Nomadic herders sitting on oil
Othman, who has been in Taiwan for many years, often encounters people here who think that he is lucky to have been able to escape a war-torn and poverty-stricken area and come to Taiwan. It’s hard for most Taiwanese to imagine that his hometown is a beautiful mountain city that has been called the ”Paris of Iraq.” Having neither desert nor camels, it enjoys four distinct seasons, with flowers blooming riotously in spring and snowfall in the winter.
In fact, the Kurds, originally nomadic herders, have been living in the Mesopotamian Plain longer than any other ethnic group. They have more than 3000 years of history, with their own culture and language, and their population in excess of 30 million makes them the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East. However, this ethnic group, which is known internationally for being nomadic herders living in oil-rich areas, has suffered greatly precisely because of their rich natural resources. After World War I, because of complex international political factors, the Kurds were unable to establish their own independent country, and today they are scattered across a number of nations including Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. They are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state.
Othman did experience a period of war when he was a child. But following the end of the Persian Gulf War, with the support of the US government the Iraqi Kurds established a de-facto independent government in northern Iraq in 1991. Their autonomy was recognized in the 2005 Iraqi constitution, which permits the Kurds to have their own popularly elected president, military, and budget. With the arrival of peace, Iraqi Kurdistan’s economy took off, so that in comparison with the past it has become an entirely different place.
Having passed through a period of war, Iraq’s Kurdistan Region has experienced rapid economic growth as its people enjoy the benefits of peace.