What Were They Doing There? Iraqi Kurdistan and the ‘Other Iraq’
Ahmed Awa
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the world has come to think of the country in blanket terms. The Iraq that we see on the news is a country where Americans and other Westerners go as soldiers or journalists. Of course, Iraq is also a country where people laugh, sing, raise their children and live the best lives they can despite the devastating toll that war has taken.
In fact, Iraq is not a uniform country at all. Iraqi Kurdistan is strikingly green and mountainous, the majority of its population is Kurdish and the food, clothing, language and culture are distinct from the rest of Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan is also safe for tourism. It is not a war zone and no American has been killed or kidnapped in this region in recent decades. Iraqi Kurdistan became semi-autonomous in 1991 when the U.S. set up a no-fly zone to protect the Kurdish people from Saddam Hussein’s tanks and planes.
Shane, Josh, Sarah and Shon researched Northern Iraq before they traveled. They looked at websites such as this one, which shows the ‘Other Iraq’ as a safe and beautiful destination that thousands of tourists visit each year. Perhaps more importantly, they had first-hand advice from several friends like Sarah’s colleague Matthew McNaught, who had recently taken the trip himself, and from Sarah’s Arabic tutor in Damascus, himself a Kurd, who advised her that Northern Iraq is the best place to learn more about Kurdish culture first-hand.
The people of Iraqi Kurdistan are friendly and welcoming and people who know the region are shocked that something so terrible and unjust could happen to Shane, Josh and Sarah. Six weeks before Sarah, Shane, Josh and Shon traveled to Northern Iraq, the U.S. State Department downgraded its travel advisory for the area. “To date, not one U.S. citizen, soldier or contractor has been kidnapped, wounded or killed in the Kurdistan Region,” Karim Sinjari, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Minister for the Interior said at the time. Some of the world’s most respected publications continue to recommend Iraqi Kurdistan as a place to visit, including the New York Times and National Geographic. What happened to Josh, Shane and Sarah while they were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan is unprecedented, but going there as a tourist is not unusual.
About the author
| Print article | This entry was posted by Administrator on April 22, 2011 at 1:38 AM, and is filed under ABOUT THAT HIKE..., FYI, WHO ARE THE HIKERS?. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
- Mamamiacapuano
