Rixos Hotel, Duhok, Iraq. November 2018
Coffee on Friday mornings, ex-pat Kurds, dangerous franchising
Friday in the Middle East is the Sunday of the West - the day to sleep in, perhaps get up and go to mosque, then have a leisurely afternoon meal with family. This type of rest day is remarkably familiar to people all over the world. In Saudi Arabia, NOTHING was open Friday morning, but in Duhok, a few places were open - just very hard to find. Luckily near my apartment was the Turkish-owned Rixos Hotel, the finest hotel in Duhok. As a five-star property, the restaurant was open seven days, so it was a good place for a Friday morning coffee. The view from the restaurant provided an incredible panorama over Duhok beautifully nestled under the first ridge of the Zagros mountains. Usually, I was the only customer, so there was a lot of solitude. I knew all the servers because they also worked the bar at night (where I was a frequent customer). Friday morning coffee at the Rixos Hotel was a thing for me in my first weeks in Duhok. RD from Diyarbakir, Turkey, a Kurdish bartender/barista, always made me a smiley-faced cappuccino and hoped I didn't need too much service since he had worked until 2am the night before.
The bulk of the workers at the hotel were Turkish Kurds (or Kurdish Turks depending on your political point of view). Turkish Kurds are a lot more worldly than their brethren on the Iraqi side of the border, but they are kind and endearing people all the same. When the Middle East was carved up after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds were denied a country and ended up divided across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. To confuse the matter more, Kurds speak several different "dialects" (if you consider Spanish and French dialects of Latin) of which the largest and most influential is Kurmanji. Kurmanji is spoken in the Kurdish part of Turkey, northeast Syria, and the northern edge of Iraq. The rest of the Kurdish part of Iraq speaks Sorani, so although among all Kurds it is a minority dialect, in Iraq it is the majority. The official language of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq is Sorani. I lived in Duhok where everyone speaks Kurmanji (and has relatives over in Turkey). Kurdistan SHOULD have been a country or a union of regions, but it is not. Duhok SHOULD have been part of Turkey, so its citizens would be united with the Kurds in Turkey who speak the same language and share the same customs. If you are a Duhoki Kurd, you are a minority inside a minority. No Duhoki Kurd would EVER agree with this idea, by the way, even if their actions speak otherwise.
Where is all this going? Iraqi Kurdistan lives on imports from Turkey and Iran (nothing is manufactured in Iraq). In Duhok, the Turks have come and heavily invested in transportation infrastructure as well as retail and restaurants. The caterer at the university where I worked is a Turkish company. These Turkish companies need trained workers that they can trust who speak Turkish AND speak Kurmanji. No problem, there are literally millions of Kurds in Turkey fitting the description. AND, because working in Iraq is considered a "hardship post", they are paid in dollars at a far higher salary than in Turkey. Thus, there is a cadre of Turkish Kurds working as expats in Duhok. The top managers are still all Turkish Turks (as opposed to Kurdish Turks). In my naive head, I thought that the Kurds who so yearned for freedom and equality in Turkey would be singing and rejoicing to live in a free Iraqi Kurdistan (with a good salary). Not really...
The Turkish Kurds all HATE living in Duhok. They think the people are backward and conservative and the place itself is boring. They all wax nostalgic about former jobs in hotels on the Mediterranean in cities like Antalya where the crowd is richer and more international. They miss their hometowns of Diyarbakir, Mardin, or Van which are "so much better than Duhok" (they really are). They voice these opinions openly in front of their local Kurdish hosts because the locals AGREE! Even if Turks regularly oppress Kurds on the other side of the border, Duhoki Kurds will spend every vacation in Turkey (not even in the Kurdish part) because "Iraq just sucks". In my time in Duhok I got an earful about Kurdish independence and the importance of the KRG and Iraqi Kurdistan, but in actuality young people's actions did not match their words. I understand it on one level - young people want jobs, a modern places to live, and nice holiday destinations. However, how do they rationalize this with news of Turkish forces regularly bombing their villages along the border in search of the PKK (the outlawed Kurdish party in Turkey) and its sympathizers? or with direct knowledge of a Turkish government that actively discriminates against Turkish Kurds?
"Oh Mr. Matthew I just LOVE Istanbul." "We spend a week in Antalya on the beach every summer." Duhoki Kurds can't be serious.
The Rixos Hotel {See: National Gallery East Wing} is something of an anomaly. I got to know the GM, a Turkish Turk. He told me that the Sheraton had come and built a lovely property down the road (visible from all over town) around the same time Rixos opened and then promptly abandoned it because the grand opening coincided with ISIS taking Mosul (frighteningly just down the road from Duhok). After the crisis, the Sheraton never reopened, but the Rixos remained. Why the difference? Duhok is loaded with fast food places from all over Europe and the US except.... they are all fake. Enterprising Kurds with dual citizenship basically copy everything from places like Burger King or Wienerwald on the outside and bring back knockoffs to Iraq. Would any of these giant corporations really care what happens in a dusty corner of Iraq? Actually, probably yes. More ominously, because the Kurdish/Iraqi legal system is so filled with corruption and nepotism, no franchisor would stand a chance of winning a claim in court. No one wants to risk opening a franchise in Iraq. The Sheraton did not return in part due to corrupt business practices. The Rixos and a few Turkish restaurants are REAL franchises as the franchisors are just across the border. The Rixos GM told me the hotel owner bordered on mafia thuggery, BUT was smart enough to know that the brand image needed to be maintained. As long as when he showed up with his entourage, he was treated like a visiting head of state, he (mostly) followed the franchise rules. However, if he did not, there was literally NOTHING the Rixos Hotel chain could do to challenge him.
Learning all of the above was eye opening for me. People can have a yearning for independence and self-determination, but only if it is "convenient" and makes life better in the now. In addition, a strong, independent judicial system is essential for businesses to thrive, especially within the complexities of franchising in a global marketplace. Iraq is just like the Wild West. People in the West rail against the long arm of government, but consider the flip side. Would you want a burger at a Burger King that was totally unregulated? Coffee from a Starbucks that could serve whatever they pleased? Democracy and "freedom" in a tribalistic, semi-independent region run by an oligarchic family dynasty who controlled all the courts?
There was a lot to think over while having coffee Friday mornings.