W O R L D P E E K S

"The Most Decorated People"

2011-07-14T12:59:00.020-06:00

A BRIEF LOOK AT THE KURDS IN AZERBAIJAN

After a Byzantine passage through language, phone calls, and meetings, one evening I finally found myself in a small living room in one many worn-concrete Soviet era apartment buildings in Baku, Azerbaijan. I was in the country for a 3-week visit which was to include searching out the story of the Kurds in this ex-Soviet republic as I had been doing throughout the region over the past decade.

Ahmede Hepo

“In 1926 my parents moved from Igdir, Turkey to Arashdt, Armenia where I was born in 1934,” Ahmede Hepo began, pleased with my persistent interest in hearing his story.

Ahmede Hepo's Parents

We found the towns with which I was familiar, merely a thumb's width apart on my crease-torn map and 50 kilometers on the ground. Both enjoy unparalleled views of epic Mount Ararat. When Ahmede's parents made the short journey the ink had barely dried on the 1924 Lausanne Treaty map that finally defined the post-World War I nation-state boundaries carving-up the defunct Ottoman Empire; on the ground the lines had barely existed to those living in the region.

Ahmede Hepo, a 77-year old Azeri Kurd, is a short squarish man balder than I. He wears the gravitas of an educated man as comfortably as he wears his suit and tie.

Ahmede Hepo

“It was in 1937 that Stalin ordered the relocation of 50,000 Muslim Kurds from Arashadt to Kazakastan and Kyrgystan in Central Asia. The Yezidi Kurds were allowed to stay. [Note: Yezidism is an ancient monotheistic non-Islamic religion that is practiced by around a half million Kurds.] My family was among the 10,000 that went to Kyrgystan.” He sat back in the soft sofa watching me intently as his 18-year old grandson translated from Azeri to English. Ahmede's daughter brought out tea and a cascade of cookies and candies.

This forced relocation was only one of many systematically and brutally imposed on ethnic groups in the Soviet Union by Stalin, beginning in 1937 and continuing to one degree or another through his death in 1953.

“I only spoke Kurdish [Kurmanji, the dominant dialect] so I never went to school in Kyrgystan. Ten years later Stalin ordered 5,000 of us to return to Arashadt. While we were gone many Armenians also returned and lived where we lived before. Of course they did not want us to stay. What were we to do?”

And so through the evening Ahmede shared his family's story with intent, patience and pride.

The Armenian Republic successfully petitioned Moscow to expell the Kurds, and once again they were sent packing to the east. This time it was to the Yevlax area in central Azerbaijan, where a significant Kurdish population remains to this day. After learning enough Azeri, a Turkic language, Ahmede went to school for the first time at the age of 15. In 1959 he returned to Armenia once again, this time to attend the Azeri Teachers College in Yerevan.

The the government-sanctioned Kurdish newspaper Reya Taze (The New Path) and Kurdish radio program were already established in Yerevan, and for the next 7 years Ahmede worked for both. It changed his life, for it was during this period he learned the written Kurmanji language, a love for which he carries to this day.

We cleared the low table for dinner – fried fish from the Caspian Sea, tomatoes and cucumbers heavily flecked with basil, and a basket of bread. To my delight Ahmede's daughter pulled up a stool and ate with us, me answering questions about other Kurdish communities I had visited over the years.

Dinner finished, Ahmede continued. In 1970 he moved his young family to Baku, the Azeri capital on the Caspian Sea, where he became the editor for Kurdish language publications. Twenty years later he authored his first “big book” on the “artistic nature” of the Kurds who left Turkey, and he continued writing in Kurdish through the years, now the author of ten books. Some of his books have been novels, and he translated an Azeri-authored novel on the the friendship between Azeris and Kurds. Ahmede gave me a copy of his most recent book, “The Most Decorated People” about notable Azeri Kurds.

In 1993, two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ahmede began producing weekly programs for the state-owned radio station, which he continues to this day.

I would see Ahmede Hepo once more before leaving Azerbaijan.

Exiles and Immigrants

The estimate of the number of Kurds in Azerbaijan insanely ranges 12,000 to 200,000. The reasons include raw political manipulation, passive assimilation of a relocated minority ethnic group, and the unwillingness of many to self-identify as Kurds for fear of official and social discrimination. Regardless of the actual number, the Kurds constitute less than one percent of the country's population.

Azerbaijan, bordering on the oil-rich Caspian Sea, is the eastern-most of the three trans-Caucasus countries, the other two being Armenia and Georgia. It is on the periphery of what many accept as geographical Kurdistan, an irregularly shaped Texas-sized piece of real estate that disregards the national boundaries of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The movement of peoples – including Kurds – through the greater Middle East has been continuous through the millennia.

