What’s it like in Iraq? What does it look like…what are the people like…what’s really happening there? For folks in Canada and the United States who have been following the events and storylines in Iraq for the last 5 years or for the last few decades, these might be recurring questions. They have certainly been relevant for me in recent years as I have watched my own country’s narratives intermingle with Iraqi narratives in increasingly dramatic and violent ways. As it turns out I now find myself inside Iraq, still watching with curiosity and concern but from a very different vantage point. And the things I’m seeing and hearing no longer come from my mind’s eye but from the real life around me. Of course, as a foreign civilian I do not have access to the parts of Iraq where people are suffering the most from the horrors of war. But northern Iraq provides a unique perspective on life and conflict in Iraq, just as the Iraqis who live here are no less affected by tragedy directly or indirectly. I am humbled by them, and by their grace for welcoming me here. There is so much to see and so much to share, and so much learning that will only come with time. But with this entry I thought I would begin by painting just a tiny corner of the view from northern Iraq, as it looks so far.

While the place where the midsection of Iraq transitions into “northern Iraq” is not easy to spot, the north is often identified with the three Kurdish provinces (Suleimaniya, Erbil, and Dahok) that are splashed across the northeastern corner of the country. Here in the north this area is referred to as Kurdistan, bordered to the east by Iran, and to the north by Turkey, with the beautiful Zagros mountains in between. I live right in the middle, in Erbil, one of Kurdistan’s largest cities. Before moving here I pictured northern Iraq as mostly mountainous, with cool air and a green landscape, contrasting sharply with the flat, dusty desert that stretches across the rest of the country. But as it turns out, much of the land here in the Kurdish region is also flat as can be. And right now the days are dry and dusty because of the season, so when I take in a panorama view from the roof of my building I see miles and miles of golden brown horizon in every direction. Other than the large herd of square buildings and beige streets that cluster around Erbil there aren’t really any other structures that punctuate the open space. I’ve been told the golden brown brush that covers the terrain turns into a beautiful green in the spring, so I will look forward to that.

A view across Erbil from the citadel in the center of the city. To the northeast in the background are the foothills of the Zagros Mountains

To the east the open expanse slowly climbs up into the Zagros Mountains. The land in Suleimaniya province is a lot more rolling and wrinkled than Erbil, and being winter now it’s also considerably colder. (Of course, Erbil is cold-d-d-d enough!) The mountaintops in the background are glossed white with snow that you can see even through the dusty desert haze. It is said that the first hunter-gatherer tribes to master agriculture came down from the Zagros mountains to farm in the fertile lowlands around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers thousands of years ago. Over the centuries these nomadic clans slowly transitioned into a settled way of life, and from their foundations the earliest civilizations in human history began to grow. European scholars refer to this time and place in our history as ancient Mesopotamia. Today it’s Iraq.

The landscape of ancient Mesopotamia and modern Iraq. In the distance are the Zagros Mountains that watched over the first civilizations in human history

Northern Iraq is predominantly Kurdish, but there are plenty of other ethno-religious identity groups that also call it home. All of Iraq’s history, from the earliest civilizations until today, is a story of merging and purging of peoples from different nations and tribes as empires both foreign and home-grown have come and gone: Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Mongols, Macedonians, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Europeans, to name just a few. Back in the seventh century when the first Caliphs of the new Islamic faith swept northward through Mesopotamia with their Muslim armies from the Arabian peninsula, there were tribes of Christians living in and around the city of Ninewah (now Mosul) who spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Today in northern Iraq many small Christian villages remain, and they have an identity and history that is quite distinct from the other Iraqis.

Iraqi Christians attend mass at St. Joseph Church in Ankawa, the main Christian neighborhood in Erbil

While the spread of Islam Arab-ized many of the diverse peoples of Mesopotamia to varying degrees through language, culture, and lineage, most modern Iraqi Christians do not consider themselves Arabs. Rather, Christianity in Iraq is a religion and an ethnicity. At home, especially in the villages, they grow up speaking “Christian” (called Sureth) which is the modern derivative of ancient Aramaic. Living in a predominantly Arab country, most Christians learn Arabic in school and may even use Arabic most of the time. But for them it’s a second language.

