No matter in which country that they lived in, they have been exposed to a various discriminatory policies of oppression and segregation.

They have been subject to the worst atrocities of mankind including ethnic cleansing, victims of mass graves, genocide, displacements, destructions of their homes and properties, restrictions on their social, political, and economical rights.

In Iraq, the repression of the Faili Kurds started in the late of the 1950’s, after the existence of the Kurdish independence movement in the North of Iraq. Some Faili Kurds businessmen in Baghdad were sympathetic to the Kurdish people and they supported them financially and morally.

During Saddam’s times, to be a Faili Kurd was not a good thing to be, it was considered a double trouble, because the Faili Kurds were Kurdish by ethnicity and a Shiite Muslim by faith.

Saddam Hussein didn’t like either of those categories and he gave the Faili Kurds two choices, either death or expulsion. Many of the Faili Kurds were forced to leave their own motherland on the fabricated charge of being loyal to Iran, rather than Iraq.

However, today, things have obviously changed somehow since the creation of the Iraq’s new Democratic government. The Iraqi Kurdish now run their own semi-autonomous state and the majority members of the Iraqi government in Baghdad are headed by a Shiite Muslim coalition.

However, the Faili Kurds people are lost in the middle of this predicament and they were placed in a very peculiar position to make a choice between their ethnicity and their faith. They have to make a choice in which direction they need to go in terms of their political connection.

The current political situation in Iraq, are pressuring them to choose between their ethnicity and faith. The current dominated Shiite Muslim government in Baghdad pretends to be putting a lot of effort into helping the Faili Kurds population with their ongoing issues.

Because the al-Maliki’s government placing a huge stresses on the Faili Kurds to support his government on the sectarian basis, rather than on their ethnic basis, because, both al-Maliki and the Faili Kurds are Shiite Muslim. Thus, Al-Maliki’s government wants the Faili Kurds to think that his government is the only one who can guarantee their safety and settling their matters.

On the other hand, the existed Kurdish political parties encourage the Faili Kurds to support their political movement on the ethnicity basis rather than the sectarian basis. So the Faili Kurds should select their background over their belief in term of their political alliances. There have already been many attempts by many Iraqi’s political parties to distance the Faili Kurds people from their ethnicity or their faith.

In reality, all the Faili Kurds people want to do in their lives is to get their social status and nationality recognized, so they be able to get their old positions in Baghdad’s economy, they wish to return to do business in Baghdad in the same way they used to back then, but they have been unable to do this because of the recent Iraqi political divergence and security situation in Baghdad.

All the Faili Kurds people wish for today, are the return of their citizenship, dignity, respect, identity, funds, and properties, so they could move forward with their lives and forget the grievances that were committed against them by the former government. But, the current political and bureaucratic roadblocks that are created by the new government and political organizations have contributed to their continual predicament.

As a result, the Faili Kurds community is scattered and unable to band together in order to establish their effective group representation in order to resolve their most pressing issues. Such as, the recognition of the crimes that was committed against their community, and the reinstatement of their citizenship and their illegally confiscated funds and properties.

Unfortunately, the Faili Kurds people are still trapped along within the adverse two dimensions, their religions faith (Shiite Muslim), and their distinctive ethnic groups (Faili Kurds). These two unfavorable dimensions prevented the Faili Kurds people from reaching their goals and dreams, as well as, these two adverse scopes prohibited the Faili Kurds population to acquire their rights and dispensations that they are entitle to.

But, still to this point, the Faili Kurds people feel like that no one in the current government cares for them, and they have not been spared from the previous existed systemic discrimination and deprivation that was imposed on them by the old and the current government and social institutions.

In light of these events, the Faili Kurds community is very dissatisfied with the performance of the Iraqi Federal Government and the Kurdish Regional Government by not taking the proper measures to protect the rights and the privileges of the Kurdish minority communities living outside of Kurdistan area.

Therefore, the Faili Kurds community has a lack of representation of their greater issues within Baghdad and Iraq’s political alliance. Under pressure of persuasion and threat of force, minority groups such as the Faili Kurds and other minority assemblies have been systematically silenced or coerced to align themselves with the larger political entities.

The current political corruption and the bureaucratic red-tape that rules in the current Baghdad’s Government and its political organizations echoes the dreadful treatment that was endured by the Faili Kurds under the Baath Regime.

Therefore, under the current regime, the Faili Kurds people are continually living the precedent experiences, such as, exploitation, degradation, favoritism, falsifications, and the segregations that were imposed on them by the previous systemic and political regime.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.