The first documented large immigration of Kurds into Azerbaijan was forced by the Persian Empire (Safavid Dynasty) in the 16th century to defend its northwestern frontier. During tsarist Russia's cat-and-mouse game of intrigue and skirmishes with the weakening Ottoman Empire in 18th and 19th centuries, Kurds, other ethnicities and religious adherents were carried by the winds of perceived security. Early in the Soviet era, Moscow established short-lived administrative region “Red Kurdistan” (1923-1929) which was squeezed between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan and Armenia entered into the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994). As a result the Kurds and others of western Azerbaijan were once again relocated – this time becoming refugees within their own country. Many still live in relocation camps.

“We are all Azeris”

Over the next several weeks traveling throughout Azerbaijan I sought out opportunities to learn more about the Kurds. It was an amazing and consistent journey of acknowledgment and denial.

“Yes, of course there are Kurds in Azerbaijan, but it does not matter – we are all Azeris.”

“My family is very close friends with some Kurdish families, but no, it would not be possible to meet them.”

“There is no problem in visiting the 'relocation camp' but we should not go there; the officials will ask too many questions.”

In these conversations, invariably the Azeri nationals would seamlessly shift to talk about the other two principal minorities in their country – the indigenous Lezgis in the northeast, and Talysh in the southeast along the Iranian border – wanting to bolster their country's credentials of tolerance. One of the unspoken differences between these minorities is that the Kurds have always been interlopers, and interlopers with a reputation to be mistrusted, if not feared.

And floating about were the rumors: The Kurds were the mafia in Baku; President Aliyev kept a personal guard of Kurds hidden away in the sprawling compound near Ganja; the Azeri Kurds were supporting the Turkish Kurd guerrilla movement, the PKK, and; some of the refugee Kurds from the Nagorno-Karabakh region were agents for Armenia.

“First I must learn English”

Ahmede and I met once again under the epic statue of Nariman Narimanov, an Azeri statesman-writer national hero of the early 20th century. He arrived with his grandson and rail-thin woman in her forties. We dodged the traffic and went to the nearby well-appointed modern apartment of ex-patriot friends. Shoes were shed at the door, tea was served, and Ahmede unpacked papers and photographs from his briefcase.

Ahmede Hepo with members of family in Yevlax

“These are my grandparents, and these my parents,” he said, “And here I am in Yevlax with some of my family.” Ahmede was a man clearly aware and proud of his roots, but somehow blinded to the what I and others believe to be the inevitable fate of assimilation of Kurds in Azerbaijan.

With Gulnara and Ahmede Hepo

Maps and books were once again arrayed on the table and floor, and the conversations were sucked into the geographic and numeric details of the Nagorno-Karabakh refugees in Azerbaijan. Inquiries as to the relationships between different groups of Kurds, the economic conditions of Kurds, and fate of the Kurdish language in Azerbaijan were all swept away with a figurative gesture as if to say, “My success and passion for Kurdishness is a testament to the future of Kurds in Azerbaijan.”

Gulnara, which means “fire flower” in Farsi, works for an international organization and is studying the psychology of minorities. Certainly, I thought, she would add insights. But as with everyone else, she dismissed the notion of minority problems in Azerbaijan, she and Ahmede echoing the same theme, and she citing the policies of the government. [Note: These are not empty boasts. International organizations routinely give the Azeri government passing-to-high marks for its treatment of ethnic minorities.] She did acknowledge, however, that the fewer and fewer Kurds were speaking Kurmanji; that once removed from their “homelands” they were much more prone to learn Azeri to better their chances for an improved social and economic conditions. Ahmede nodded, straightening his pale blue tie.

We unfolded ourselves from the soft chairs and sofas and began the long ceremony of goodbyes. Yusef helped his grandfather with his coat, and I the same for Gulnara.

When leaving, I asked Yusef if he intended to learn Kurmanji, for he spoke none. “Yes, but first I must learn to speak English better.”

Postscript

Azerbaijan's Kurds Fear Loss Of National Identity
July 2, 2011

BAKU, Azerbaijan, — Representatives of Azerbaijan's Kurdish minority convened a press conference in Baku on June 29 to highlight perceived threats to their continued survival as a separate ethnic group.

Tahir Suleymanov, editor of the newspaper "Diplomat," read out an appeal on behalf of the Kurds to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev. The appeal stressed that like any other ethnic group, the Kurds need schools with Kurdish as the language of instruction, theatres, and TV programs in their native language, in order to preserve their national identity.

It also noted that Azerbaijani Kurds consider it prudent to conceal their ethnic identity, as publicly identifying oneself as a Kurd "can elicit a negative reaction."

Russian media reports on the press conference do not specify why or whether those present elaborated on that claim.