The Kurds also have a distinct ethnicity and history. The precise origin of the Kurdish people as a collective identity group is hard to pinpoint, but since the Kurdish narrative came into being the Zagros Mountains has always been their home. Some scholars believe the rough terrain of that mountain range is one reason why many empires of centuries past were not able (or not interested) to conquer and assimilate Kurds into their languages and cultures. While the first official language of the modern state of Iraq is Arabic, “Kurdish” is more akin to Persian. They are Muslims, mostly Sunni, but the expression of their faith and the role of Islam in their lives is different than it is for Arab Muslims in the middle and the south of Iraq.

If you ask a Kurdish Iraqi about his homeland, he might tell you about Iraq, but he will almost certainly tell you about Kurdistan. But for many Kurds, the land of their ancestors is not just northern Iraq—it encompasses large parts of Turkey, Iran, and a little bit of Syria as well. Kurds represent about one-fifth of Turkey’s population, and Kurdish communities make up about one quarter of Turkey’s national territory. They also represent major minority groups in both Iraq and Iran. But there is no officially-recognized “Kurdistan” on record with much of the international community.

When Britain and France invaded the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the Ottoman regime crumbled, the Europeans carved up the empire into “protectorates” that lumped diverse ethnic groups together in ways that didn’t always make sense. The Kurdish areas that are now part of Iraq, for example, did not have any real connection to the middle and southern provinces of Baghdad and Basra, which were largely Arab Sunni and Arab Shi’a provinces, respectively. Yet after the war these three areas were lumped together by British and French leaders into one political entity and mandated into Britain’s custody by the League of Nations. During the decline of the Ottoman Empire the Kurds had lobbied vigorously for the independence for their homeland, but the Europeans had a different agenda. Instead of receiving statehood, Kurdistan was divided and incorporated into what is now Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

Iraqi Kurds enjoy a traditional Kurdish dance at a wedding. People lock hands in one line and step in unison, creating a beautiful collective movement that winds all around the dance floor

Since that time the Kurds have been minorities in each of these countries, and have often suffered violent repression at the hands of Turkish, Arab, or Persian majorities. In Iraq, Kurdish Iraqis have a long and bitter history with Arab Iraqis, as successive Arab governments have instituted policies to try to Arab-ize Kurdish language and culture, often with draconian force. U.S. wars against Saddam Hussein have been helpful to the Kurds in some ways, and many Kurdish Iraqis I’ve spoken with seem happy about the cautious increase in economic development they have seen in their communities.

Erbil itself is almost entirely Kurdish. As I mentioned, the city sits on land that quite flat. But for some reason there is a broad mound of earth right in the middle of the city that might be as high as a four or five-story building and measures perhaps 300 meters in diameter. It’s such an anomaly that one wonders how exactly nature put it there.

The Citadel sits on top of a hill in the middle of Erbil. It dates back to the time of Alexander the Great.

On top of the hill sits the ruins of a citadel or small city that dates back to the time when Mesopotamia was occupied by Alexander the Great. It’s clear that later generations have built and rebuilt the citadel on top of the ancient foundation several times, and I’m not sure exactly when the current structure that sits on the hill was built. People say Erbil residents used to live in the citadel as they do in any other part of the city, but some time ago the Kurdish authorities relocated the occupants elsewhere so it could become a source of tourism revenue.

A view of the downtown market area in Erbil from the citadel in the center of the city.

From the citadel at the center of the city the layout of Erbil fans outward in a series of ever-wider concentric circles. The dusty streets, the boxy concrete buildings, and the activity that flows through the city create a look and feel I find hard to capture in words. Maybe I would say it doesn’t look fancy. It’s a clean city in terms of garbage and litter, but seems very unkempt because there is construction going on absolutely everywhere, and because the city is covered with a thin layer of dust from the desert. Piles of sand, concrete blocks, construction vehicles, and other building materials line the streets everywhere you look, either for a building being erected or for road construction. Half of all the buildings you see are still being built. Grey concrete frames of homes and offices seem perpetually unfinished. The construction process is fun to watch. There are few buildings made with steel beams, and absolutely no homes made of wood. Rather, concrete for each floor of the building is poured and set with rebar into a wooden mold that is held up by hundreds of wooden poles standing on the floor below. When the concrete hardens, the wooden moulding and the poles are removed and the process repeats for the next floor up, leaving a boxy, grey, concrete building. They are everywhere.

