The growth of Kurdish cities

Batman, North Kurdistan.

The text in Kurdish.

Next year half of world's population - 3,3 billion people - will live in towns and cities. Almost half of them are under 25 years old. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released last week a report about urban development. Until now most people have lived in the countryside. States have tried to prevent immigration to cities. UNFPA draws clear conclusion: this strategy does not work. It is better to develop urban life than to try to prevent the cities growing bigger.

Well, the United Nations report tells about global development which has happened in countries which are not hit by war and UN's economical sanctions. In South Kurdistan the conditions are different. Saddam Hussein did not want Kurds to stay in the countryside. Totally the opposite: he emptied thousands of Kurdish villages and forced people to move to cities against their will.

Anyway, in Kurdish cities many of the consequences of the rapid growth are the same than in cities in other developing countries. One thing is that cities grow bigger because of high birth rate in slum areas, not because of immigration from villages. The percentage of young people of city dwellers is high in all developing countries. And they do not want to live in country side because life is more free in cities than in villages.

I have not been in South Kurdistan but this is absolutely true in North Kurdish cities, for example in Diyarbakir and Wan. Kurds in Turkey have experienced the same forced, violent migration to towns than the Kurds in Iraq. The most massive village destruction occurred in Southeast Turkey at the beginning of last decade. Now there is one generation which has grown up in urban environment. And despite they are surely not happy with their conditions, the young people do not see their future in country side. It is the elderly people who dream of returning to their villages.

The problems are enormous but UNFPA searches solutions and tries to see the future optimistically. Better conditions and more rights for women is the key issue when aiming at low birth rate. This is necessary to prevent cities growing bigger. In South Kurdistan the families are not so big than in North Kurdistan where there seems to be ten children in every slum house.

Vice chairman of UNFPA, Mari Simonen, said last week in Helsinki that there exists lots of research information about urban problems. Politicians in the grass root level should have access to this knowledge.

Mrs. Simonen suggested that representatives of cities should meet each others to discuss their experiences and learn from each others. This is very good idea. When talking about South Kurdish cities it is easy to see with whom they should discuss their problems. There are very near towns and cities which have similar history of forced migration. They are their neighbours on the other side of the Turkish boarder. And in addition of representatives of Hewler and Sulaymania meeting people from Diyarbakir and Wan, also the representatives of smaller towns should meet each others.