Suleymanov also made the point that not a single one of the 125 members of the Azerbaijani parliament is Kurdish.

source: http://www.ekurd.net

Sampler II - 2010 Travel

2010-10-28T11:40:00.010-06:00

"My Heart Did It"

2010-10-23T13:03:00.000-06:00

Saturday, 16 October 2010

“ 'My Heart Did It,' thats what Kar Belaktus means” Linda said,explaining to me the name of the church. Linda? What a jolt of a name to hear on the high bluffs above the Tigris River. “We are Chaldeans.” She was short and plump with the eyes of an angel, and though her face should have been weathered, it was not.

After a planned visit to a Shabak community (another syncretic religion followed by a hyper-minority of Kurds) failed to materialize, I found myself racing across the tired autumnal landscape of upper Mesopotamia in northern Iraq to visit the village of Derabûm (or Kosh Khabor). Nazim, a young Yezidian, was at the wheel dodging the large transport trucks hauling goods and construction material from Turkey under a luminescent mid-day sky polished by the dust blowing from the south of Iraq. Eight-foot tall phragmites grasses huddled around the infrequent seeps and struggled to appear green in the hot wind. Gratefully Nazim kept the windows up and the air conditioning on as a radio station from Zahko serenaded us with class B American rap and hip-hop. We passed through a half dozen small settlements before reaching Derabum, each of which was defined by religion – Muslim and not-Muslim. Christians and Yezidis found kinship with one another, both suffering from Islamic persecution intermittently throughout their histories, and intimately since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Derabûm was half Christian and half Yezidi, segregated only by the road.

Nazim and I first drove a kilometer past Derabûm to the ruins of what he said was an old fortress. It was an unremarkable collection of tall crumbling walls; the view of the Tigris on the other hand was anything but. Even now so late in the season, and in spite of Turkey's manic construction of a system of dams upstream, it flowed wide and shallow around intermittent islands. Soon the fall rains would come and briefly swell the Tigris with silt-laden water. Nazim came up behind me. It was not a fortress, he corrected himself after reading the bent roadside sign painted in white Arabic script, it was an old church – Mariam Adra. I suspected that during its history it had been both. As I walked back to the car against the wind, I picked the spikey burrs out of the socks that should have stayed home, while taking care not to step on broken glass.

Kar Belakrus' fresh white paint was as startling as Linda's name. It did more than reflect the filtered sunlight. Atop was a modest sized cross with clear light bulbs within its frame, and below it a sign colors yet faded with a literal image of Christ, his heart in flames on his chest. His skin was not weathered either.

Linda, in her blue flowered cotton shift, was sweeping under the portico when we arrived with her uncle, Zachary. She fetched the key and opened the side door. It was cool inside the simple church. The church had undergone a major restoration in the last 3 years Linda explained first in hesitant English then in soft song. She and Zachary showed us the improvements with quiet pride – the new ceiling 16 feet above, and the new rectory with the priests' and deacons' black cassocks with gold cuffs hung primly in the open armoire. (I couldn't help but think of their contrast to the thread-worn and dusty gray cassocks with red braiding that that I saw hanging on pegs in the bunker of the Armenian chapel in Diyarbakir, Turkey 9 years ago.)

Linda and her husband, the church's deacon, returned to Derabûm 5 years ago. It became too dangerous for Christians in Baghdad where some of her extended family had lived for some number of years. Her grandfather's house is right there, she pointed behind the church, a house that her brother now a Canadian citizen is rebuilding for occasional visits. And those olive trees next to the church, she told me, were planted by her grandfather and father. They will begin the modest harvest soon. And the six houses that lined the dirt lane next to the church were her family's.

We retreated to Zachary's garden, a small plot of grass that wasn't struggling to be green. His wife brought tall glasses of cold water, and then small cups of Turkish coffee that tasted so good that I almost suffered the dregs trying to get the last sip.

The wind wasn't blowing in the garden, but the sky was still burnished.

Heroes Arrive Unexpectantly

2010-10-20T12:34:00.000-06:00

14 October, Rawanduz District - Iraqi Kurdistan

Bordumin poured a thick yellow-brown liquid on a rag tightly wound around the end of a stick. Crouching, he reached forward and dabbed the most putrid of open sores teaming with worms on the pathetically thin dog curled as in death near the oak tree. The dog did not protest; it only feintly acknowledged. Borduman repeated, then poured more of the potion of motor oil and salt over the dog's bared and festering shoulder and side of the head, swathing it around with the stick.

We were in deep in the Zagros Mountains east of Rawanduz, 15 kilometers from a major border crossing into Iran. Fully loaded transport trucks race down the narrow and winding road, one of which doubtless hit the shepherd's hapless dog days or weeks before. I had seen the dog from afar earlier in the afternoon, giving it only scant notice as the anarchic flurry of construction activities on Serwan's new house begged more attention. But after a new load of fresh and rotten cinder blocks had been dumped and tossed into unruly piles, Serwan and his makeshift crew of cousins turned to plotting out a grid where he would plant trees. It was then than Borduman and I saw the dog.

