Modernizing Kurdistan; A Bhutanese Approach

Architecture in Bhutan is in harmony with its culture

The idea for today’s blog came after a Friday get together with a group of friends who keen so much love for Kurdistan.  We had a wonderful lunch and then we decided to watch a documentary on the little Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.  As I was watching the documentary and learning about their philosophy of happiness, ideas started flourishing; we could possibly consider parts of the Bhutanese approach in modernizing Kurdistan to meet our people’s needs.

In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, happiness is often equated with materialism. Else where in world, a growing number of economists, social scientists, corporate leaders and bureaucrats are trying to develop measurements that equate happiness with the flow of money, access to suitable health care, free time with family, conservation of natural resources and other non-economic factors.

But to the Bhutanese, happiness lies in the middle path.  Neither overindulging in the world’s pleasures nor rejecting the world’s goodness can lead to enlightenment.  Happiness can only be found by taking the middle path – the path that balances the needs of mankind with the spirits of nature.

Economists in the industrialized societies rely heavily on gross domestic product, or G.D.P as a predictor of the well being of a nation.  But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different approach. In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan's newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation's priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness.

Their four pillars of GNH focuses on having a good governance responsive to the people’s needs, a balanced economic development, preserving the environment and promoting the Bhutanian culture.

To Bhutanese, nature is a breathing entity. Damaging nature comes at consequences.  Because of their belief system, they have a very high regard and respect for the land and their environment. With loans from the government of India, Bhutan has built several mammoth underground hydroelectric plants.  Literature shows that the Bhutanese pay less for electricity than any other nation in the world and produce so much power that most of this energy is exported to India financing the bulk of the government’s budget and granting free health care and education to every Bhutanese.  “We have to look after the environment, environment should be conserved. We feel that the natural environment is an integral part of life in Bhutan”, said Bhutan's home minister. "Material well-being is only one component. That doesn't ensure that you're at peace with your environment and in harmony with each other", he continues.

Being a world traveler myself, there is one thing that is preventing me from traveling to Bhutan: high visa fees, to reduce the influx of tourists.  The high visa cost goes hand in hand with the GNH philosophy: more tourists might boost the economy, but they would damage Bhutan's environment and culture, and so reduce happiness in the long run.

To enhance happiness is to look after their culture. Bhutan is located between two humongous nations rich in culture; India and china. To survive, the Bhutanian felt a must in having a distinctive identity.  To feel and smell identity, you look at the art, the cloths, the infrastructure, the language and the music.  When you look around, you automatically get the sense of the distinctive Bhutanese culture.  Looking at the new architecture set ups in Kurdistan makes one wonder if the set up is in harmony with the Kurdish culture. Where do all the ideas for the construction that is currently taking place in Kurdistan come from?  All from the west.  How about our art skills, our video clips and music programs. We take them all, as they are, from the West. This is how I feel we live; we live off of other people’s thought process.  Other’s invent and we simply consume

It only bothers me to see American and English names on shops and restaurants as I walk or drive in Hawler, and mostly misspelled, I regret to say.  Where is the pride in the Kurdish language?  Modernization does not translate into westernization.  Westernization both creates and destroys values.  The values destroyed are typically traditional and indigenous while the new values are more materialistic that fuels consumerism and civilization. 

Now here is the question, Would it be possible to modernize Kurdistan while preserving the Kurdish culture and its beautiful nature? Can we make happiness and the well being of our citizens the number one priority in implementing any system toward a good governance?