Jalal Talabani Quotes
This will be Iraq for all without discrimination among Iraqi citizens, or ethnic or sectarian discrimination.
Talabani, Jalal. Inaugural Address. Transitional National Assembly, Baghdad, 7 Apr. 2005. Speech.
The statement was made just before Kenyan Independence was official. His statement was surprising to many people who perceived him as a racist and anti-white. There was a fear that whites would no longer be welcome in Kenya after independence, but Kenyatta’s leadership maintained a pluralistic society.
This would normally not be a very noteworthy quotation as it is typical of political party declarations in democracies throughout the world. What makes this, the exception is that this credo was for a Pakistani political party, where no other political party and very few individuals would dare make such a statement. Altaf Hussain was not only attacked and luckily survived an assassination attempt, but the Pakistani Government called this statement and many others treason against the state where equal rights for non Muslims is prohibited by their interpretation of the Koran. The government policy has even been to support terrorist organizations as a potential force against India and parts of India which Pakistan covets and justifies because the area as a majority of Muslims. But India has about the same number of Muslims as does Pakistan so there are hundreds of such areas. Hussain has been indicted over 100 times and runs the party from exile in London where he has been granted political asylum. What he and his party supports has been completely contrary to the policies of the government of Pakistan and its leaders of all the other political persuasions. Pakistan has been since its inception a perpetrator of religious intolerance, fanaticism, violence and one of the worst violators of human rights in the word.
Jalal Talabani was a Kurdish politician who served as the sixth President of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as the President of the Governing Council of Iraq. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq. He is known as Mam Jalal (uncle Jalal in Kurdish) amongst the Kurds.