The name Bordumin means “bombardment.” He was born in the nearby village of Berserine in 1974 during an aerial bombing of the village by Saddam Hussein's forces. Yet another of so many rebellions/armed conflicts/wars between the Kurds of northern Iraq and the Iraqi central government. This one followed a failed declaration of independence by the Kurds and preceded the orchestrated and unconscionable abandonment of support for the Kurdish military efforts by both Iran and the US. Once again, as during millennia past, the Kurds found themselves to pawns in greater politics. Sometimes blameless, sometimes not. This time not. Bordumin's next younger brother (7 brothers and 5 sisters in all) was named Shadamin, which means “happiness.” No bombs were falling when he was born.

When Bordumin showed me the dog my heart sank. After a few minutes of staring at it, I tolf him that if I were in America and found a dog like this in such misery with no seeming prospects for recovery, I would shoot it to put it out of his misery. Bordumin briefly considered what I said then walked off across the field. I thought he was going to get his gun, which of course he had as did most in this part of the world. I wandered off wallowing in the turn of events and didn't want to be anywhere near.

Twenty minutes later he came back and treated the dog. I was properly humbled. We watched in wonder as the dog slowly stood up, his rear left leg painfully useless. Bordumin nodded, then motioned for me to come with him. Far behind the dog followed. We went to the nearby roadside stop where Bordumin purloined a large fistful of bread scraps and an insecticide dust surely long outlawed in the States. The dog ate greedily and allowed Bordumin to dust him, then limped off to at least the hope of another day.

Heroes arrive unexpectedly.

Jema'iyye at Lalish, 2010 - A Small Portfolio

2010-10-19T12:26:00.018-06:00

Yezidi'ism is a little known syncretic and monotheistic religion practiced by a hyper-minority of Kurds, mainly concentrated in northern Iraq (the semi-autonomous Kurdish Region and Sinjar), but with a significant diaspora population in Europe. Other smaller regional populations are in Syria, Armenia, and Georgia. Lalish, in Iraqi Kurdistan, is the holy center of Yezidis - both in their cosmology and history.

Every autumn the Yezidis celebrate Jema'iyye, an 8-day long religious and social gathering. Thousands descend on this compact site, smothering both time and place. This was the third year I have attended. Below is a small portfolio of photographs I assembled for a documentary film being made by non-Yezidi Kurds from Arbil. With one exception,* identifiable faces are not included in these photos out of sensitivity to the Yezidis' precarious position both in Kurdistan Iraq, and the whole of Iraq. (*Sheikh Hadj is an already well-known Yezidi.)

For more information about the Yezidis see earlier posts on this site.

Dengbêj of Diyarbakir.

2010-01-18T11:04:00.018-07:00

2 October 2009, Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey

A dozen dengbêj, traditional Kurdish cantors of epic story-poem-songs, were gathered in the courtyard. I was among several visitors enjoying an understated and warm welcome. They were mostly older men, but not ancient, and all were rather nattily dressed in matched and mismatched western-style suits in various states of wear, as is the norm in Turkey. The ambience was as comfortable as a pair of old brown shoes of which there were many. They sung without musical accompaniment, their reedy and wavering voices saturated with sincerity, creating moods that swung between contemplative and joyful. There were brief moments of impromptu dancing. It was apparent that this group of men had shared many such days of camaraderie and mutual admiration, but also moments of competitiveness that comes with familiarity.

The muezzin’s call to mid-day prayer cawed over the open courtyard, but only a few gathered themselves out of their plastic chairs to go to the nearby mosque; the others enjoyed another round of sweet amber tea. The cadence was unbroken as a blind man wearing a black-and-white checked kafiya was led through the arched doorway to a chair among the others. He was greeted with welcoming murmurs and nods.

The place was the Mala dengbêjan (House of Dengbêj), a stone house in the narrow passageways of Diyarbakir’s old city, restored and opened in 2007 specifically to be a gathering place for the dengbêj. That it exists at all is rather remarkable as one considers the contemporary history of the Kurds in southeastern Turkey where just a decade ago any expression of Kurdishness was pronounced a crime against the State by the Turkish government. Through the years of the Kurdish separatist war in Turkey, and before, elements of Kurdish culture – including the oral histories sung by dengbêj - were first steadily, and then rapidly, withering away.

The blind dengbêj, Hafis Ali by name, sat quietly and patiently, head resting on his staff made of river alder still wrapped in its dark red bark. A long piece of black plastic pipe lay across his lap. The singer who monopolized much of the afternoon paused between songs, paused long enough for Ali to put the pipe-flute to his lips. The others welcomed the change as he played, then sang, the voice and flute conversing in melancholic voices. When the tempo picked up they twirled their prayer beads which up till then relaxed among the absent-minded fingers. The silvered dengbêj tried several times to regain his prolonged moment, but Ali’s firm voice gave him no quarter.

