8/22/2004
Al-Iraqiya TV : The Arab lions (Iraq) reach the last 4 in Athens
BBC : Iraq was carved out of the Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra
I have been following the Iraqi olympics team since the start of the qualifications. So I have almost watched every single match since their qualifications stages.
I was very happy yesterday to see Iraq beating Austuralia. I was watching the match with some friends. We were happy and nervous, but this is what happened..
The commentator on the US-installed television (Al-Iraqiya) repeated contiously several times "Iraq, the lions of Arabs & Asia are doing great" ....
We didn't say nothing until the end of the match...My friend said "Maybe this guy is from Fallujah or whatever" ..At the end of the match, when all the stress was gone, we turned to Al-Sharqiya (another Iraqi TV based in Iraq & Dubai) , there is a veteran Iraqi football expert. His name is "Muayaad Badri". He has been presenting sports news since the dark ages. (He was also used to teach in Baghdad's universities.)
He also repeated the same line.. "Weldone Arabs, we are the lions in Athens"...
We switched off the TV and played some music and started a discussion. The subject was "Is Iraq Arabic ?"
It was a long discussion, especially when you have a drink in your hand, and we came to this conlcusion :
Yes Iraq is Arabic..We can not force Arabs in Iraq to say that their country is not Arabic..Yes they are Arabs, and we like it or not, they will call their country Arabic, and we as Kurds cant' do much about it. We should NOT be winning (Oh Iraq is not Arabic) , we should be saying "Look dudes, yes Iraq is Arabic, but Kurdistan is not. You take your Arabic Iraq, and we take our Kurdistan".
Here we will go back to what it went wrong (Source BBC website)
1918 - After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, British forces occupy the oil-rich Ottoman vilayet (province) of Mosul (current Iraqi Kurdistan) , bringing extensive Kurdish-populated areas under British rule.
1919 - Mosul area is added to the new Iraqi state, which comes under a British mandate.
Read the BBC's TimeLine for Iraqi Kurds. We have a long history for demanding independence don't we ?! ;-)
