Early Saturday morning my plane touched down back in Iraq just in time for the first day of Ramadan, the most holy month for devoted Muslims. I say 'devoted' Muslims as opposed to non-devoted Muslims, because in our city of Erbil in Northern Iraq sometimes you wonder if you're in a Muslim country at all.
Quickly cashing on the peace and prosperity that the Iraq War has brought them, the Kurds in the North have been on a technological and industrial rampage these past 6 years.
The capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq, called Iraqi-Kurdistan, is the city of Erbil, where we are living presently.
Faced with economic and physical extinction at the hands of Saddam's forces for over 30 years, the lid has finally been popped off, with years of repression now igniting a flame of hope for all the Middle East.
The Kurds are establishing now, what some call the best example of democracy in all the Middle East.
Can democracy really survive amongst a Muslim people? Well, it is here, but let's go back to those terms I used at the beginning: devoted Muslims and non-devoted Muslims.
Even though this is the most holy month of the Islamic culture, religion, and tradition, the Kurds in Erbil seem little affected by it's injunction to abstain from food and drink during the day.
Today, I was meeting with one of the main Social Affairs directors. After chatting a bit, he asked us, "Is it Ramadan for you? It's not for me." Then, calling in a old covered woman, he asked her to bring in some water for us. A few moments later another helper peeked in the door and handed his boss a pack of cigarates, which he promptly opened and lit up.
Even in Turkey we saw a little more 'respect' for the traditions of their faith, but here is an example of just how non-devoted many "Muslim" Kurds have become over the years.
There are, of course, many reason for this, but perhaps the greatest one is simply that the Kurds as a people group (the largest in the world without a country to call their own), has been so thoroughly bombarded by those states largely regarded as sincerely Islamic: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The pressure exerted upon them by these fellow Muslim 'brothers' has truly tainted their view of Islam.
If you consider that the United States, as well as other 'Christian' European nations have been some of their only allies in recent years, then you can begin to see how their hearts might yearn for something different than what their parents grew up believing.
This month of Ramadan, though the 'fasting' month of the Islamic calendar, will see more feasting then any other time of year as Muslims gorge themselves on food as soon as the sun sets, eating once again early in the morning before the sun rises. No water during the day, not even swallowing one's spit, is strictly enforced in other Islamic nations, but somehow in Northern Iraq, though in some cases outwardly 'sincere' inwardly a generation is looking for something more.
Check out this video that gives you a little different perspective on our city here in Iraq and shows a little bit of what I'm talking about.