I returned to the House of Dengbêj a month later after traveling through Iraqi Kurdistan. Familiar faces and voices were in the courtyard, including the elfin and locally renown Seyidxan Boyaci.

And there were others as well, some much younger, singing to the measured and heartfelt approval of the old guard, demonstrating that for the meantime at least, the Kurdish dengbêj tradition in Turkey will not be lost.

_______________________________

For a thorough, if not rather academic, discussion of the dengbêj of Diyarbakir, please visit http://ejts.revues.org/index4055.html to read Clémence Scalbert Yücel’s “The Invention of a Tradition: Diyarbakır’s Dengbêj Project.”

To watch an Kelly Stuart’s and Emrah Kanisicak’s video of Seyidxan Boyaci singing, visit Mesopotamia Q at http://sazny.blogspot.com/.

Yezidis in the Sinjar Mountains

2009-12-27T17:41:00.011-07:00

Thursday, 14 October 2009

Faqir Khalaf stood outside the walls of the small village of Karsi, his white beard resplendent against a brittle and blue Mesopotamian sky. Nearby was an Ottoman police station last used almost a century before. Although the stone walls are battered, it remains an imposing structure and reminder of an earlier era drenched in ferocity and oppression. I was in northwestern Iraq's Sinjar Mountains near the Syrian border visiting a major population of Kurds who adhere to the Yezidi religion.

With an unbroken gaze, he held my hand in both of his to punctuate his request … or I should say demand … that when I return to America I must tell the President that the Sinjari Yezidis are poor and in danger; they need America's help. Only when I agreed did he release my hand and eyes. Although a small man, he suddenly looked smaller.

I had been hearing this same refrain since arriving in Iraqi Kurdistan several weeks prior: The Sinjari Yezidis were alone and they knew it.

They resented their comparative poverty and feared for their very survival once the American military withdrew from Iraq 10 months hence. This fear was not abstract; it was palpable and rooted in personal experiences. (Indeed, earlier in the day my host, Sheikh Dayan, took me to the grave of a friend who was killed in a terrorist attack but a month before.)

For centuries the Sinjar Mountains were a refuge for Yezidis, but that was to change under Saddam Hussein who relocated ethnic and religious populations to eliminate feared or actual opposition to his regime. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Sinjari Yezidis were forced from their traditional villages into mujam’ats, or collective villages, and Arabs were brought in to the region. The Sinjari Yezidis now share the area with Muslims – Arabs and Kurds. They are no longer the feared 19th century brigands and the mountains are no longer their refuge.

Yezidi'ism is monotheistic and regarded by most who study the religion to be related to Zoroastrianism, the first of monotheistic religions. The Yezidi religion has absorbed seemingly discordant fragments of beliefs and rituals from other religions that have flooded the region and has for centuries protectively wrapped itself in its own secrets. A result has been a perfect environment for the propagation of benign and malicious misinformation, such as casting Yezidis as “devil worshippers.” (The Yezidis believe in a Lucifer who was actually loyal to God.)

They are a small religious minority within the sprawling Sunni Muslim-dominated Kurdish community. Some Yezidis vigorously maintain that they are a separate ethnic group; most acknowledge that they are ethnic Kurds. Some Muslims believe that Yezidi'ism is a 12th century apostate offshoot from Islam; most Yezidians believe their religion to be very ancient and they alone are the true descendants of Adam. Regardless of the viewpoints, substantiated or not, for centuries Yezidis have been intermittently and violently persecuted by Muslims – Kurdish, Turkic, and Arab alike.

Fakir Khalaf wore a roughly woven black shirt under layers topped by a white robe. Such shirts are only worn by faqirs, those who choose to lead ascetic lives, a choice limited to members of four tribes. Because the shirt had been soaked in Zamzam, the holiest of springs at the Yezidian religious site of Lalish in Iraqi Kurdistan, itself is considered holy. All who greeted Khalaf did so with reverence and kissed the sleeve of the black shirt.

Contemporary news from Iraq rarely includes the plight of the Yezidis. Even when the occasional story about the religious minorities reaches the Western press, with very few exceptions, the emphasis is on Iraq’s Christian communities whose situation is also dire. The last spate of significant news regarding the Yezidis was in 2007. In April of that year, 23 Yezidis were taken off a bus outside of Mosul and executed. Others on the bus were not harmed. And on August 14th, suicide bombers killed over 500 Yezidians two Sinjari villages. Many considered these to be strategic terrorist attacks to stoke the furnaces of sectarian violence in Iraq. Yezidis were the victims nonetheless.

