Need to increase links with Iraq

David Aaronovitch has this thoughtful piece in the Times to which this is a reply.

As one who works daily with Iraqis and has visited the country six times in the last four years, I endorse David Aaronovitch’s point that Iraqis are routinely ignored. Most discussion here has been largely domestic and frozen on 2003 fault lines.

It is massively ironic, for instance, that most Iraqi Kurds (and many other Iraqis) believe they were liberated then but saying this here invites disbelieving mockery by those who assume the worst about Iraq and fear that assisting Iraqi reformers merely vindicates their domestic foes.

Ignoring the actually existing Iraq blinds us to seeing Iraq, warts and all. We could help nurture home-grown democratic institutions whilst giving moral and material assistance, for example, to trade unions which have come back to life but still labour under Saddam’s illiberal restrictions, if not mass murder.

We could support those who advance women’s rights such as the official Women’s Committee of the provincial council in Suleimaniah which has successfully highlighted sexual harassment, founded a Women’s Refuge and created a crèche. This is pretty unique in the Middle East, to say the least.

We would be better able to see Iraq as more than just shorthand for carnage but a country on the move, which has a very high regard for Britain and seeks our investment, trade and cultural and educational exchanges to overcome decades of isolation.

We could reform our clunking visa system which prevents many Iraqis seeking to build such relationships from coming here whilst it is easier to travel to our commercial competitors.

Our often frozen, futile, bitter debate stops us understanding Iraq, helping Iraqi reformers and building mutually beneficial relations with a country that is slowly but I hope surely overcoming the lethal legacy of fascism.

Gary Kent
Director Labour Friends of Iraq