Wooden poles and moulding hold up the concrete floor of a house under construction. They will stay there until the concrete dries

Sitting just outside the city on Erbil’s northern side is the neighborhood of Ankawa, where I live. Whereas Erbil is mostly Kurdish, Ankawa is mostly Christian. Many local residents wear Kurdish-looking clothes and may even speak Kurdish, but they’re not Kurds. Ankawa has doubled in size since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as indigenous residents have been joined by Christians from various villages in the north and a large number of families from Baghdad. International aid agencies would classify these new arrivals as “Internally-Displaced Persons” (IDPs.) They have returned to their families in the north or they have moved here for the first time because of threats to their safety in Baghdad and elsewhere. Some tell stories of loved ones killed by U.S. troops or kidnapped by insurgents. Many were forced to leave because they happened to live in the wrong neighborhood, or because of death threats they received from insurgent groups for being employed by U.S. companies or the U.S. army. Everyone has suffered in some way because of the war, no one discusses it in much detail, and they all make jokes about it.

Rooftops on a rainy day in the Christian neighborhood of Ankawa on the north side of Erbil

People relocate to the north because it is relatively safe here. It’s not only foreigners like me who cannot go to Mosul or Baghdad and walk around freely; many Christians would also be in danger, not to mention Sunni or Shi’i Muslims who happen to be on the wrong side at the wrong time in a violent civil war. It doesn’t seem as common to find Arab Muslims Iraqis who have relocated to the north, maybe because they are historical enemies of the Kurds. But Christians who have enough money are generally able to move.

Typical homes in northern Iraqi towns

Before I arrived I tried to imagine how it works exactly that the awful violence in the center and the south of the country that we watch on TV doesn’t spill over into Kurdistan. I thought maybe the Kurdish soldiers (called peshmerga, meaning “those who face death”) had set up heavily fortified checkpoints on every road and hilltop and perhaps found themselves in regular skirmishes with Sunni or Shi’i militias to keep the war out of the north. But when I got here I saw what appeared to be a much more casual system. There are indeed checkpoints, but not the heavily fortified blockades like I’ve seen in the West Bank. Soldiers do look at cars and plates and faces and names as people come through, redirecting vehicles for further questions now and then. But traffic flows relatively fluidly. On my visits to some of the villages here in the north our truck usually passes through without a problem (although our driver always does his best to tell the soldiers that we are Christians, not foreigners from the U.S. Not that there is an immediate concern, but it’s a good safety precaution in general). The peshmerga are not concerned about Christians or Kurds, or even foreigners. Rather they’re looking for Arab Iraqis who might be militiamen coming from Mosul or elsewhere to Erbil. Of course it’s overt racial profiling, but this is the tone of life in the context of an ethnic civil war. Some cities on the rim of the Kurdish region have active insurgent groups that Kurdistan takes great care to keep out. I’ve only been here a short time, but this system seems to be effective. Erbil and the rest of the north feels very safe.

The Christian village of al-qosh nestled against the Zagros foothills in northwestern Iraq

But other than this mechanism, the “border” between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq that is suffering under the weight of civil war is not really a border in a traditional sense. Iraq still looks and feels wide open. (That is, it feels wide open to me, a privileged foreigner. The picture looks quite different for many Iraqis.) I think part of the reason that the Kurdish provinces are not experiencing the war the same way that Shi’a and Sunni identity groups are living through it in the center and the south of Iraq is because in the northern provinces there are completely different groups of people with a completely different set of issues. Conflict is still here, and violence still lies beneath the surface. When the course of events in Iraq finally gives its full attention to the Arab-Kurdish dispute over Kirkuk and its rich oil resources, it’s possible things could deteriorate rather quickly. But for now, I’m grateful for the subtle sense of “peace” that people seem to enjoy here in the north.

Maybe I’ll stop here for now. There’s more to come….Thank you for reading, and thank you for your interest in the lives of Iraqis!

- John

A church in the village of karakosh, in northwestern Iraq

Guests eat well in Iraq.

A truck full of sheep and one sheepish shepherd on the way to a village in Northern Iraq.

Sunset over Ankawa