Such news still crackled unspoken through the air in the village, even when four young men retreated to the shade to resume a game of cards on the ground covered by powdered sand, while we drank the obligatory sweet tea from stocks that had none to spare.

That night while sleeping in a mujama’at on the plains at the foot of the mountain, I was awoken by the deep rumbling of large military planes flying low overhead. Soon, silence will disturb the sleep of Sinjari Yezidis.

Hoping the Weather Holds, Diyarbakir

2009-11-28T22:14:00.017-07:00

7 November 2009 – Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey

In spite of brimming the river banks, the Tigris' gray-brown water flowed languidly as it rushed southward towards Syria. The week of rains had been welcomed after a dry autumn in southeastern Turkey. I decided to take advantage of a break in the weather on my last of many days in Diyarbakir to walk through the puzzle of narrow streets in the old city – a municipality known as Suriçi – and along a stretch of the city walls looking down on the river.

Diyarbakir is the largest city in southeastern Turkey, officially estimated to have a population of 600,000 (but widely accepted to be at least twice that figure) overwhelmingly dominated by Kurds. Its population swelled during the 1984 -1999 guerrilla-styled Separatist War that pitted the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) guerrillas against the massive Turkish military juggernaut that, among many other things, employed the oft-used tactic of forcibly emptying and/or destruction of Kurdish villages thought to be providing succor to the PKK, who also victimized villagers. It is estimated that about 3,000 villages were so emptied and 1.5 million Kurds displaced. Many of the refugees streamed into Diyarbakir and other cities in southeastern Turkey, as well as in western Turkey cities such as Istanbul and Izmir. The effects on the unambiguous Kurdish social structure, still fully intact in the villages, have been profound. Urban poverty is a driving factor.

After a leisurely morning wander through the maze of passageways enlivened by occasional, if not rudimentary, banter with women and children sitting on the stoops, I emerged to the massive tower-studded black basaltic walls that encircle Suriçi. They are 5½ kilometers long and up to 9 meters high, and as magnificent as they are forbidding. I left the cramped surroundings to walk along the exterior base of the walls admiring cloud-laced sky, and the near-bucolic scene of garden plots that stretched along the Tigris and crept up the slopes.

As I walked three teen-aged boys approached and asked if I would take their photo. I agreed directing them to a spot that held feint promise for a good image. But apparently it wasn't to their liking so they drifted out of my awareness. It was a glorious morning. I heard voices behind me and thought little of it. A hand from behind shot in and out of my front pocket. With speed like that who needs finesse? The futile chase was on. I scrambled up the embankment behind the them, hurling universal English profanities - and a couple of rocks - along the way. I raced through a hole in the city walls but they had disappeared into the warren. The booty? A half a pack of cigarettes.

I was livid, and although not naive, obviously had once again become a bit too lax. Indeed, 2 years prior some children tried to steal from my camera bag while I walked through the back passages, and 5 years prior to that I was present when two young Kurdish men were caught trying to steal religious artifacts from a bunker of an Armenian chapel. And of course, the warnings of such thievery have been constant from local friends and acquaintances through my years of visiting.

I remembered what someone had recently related to me - A Kurd would be more likely to kill you than to steal from you - a notion which at first I thought preposterous. But I thought about it, and slowly came to realize that it was consistent with my (and most if not all others') estimation of the inordinately high value Kurds place on honor in their traditional societies. Therein lay the problem. Desperation was posting small victories in its war with honor.

Knowing that there was no future in continued pursuit, I resumed my walk determined to enjoy the day. Along the way another teen approached me and asked for money. As I was giving him a peace of my mind, an old man with his grandson in tow walked up and gave the teenager a spirited tongue lashing. The teen skulked away.

At the old man's insistence I walked back to town with he and the boy. He told me that his nephew was getting married tomorrow in a clearing by the city wall. He thought the weather would hold. I told him I thought it would.

A Yezidian Village in Turkey

2009-11-08T13:48:00.004-07:00

The first of the winter rains had come to southeastern Turkey in early November. There was a low ceiling of gray clouds and the wind was biting. “That used to be my house,” Ibrahim said pointing to a crumbling of tan stone down the slope. I stood on the hillside with he and Fathel (actual names not used) looking over the rocky landscape mutely adorned by the remains of a Yezidi Kurd village. With effort I imagined the village with a thousand inhabitants 25 years ago.

The Yezidi Kurds of this and virtually all Yezidian villages left Turkey in the 1980s during the early years of the Separatist War in eastern Turkey (1984-1999) that pitted Kurdish military guerrilla forces against the steroidal Turkish military. The war was an inevitable outcome of 50 years of State-sponsored spherical oppression of the Kurds. A central feature of Turkey's military strategy during the war was to destroy and empty Kurdish villages (Muslim and Yezidi alike) to deny the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) guerrillas support, whether such support was voluntary or coerced.

