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An Overview of the Current Kurdish Question In its modern (twentieth century form) the Kurdish issue has been brewing in a corner of the Middle East, particularly in Southern (Iraq) Kurdistan—an issue complex and bloody enough that Alex Efty in the 1960s labeled it "The Kurds' way of Life, A Fight Eternal." Kurdish communities throughout the Middle East have produced thousands of men and women who have excelled in the arts, in government, in military endeavors...but always in the service of other governments and regimes. Excepting the short-lived periods of Shaikh Mahmoud in Sulaimani (early 1920s) and the Republic of Mehabad (1946-47), the Kurds have neither had the opportunity nor the experience to run their own affairs. 1991: the Kurds of Iraq emerge on the world scene as a people threatened in their very existence. Their uprising is brutally crushed followed by the exodus of some two million Kurds. 2-3 months of world media focus and outside intervention and rescue efforts produces a "Safe Haven." Rescued from an era of oppression often labeled "genocide," the Kurds seize the void left by Iraq's withdrawal of its administration from Kurdistan to put together their own administration under very difficult conditions. A Kurdish parliament and government was established following successful and reasonably peaceful & democratic efforts in conducting elections in May 1992. The Kurdish "experiment" as it has become known, has had its ups and downs, perhaps more downs than ups: the 1980s background of brutal measures such as the program of Arabization, the Anfal campaigns, the use of chemical weapons; internal fighting; the crippling effects of two blockades; regional intrigues; a haphazardly put together safe haven. But it has survived, in spite of all odds due to:
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