A crucial goal for the success of democratization in Iraq will be the creation of a symbolic model case. The new Iraqi powers in charge and the international powers should try to improve the situation by establishing a singular, geographically limited model case for peaceful democratization. That case could serve as a positive example for the whole of the country. It should be a model that represents all the problems of current Iraq, and by mastering them successfully, it could give a bright signal of hope. This article presents the model of the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol (Northern Italy) as a model for transforming the Iraqi province of Kirkuk into such a model case.

 

The future of Iraq remains uncertain – even after the surprisingly well organized first free elections on January 31, 2005. Iraqis have shown their clear will to democratize the country by going to the election. That is an important sign of hope. Now it will to be seen how, and in which direction, the moderate Shiites will develop the country after their victory. The second crucial point is the future political behaviour of the Kurds, which emerged as second power out of the elections, especially with regard to their relationship to the national state and to confining Turkey.

But even if there is, on the whole, a new positive spirit regarding Iraqi development, the problems still remain severe. They have, among other factors, their roots in the lack of a realistic, long-term and integrative model for democratization. The current powers in charge neither seem to dispose of a long-term plan, appropriate to the local circumstances, which could include systematically the spectrum of local cultures and ethnic diversity. Nor do they obviously have a clear step-by-step plan within the framework of an integral model, which could take into account the experience of the past decades regarding sustainable democratization of Islamic core areas. One of the biggest problems currently unresolved remains the ethnical and religious difference between the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Kurds, the Turkmen and the Christians, which will directly affect the future of the so far autonomous regions of the North.

All these questions currently are concentrated symptomatically in the province of Kirkuk. Ethnically mixed, it is geographically part of the territory of the Kurds, but its definite formal status in the Iraqi national state has not yet been defined definitely. Former US-administrator Paul Bremer III consciously postponed repeatedly the clearing of its status, knowing well that the special situation of the city and its surrounding region may be, at best, the most positive example for the future development of big parts of the country, but that it could also be, at worst, a catastrophe with negative symbolic effects on the whole of Iraqi democratization.[1] The province of Kirkuk is rich of oil. The election result here (59% for the Kurds, 16% for the Turkmen) could create new problems between the ethnic groups, but also between Iraq and confining Turkey, which speaks of “manipulations”. The diplomatic battle between the Kurds and the Shiites about the future status of Kirkuk: integration into the kurdish autonomous region or special status, are currently fought fiercely. And even if a diplomatic solution may be found in the coming months, the real conflicts between the ethnic groups, including physical violence, will probably continue.

As H. Kissinger and G. Shultz have pointed out, the core objectives of the coming months and years regarding democratization should include regional autonomies, but without forgetting the precious national unity of the country:

“The Constituent Assembly emerging from the elections will be sovereign to some extent. But the United States' continuing leverage should be focused on four key objectives: (1) to prevent any group from using the political process to establish the kind of dominance previously enjoyed by the Sunnis; (2) to prevent any areas from slipping into Taliban conditions as havens and recruitment centers for terrorists; (3) to keep Shiite government from turning into a theocracy, Iranian or indigenous; (4) to leave scope for regional autonomy within the Iraqi democratic process.

The United States has every interest in conducting a dialogue with all parties to encourage the emergence of a secular leadership of nationalists and regional representatives. The outcome of constitution-building should be a federation, with an emphasis on regional autonomy. Any group pushing its claims beyond these limits should be brought to understand the consequences of a breakup of the Iraqi state into its constituent elements, including an Iranian-dominated south, an Islamist-Hussein Sunni center and invasion of the Kurdish region by its neighbors.” [2]

As in most cases, Kissinger and Shultz are sharp and precise with their political statement, but they underestimate the cultural and symbolic aspect of transformation, especially in Islamic and in culturally mixed areas.[3] A third crucial goal, I would therefore add, will be the creation of a symbolic model case of democratization. The new Iraqi powers in charge and the international powers should try to improve the situation by establishing a singular, geographically limited model case for peaceful democratization. One, that could serve as a positive example, and, at the same time, as a sort of laboratory of transformation, for the entire country. It should be a model region that represents most of the problems of current Iraq, and by mastering them successfully, could give a bright signal of hope and strength.

So, how to concretely proceed? Could such a model case really give a paradigmatic, but concrete impulse to the development of democratic structures for the entire Iraq? And if yes: how, when and where could such a model case be established?

First, in a country so deeply ridden by terror and chaos, to develop a single territory as an avantgarde example for the future of the whole nation means to limit it geographically very carefully. You have to choose an area which has, in its limited frame, all the problems of Iraq as a whole: cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, terror, social differences and class structures, competing group mentalities, a weak, disillusioned and disoriented middle class. But the selected area has, at the same time, to incorporate an extraordinary potential of growth and transformation.

