Obstacles cleared, Iraqi delegation heads to Duluth
By: Lisa Baumann, Duluth News Tribune
Duluth has sister cities in Canada, Sweden, Russia and Japan. Late Saturday, a delegation of five citizens was due to arrive from Rania, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq, to broaden a friendship that eventually may result in a fifth sister city relationship.
“It’s the getting-to-know-you stage,” said Duluth resident Michele Naar-Obed, a member of the Duluth-Rania Friendship Exchange Project. “This trip is to view different sectors of the city. At some point, we’ll look at how to define a long-term relationship. The sister city group would have to determine whether they could embrace another sister city — it’s a big commitment.”
The visitors are guests of the friendship exchange project, a small committee of residents from the Duluth area that traveled to Rania in spring 2009. The idea was born three years ago through a connection made by Naar-Obed. While working with Christian Peacemaker Teams, a human rights-violence reduction organization, she formed a friendship with Khalid Qadir, who is director of a youth center in Rania. The two began discussing the possibility of sister city status in 2007.
FROM DULUTH TO BAGHDAD AND BACK
For the Duluth delegation last year, traveling to Iraq was fairly simple, according to Tom Morgan, associate professor of Russian and director of the Alworth Center for Peace and Justice at the College of St. Scholastica. He, along with Brooks Anderson, made the trip to Rania. Morgan also made the initial trip to sister city Petrozavodsk, Russia, in 1986.
“Getting into Iraq was easy,” Morgan said. “Much easier than other countries that I’ve traveled to (including Russia).”
Planning a trip for the Iraqis to visit Duluth was a very different scenario, according to Naar-Obed.
“You feel like you have everything stacked against you,” said Naar-Obed, who often spends up to six months a year in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams.
But she and others involved were determined.
The first problem was the application process for visas, Naar-Obed said. There were three forms to fill out, including one that had to be filled out online and in English. Two of the Iraqi visitors are English teachers and they found the application difficult to complete, Naar-Obed said. Using the online application was another hassle because the Iraqis use a phone dial-up system for Internet access.
“If you don’t do anything for
20 minutes, it times you out,” she said. “To go from page one to page two, it would time out and you’d have to start over.”
Then, because no one in the Kurdish north was equipped to issue passports or visas, the five had to travel to Baghdad. The morning they were to depart, seven car bombs were reported in the area, according to Naar-Obed. After the group finally made it to Baghdad and went through an interview process, two of the five were flagged for extra background checks, which took months.
“They got sucked into administrative security, which has been described as a black hole,” she said. “We maintained a sense of humor for the most part about it. We thought — how difficult it is these days just to be friends.”
Enlisting help from the offices of Congressman Jim Oberstar, Sen. Al Franken and Duluth Mayor Don Ness, the five finally received proper documentation, Morgan said.
Their stay in Duluth
The friendship exchange committee has planned a variety of activities, including visiting museums, schools and social service agencies during their weeklong stay. Two events, a reception and concert, and a farewell potluck dinner, will be open to the public.
Ness, who also has exchanged correspondence with Rania’s mayor, will welcome the group on Monday.
“I look forward to welcoming them to Duluth and establishing that face-to-face relationship,” Ness said.
The delegation includes three men and two women. Qadir, 38, is an active member in the Kurdistan Journalist Syndicate and editor of the Ledwan newspaper in addition to directing the Rania Youth Center. Hiwa Mustafa, 45, is an art activities manager in Rania schools and the former music department head at the Rania Fine Arts Institute. Shirwan Mirza is an English teacher at the Fifth Azar High School in Rania.
The women are Khwnaw Sleman, 43, who holds a master’s degree in English, teaches at Koya University and is active in women’s organizations. Hero Sardar, 37, is a civil engineer who has supervised many road, building and reconstruction projects in Rania.
“None have been to the U.S.,” Naar-Obed said. “They are very excited.”
Political controversy
Haji Dokhanchi, a native of Iran and political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Superior, said he sees the people-to-people exchange as an opportunity.
“I think it’s a great idea and is about time that we have a sister city with a country in the Middle East,” he said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity especially given U.S. involvement in Iraq.”
Ness said he believes the visit gives Duluthians a chance to round out their knowledge of Iraq, particularly about how the Kurdish people have been affected in recent decades by U.S. involvement and the toppling of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“It gives a lot of opportunity to hear that perspective and learn from it,” he said.
While all of the delegates live in Iraq, living in a Kurdish part of Iraq means not all Iraqi people identify with them, according to Marv Heikkenen, who visited Rania last year and is part of the friendship exchange project.
“With nearly 30 million people, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group without a country of their own,” he said. “In Iraq, there are three provinces that make up Kurdistan. I learned during my visit that (Kurds) are unified with Iraq and separate in many ways.”
Heikkenen also said he’s heard from just a few local Iraqis that there’s some resentment about bringing Kurdish Iraqis to Duluth.
“Some think we’re making too much of the Kurds,” he said.
Satima Alwan, a sophomore at College of St. Scholastica whose father is from Iraq but is not Kurdish, wrote an article about the visit for the college’s newspaper.
“This is an opportunity for us to kind of put politics aside and just realize and appreciate the humanity of everyone,” she said. “I was raised to appreciate people for the humans that they are.”
Morgan said he’s not under any illusions that this visit will change public policy.
“I don’t know where this will lead, but at some point we can’t just sit around and talk about peace,” he said. “We’re putting a face to this (part of the world). It’s not meeting with the Kurds so much as it is getting some sort of touch point in the Middle East. People think differently about their behavior when there’s a face involved.”
Tagged in: duluth, Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdistan, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Kurds, local, News, rania, sister cities