“And over there,” Fathel said, “is the school bombed by the "asker" (Turkish soldiers).” Even its once-white concrete walls were turning tan, disappearing into the landscape. The Yezidis had been granted political asylum principally by Germany and Belgium, and so they went. They had little choice Ibrahim said, drawing his finger across his throat.

They had returned from Europe to their village for a 2-month visit, as a few others have intermittently done as well. Two others had built new “summer homes” in the village, not willing to give up their past entirely, but not at the expense of their new found security. “In Belgium nobody cares if you are Yezidi,” Ibrahim said, still with a hint of wonder.

The Yezidis are an ultra-minority within the Kurdish family, itself a minority in the greater Middle East. It was this double whammy that convicted the Yezidians in Turkey to a near-complete diaspora in the matter of a few years.

There are many such vacant and crumbling Kurdish Yezidian villages in southeastern Turkey, another chapter in the their millennia-long history; in fact in the broader Kurdish history as well. Yezidi'ism is an ancient religion, believed by many to be a direct descendant of Zorastrianism, by others to predate it, and by a few to be an apostate offspring of Islam. Regardless of its longevity, its adherents have been routinely persecuted by Muslims – Arab, Turkic, and Kurdish alike - as Yezidis are not even afforded the shell of Qoranic legitimacy granted to Jews and Christians.

We walked over the sticky blood red soil that filled the spaces between the limestone bedrock, towards a modest "sambol" (Yezidi shrine) named after the sun, roj. It looked tired and lonely sitting on another hilltop surrounded by a rock wall, kept company only by two mulberry trees, one bedecked by few swatches of cloth bearing wishes. “It is like Lalish [the Yezidi holy site in Iraqi Kurdistan],” Ibrahim said, knowing that it really wasn't true. It was a small "sambol" with a tented crown topped by a stubby spire. The Yezidi stone inscription above the 3-foot high locked door had been chiseled away by the Muslims he said. He didn't say "asker."

Ibrahim now owned a herd of 25 cows, and in an ironic twist of fate, hired a Muslim Kurd to tend to them. It was dusk when the shepherd walked the cows back from the day at pasture. We hurried to help corral them into their night quarters. From the outside it looked like a small stone house built into the hillside, but its back end was a cave that bore its way deep into the hillside. It was very dark inside.

At the Spring - Sinjar Mountains, Iraq

2009-11-05T12:51:00.001-07:00

In Iraq's Sinjar Mountains, Pir Fathel (all names changed) and his son arrived at the spring-fed well with four donkeys in tow, each ladened with a dizzying variety of empty water containers. Their clothes were tattered and their deeply bronzed faces glowed under the loosely wrapped red-and-white kaffiyas. They had walked for 3 hours, leaving their flock of sheep grazing in higher in the mountains.

Fathel's attempt to maintain his small flock of 20 sheep was an act of determination and desperation, desperation born from natural and political causes. The Sinjar region was in its 4th year of drought and the mountains showed it - brown and barren. The Sinjar is also home to a large population of Yezidi Kurds, adherents to an ancient non-Islamic religion persecuted for centuries by Muslims. Unlike the Yezidians who live in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Sinjari Yezidis are not even afforded the capricious protection of the overwhelmingly dominant Sunni Muslim Kurds. They are as isolated as the Sinjar Mountains, and they know it.

I was the guest of Sheikh Dayan, a Yezidi I had met the year before at Lalish during the annual Jama'iyya celebration. I hesitated at his invitation to visit Sinjar, not wanting to leave the security of Iraqi Kurdistan; but then I accepted knowing I would be well taken care of. It was a singular opportunity to visit this legendary and distinct community of Yezidians.

That morning we had left Sheikh Dayan's home in Zorafa, one of seven collective villages strung along the northern toe of the Jebel Sinjar brutally imposed on the Yezidians by Saddam Hussein some 20 years ago. Later we arrived in the 3-house mountain village of Zerwa, home to one of Dayan's brothers. He and others were slowly repatriating their villages. Yusef had killed a small goat in anticipation of our arrival. After the mandatory tea in a dim and small room, we were two pick-up trucks full of men and children driving up the mountain. It was a celebration.

The Yezidi sambol, or shrine, appeared as we bumped around yet another bend in the dusty wash, its blindingly white and fluted spire piercing the cloudless sky. Although monotheistic, Yezidis build such sambols at places deemed to be holy in their own right, such as springs; locales of historical events in their cosmology; and, to honor holy persons often in conjunction with their cemeteries. This sambol, aptly dedicated to clouds and the nearby spring, anchored one of three hillside cemeteries.