Second, to establish such a model, you have, for orientation, to choose a concrete example that has already been proved successful in a similar case somewhere else in the world under similar circumstances. This is a critical aspect for the process of transformation. It has no sense to invent the wheel anew, when you are in such a difficult and highly complex situation as Iraq is now in. Instead, a successful example should be chosen not to simply copy it here, but to serve as an inspiration for the creation of locally adapted institutions.

Third, the model area has necessarily to be not only a model of democratization, but also a model for autonomy. This means, it has to be able to democratize and bring peace not on a macro-, but on a limited micro-scale, and it has therefore to reflect this in its characteristic features. It must be able to integrate democratization with the limitations of a geographically small area, and therefore it has to be, at least to a certain extent, a model of autonomous development of the model area.

If these are the crucial conditions, where can you then find an area in current Iraqappropriate to establish a model case which can unite all these three aspects? You can find it in the area of Kirkuk, in Northern Iraq. This area has all the problems, but also all the opportunities mentioned above. It is, at least to some extent, a mirror of the situation of Iraq as a whole on a micro-scale. Here, there are interfering interests of the Kurds, the Turkmen, the Sunnites and Christians, and there are also important oil wells that are attracting the interests of neighbouring Turkey. At the same time, this area is not included in the national state of emergency, and it does not present the dramatic conditions of the Sunni triangle or the economic, cultural and political limitations of the Schiite areas. And if you try to find a practical model of paradigmatic micro-development to implement in Kirkuk, you find it in the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, at the border between Austria and Northern Italy.

This Autonomous Province in the very heart of Europe probably has the best record worldwide so far with the systematic development of peace and democratization on a local scale. The province of South Tyrol is a micro-model of ethnic conflict resolution, and it is fundamentally based on socio-cultural and ethnic factors. It has basically the same problems as Kirkuk (even if you have to consider that the wealth of South Tyrol merely comes from tourism and the production of electricity, not from oil. It has the same population as Kirkuk (about 450,000). And it has a similar geographic extension.

South Tyrol represents a pragmatic model for a limited local autonomy for purposes of conflict resolution and democratization, within a larger legal organism. Since South Tyrol’s entire autonomy and plural-ethnical model is based on socio-cultural considerations, and its legal foundation and institutional embodiment as an autonomous province in the Italian national state represents the historical European paradigm for similar areas in the world, it may be an inspiration for the establishment of a limited model case of Iraqi democratization in Kirkuk.

In 1972, South Tyrol received its current autonomy with the help of the UN. It has a high degree of political and cultural autonomy from the Italian national state. Here, the German native speakers are the majority (69%), Italian state population amounts to 27%, and a third ethnic group, the Ladins represent 4%. Furthermore, over 90% of the tax revenue generated in the Province is returned by the Italian government to the Province (which means that there is almost tax autonomy), and spending within the province is controlled by a locally elected parliament. The German native speakers hold the majority in this provincial parliament, which disposes of an autonomous legislative and executive power. The primary competences of the provincial government include: the autonomous organisation of provincial authorities and their staff, the right to make autonomous laws in a number of fields, the obligation to pluri-lingualism for all public employees, and the sovereignty for historical, artistic and ethnic values, public care and welfare. There are special measures to protect and preserve the three languages (German, Italian and the ancient Ladin) and the three cultures.

South Tyroleans receive identity cards in a different colour from those of other Italians, and the street signs and other public communications are strictly bilingual, in many cases trilingual. To halt conflicts and civil war amongst the three ethnic groups, the province of South Tyrol has, most importantly, three separate school systems for the three language groups. In order to ensure the independent cultural development of each linguistic group, each has its own administrative and organisational domain. That means that there are three parallel cultural ministries, one for each group, which are completely independent from each other. They receive their part of the common taxes according to the percentage of population they represent. The province spends a substantial amount of money on German, Italian and Ladin cultural activities. Nevertheless, there are a number of areas, for example, in music and art, where close cooperation between all three linguistic groups results in mutual enrichment. The Italian ethnic group cooperates closely with other Italian provinces and regions in the south, while the German ethnic group maintains active contacts with the German cultural world in the north, and the Ladins with confining Switzerland in the west.

“Three things are important to us: the ethnic representation system in the public sector, the parity of the languages at the courts, and the provision of mother-tounge television programs for each of the three ethnic groups” says Bruno Hosp, the former South Tyrol Provincial Minister for Culture for the German and Ladin ethnic groups, and his Italian colleague, Luigi Cigolla, Minister for the Italian group, agrees.

The success of the South Tyrol model, in contrast to the devastation that has accompanied other ethnic conflicts in Europe, reveals that it is a good example of integrated regional model building of democratization. Now, how could it concretely help in building a geographically limited model case of democratization in Iraq?

First, in serving as an example in how to give the area of Kirkuk a similar autonomy from the Iraqi national state on the one hand, and, at least to some extent, from the Kurdish federal state on the other hand.

Second, in giving assurances for ethnic representation in the local administration and government.

