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Kurds memorialize slain relatives (Photo: M Goldfarb)

Among the people of the Book, the number 40 has great significance. The Israelites wandered through Sinai for 40 years. Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days and Muslims commemorate the dead 40 days after their passing. In Iraq now, every day is someone's 40th day.

In Erbil, capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq, in the gymnasium of the Technical College, people are gathered to commemorate the Kurds killed 40 days previously. In a perfectly synchronized operation, a pair of suicide bombers had attacked the main political parties in Kurdistan. 101 were killed.

The guest of honor arrives a little late -- two and a half hours late -- but then he is a busy man, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer.

He tells the more than 1,000 guests:

"Those terrorists who struck here aimed to do harm beyond their immediate physical victims. In Erbil, Kerbala, in Baghdad, and recently in Madrid the murders were meant to send a message beyond the suffering of their immediate physical victims. It was indeed as the sign at the front of the hall said: a catastrophe."

The somber occasion belies the mood in Kurdistan, the northern part of Iraq, which is upbeat and prosperous these days. In the bazaar, women from peasant villages fill up the jewelry shops putting their families' new prosperity into the tangible form of gold bracelets and necklaces.

Business is particularly good for tailors ... with the threat of Saddam removed, Kurdish culture can be expressed freely. More and more men are coming in to have traditional Kurdish clothes made ... baggy twelve-pleat trousers called Shalwar with military tunics ... in one shop an elderly gentleman in a traditional outfit made from a cloth of navy blue with a discreet pinstripe, is keen to explain how good things are in Kurdistan these days.

The tailor is enjoying the good times while he can. The sovereignty transition date of June 30th has him worried: "After June 30th, our situation will be worse. There won't be any powerful government to rule Iraq."

Security is the single greatest problem for Iraqis. It is the non-stop topic of conversation in Kirkuk, the oil center of Northern Iraq. In this ethnically mixed city Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen warily eye one another in the bazaar and wait to see what will happen when the Coalition Provisional Authority hands over sovereignty on June 30th.

The Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen each have their own agenda for the future of the city. They are united only by their distrust of the United States. A sentiment you can easily find in the Bazaar, which sprawls across the river Khasta.

An American walking through Kirkuk's open bazaar can expect to be harassed.

A teenager selling small birds intended for the pot pushes their pointy beaks at foreign-looking visitors. Others call out curses or the name of Iraq's deposed tyrant.

The adults will tell you their problems. In this town the biggest problem is the legacy of Saddam's program of Arabization. Kirkuk had been a predominantly Kurdish city. In order to dilute Kurdish nationalism from the 1970s onwards on, Saddam forcibly settled Arabs in Kirkuk. Driving many Kurds out of their homes or building new dwellings on Kurdish land. After the overthrow of the regime the Kurds who had been driven away returned and demanded their houses back. There were ethnic clashes between Arabs and Kurds, although that has died down.

Now, it is a matter of waiting and negotiating compensation, according to one Arab stallholder who say he will return to the South if he is given enough money to buy a home down there.

The courts and government where this claim could be settled don't exist yet. Who might pay the claim isn't known either. And with no security, it is dangerous for Arab advocates who speak out about the problem. The previous day the Arab leader on the Kirkuk council, Adar Husseini, had been assassinated.

If you want to find out more about security and ethnic unrest, you have to pay a visit to the police. Depending on how you look at it, the police are the bravest or most foolhardy people in Iraq. At a police station on the north side of town, the station commander, Colonel Ayoub says the security situation in Kirkuk is not so bad.

But Colonel Ayoub was being rather understated. A month earlier his police station was car bombed, 10 people were killed. Colonel Ayoub was lucky to escape injury. The windows of his ground floor office were blown out. The ceiling scorched black. He was holding a meeting at the time and two of his men severely injured. As we spoke, workmen were painting the office's new window frames, which had yet to be glassed in. I asked him if he was afraid? He answered, "As police from the first day of our work we are targets. We don't work for America, we work for Iraqi people."

With unrest and antagonism so near the surface across Iraq, it's not surprising that the Bush administration has realized that democracy is not encoded in the human genome. Democracy is a concept and a form of behavior that needs to be learned. As the handover of sovereignty approaches, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority has hired an NGO to set up democracy training courses around the country. The course leader in Erbil is Abdusalaam al-Medeni .

Abdusalaam says the most difficult thing he has found leading these training sessions is getting people to understand they can dream. Abdussalaam al-Medeni is a positive phenomenon in the new Iraq. He is a committed democrat as well as an Islamic politician. His party, the Kurdistan Islamic Union is represented on the Iraqi Governing Council. Abdussalaam is a completely modern politician, comfortable with mass media, he has a television show in Erbil and is a bit of a local celebrity. He wants the new Iraq to be shaped by Sharia, Islamic law, but is able to make the distinction between the Mosque and the state.

Abdusalaam al-Medeni has this view of the prospects for Iraq when the occupation ends. "It will be difficult. But I always say difficult doesn't equal impossible. Maybe it's difficult, but we can do it.

» Continue Reading Fear and Anger: Inside Out (Part II)