Third, in providing the key idea of installing parallel administrations and even ministries for every ethnic group, especially in the cultural and educational sectors. For example, there could be three school and cultural systems in Kirkuk: one for the Turkmen, one for the Kurds and one for the Arabs, and three parallel cultural ministries for each group, like in South Tyrol, with a close, but free cooperation among them, based on mutual autonomy.

Fourth, in implementing a regional tax autonomy, and distributing the public money according to percentages of ethnic population.

In relation to all of these four proposals, the South Tyrol autonomy should not be seen as a model of democratization simply to copy, but as an example of concrete success of model case building, that might help to find appropriate and original local solutions according to the practical needs.

For the development of the area, but, even more importantly, also for the issue of democratization of Iraq as a whole, the building of such a model case would have many advantages:

First, all ethnic groups would have the opportunity to articulate autonomously their political needs. They would be forced to pave the way for a pluralistic form of development. That is not true today, because the Kurdish decision making prevails, and may result in new conflicts.

Second, an autonomy system oriented towards the South Tyrol model could give Kirkuk the guarantee that oil revenues would be shared according to percentages of population.

Third, a territorial autonomy for the different ethnic groups in Kirkuk including Sunnis, Shiits, Christians and Turkmen can be a decisive factor to balance future Kurdish influence on the greater region and on Iraq as a whole.

The model of a territorial autonomy for Kirkuk could thus be a stabilizing factor not only for Northern Iraq, but also for Iraq as a democratic nation. Iraq as a whole could gain practical experiences how to deal with its minorities, and how to successfully develop a pluralistic democracy. Thus the model case of Kirkuk could be a sort of socio-political micro-laboratory for the new nation.

Summing up: What does this mean? It means: The international powers should use the current situation to establish, in cooperation with the regional Kurdish and the national authorities, in Kirkuk (or in regions that present similar opportunities) a model case for the peaceful development of other regions in Iraq. They should take the South Tyrol model as a point of departure and as a practical help for the purpose of development and peaceful democratization. That could be, at last, a concrete impulse from Europe, that has to be far more active in the development of the Middle East than it has been until today. It would be a practical European contribution for Iraq and a pragmatic help to the current democratization efforts of the US – also in the light of the fact, that the “unitarian” US-democracy model seems not to be the best model for the “deep” ethnic and cultural diversity that we find in current Iraq. The European democracy model based on diversity, difference and the subdivision of the national states into regional autonomies on an institutional scale has better opportunities to succeed as a model of democratization in current Iraq.[4] That is, maybe, so far the most important outcome of the Iraqi elections on January 31, 2005.[5]

The author

Dr. Roland Benedikter, born in 1965, is Member of Board of the “Institute for the History of Ideas and Research on Democracy” Innsbruck (Austria). He teaches Cultural and Political Science at the Universities of Vienna (Austria), Innsbruck (Austria), at the Free University of Bolzano/Bozen (Italy) and at the “Laboratorio Freudiano – School of Psychoanalysis”, Milan (Italy). From 2000-2004, he was a Guest lecturer at the University of Mersin (Turkey) (two times), at the Clemens-Ohridski-University Sofia (Bulgaria) and at the Catholic University of Lima (Peru). From 1991-1993, he worked at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and from 1993-1995 at the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (Italy), to become, from 1995 to 2003, as an independent expert without membership in a party, the Personal Speaker (Persönlicher Referent) of the Minister for Culture, Education and Science for the German and Ladin Ethnic Groups of the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol (Northern Italy), at the same time President of the Cultural Commission of the Council of European Regions (CER). He is the author of the book “Democracy for Iraq? Socio-cultural perspectives” (Vienna 2005) and of more than 100 publications in specialized journals and reviews, many of them about the Iraqi crisis, for example, in: Merkur. Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, Berlin; In The National Interest - The National Interest and The Nixon Center, Washington; Security Dialogue, Oslo-London; International Politics and Society, Bonn-Berlin; Austrian Journal of Sociology, Vienna; Neohelicon, Dordrecht-London-Budapest; Enlightenment and Critique, Nürnberg. He has collaborated with Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Mathias Finger und Oran Young  (eds.) and 60 other authors from over the world to the Report to the Club of Rome 2003 “Limits To Privatization. How To Avoid Too Much Of A Good Thing” (Earthscan London 2005). He is editor of 14 books, among them, the 7-fold series “Postmaterialism”, and he has contributed 23 articles so far to international encyclopaedias, among them: J. Mittelstraß et. al., “Lexikon der Geisteswissenschaften” (International Encyclopaedia of the cultural and social sciences), F. Volpi, “Großes Werklexikon der Philosophie”. He has collaborated with various international newspapers, among others: Frankfurter Rundschau, Radikal Istanbul, Der Freitag Berlin, Der Standard Wien, Die Presse Wien, German Newspaper Moscow. He has held, (until today), over 50 public conferences in 7 countries (Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Peru).

Contact: Dr. Roland Benedikter, Via Cavour 23/a, I-39100 Bolzano, Italy, e-mail: rolandbenedikter@yahoo.de.