As Yusef started the fire of thumb-sized branches collected by the children, and Dayan sat with Sheikh Fakir Murad in the sambol's anteroom, Fathel arrived at the well. His son had already climbed down the well to reach the water now 10 feet below the concrete rim. It took an hour to fill all of the containers, and knowing that they would be lucky to reach their flock by nightfall, Maholo refused the invitation to share in food. We watched as they left, donkeys laboring under their life-giving load.

We returned to the sambol for our meal. Yusef presented the tin platter of charred and tasty goat meat, and his son unwrapped a bag of flat bread and another of fresh tomatoes. Spring water was our drink.

Robert Leutheuser
October 2009

The Yezidian Sa'ama Ceremony at Lalish

2009-11-02T00:22:00.000-07:00

Yezidi'ism is a little known religion practiced by a minority of Kurds. With the advent of the information age, their diaspora to western societies, and the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan, Yezidis are straddling the threshold between their past and future.

As they attempt to seek their 21st century identity after centuries of brutal repression at the hands of Muslims – Turkic, Arab and Kurdish alike – the debates on their ethnic and religious history are significant. After visiting Yezidians in Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria, Armenia, and Georgia (almost all Yezidis left Turkey for Europe during the 1984-1999 separatist war), I am comfortable agreeing with the vast majority of scholars and Yezidians themselves that Yezidis are ethnically Kurdish, and that Yezidi'ism predates Islam by centuries, if not millennia.

Although Yezidians have many many holy sites, THE Yezidi holy site is Lalish - the place of earthly beginnings and home to the tombs and shrines of their most venerated. It is compactly tucked into the upper reaches of a valley and studded with the characteristic fluted spires. This is the third year in a row I have visited Lalish, and the second year I have attended the 8-day Autumn Assembly (Jema'iyye). Yezidians flock to the small site by the thousands, crowding into a space and time of religious and secular celebration. It seems impossible that more can fit, but they do, arriving with bedding and provisions to last for the duration of their stays.

This year I was privileged to watch the Sa'ama Dance, a dramatic religious night ceremony.

“The courtyard in front of Sheikh Adi's Sancutary's courtyard was packed – young and old, men and women – vying for position to watch the ceremony. To take a breath required effort. But now being familiar to many, an American, and the beneficiary of the harsh insistence of my friend Sheikh Gharbi, I was able to crouch on the inner margin of the cleared space. The sitting musicians - three playing flutes and two playing hand-held drums - began to play reedy and rhythmic music. The crowd roared in anticipation. Fakir Hasan lit the ceremonial fires fueled by olive oil on a small metal stanchion, his bearded face dramatically glowing in the darkness.

“Slowly the massive wooden doors to the Sanctuary opened and from the darkness stepped the head fakir, unrecognizable in a black robe and meter-tall conical hat bedecked with long knotted fringes that covered his face. Excitement turned to frenzy. Ever so slowly he took a series of four steps forward, followed by a paired procession of 12 bearded, turbaned, and white-robed holy men. Around the fire they circled three times – four steps with the final leaning forward dragging one foot and placing a hand over their chest – before pausing again. The drama of their glacial pace was accentuated by the frenzied rhythm of the musicians and deafening roar of the crowd. After a half an hour, the procession snaked its way back into the dark maw of the Sanctuary and the cleared circle quickly filled.

“Shortly thereafter the Yezidians were allowed to go inside to pay their respects to the tomb of Sheikh Adi, and the Baba Sheikh retook his place on the modest diaz to accept the devotional prostrations of, and donations from, the faithful."

No mention of my visits to Lalish would be complete without thanking my many friends at the Lalish Center in Dohuk, especially my dear friend Qader Saleem Shammo. Thank you.

Robert Leutheuser,
October 2009

Landslide at Mawaliyah

2009-11-01T09:30:00.005-07:00

28 October, Wednesday
Rawanduz, Iraqi Kurdistan

Not all tragedies in Iraq are the result of war. On Monday night deep in Iraqi Kurdistan's Zagros Mountains, a mountainside collapsed burying two men.

Mawaliyah is a small village, a 45-minute drive from its district capital, Rawanduz which is renown for its history of Kurdish resistance, proximity to the famous Hamilton Road hewn through the mountains in the 1930s, and spectacular beauty.

At 7:30pm, 60-year old Zaniwar Ababakey called the owner of the quarry where he and 25-year old Hogr Mohammed were night guards. He reported that he had heard what he thought to be an explosion. His next, and final, words were, “He is going to die!” Their bodies were recovered early Wednesday morning, Zaniwar with his mobile phone in hand.

It is estimated that one million cubic meters of earth and rock slid down, the mountain finally responding to 7 years of mining at the quarry. I accompanied the Rawanduz District Mayor, Serwan Sereni, his body guard, and assistant, to the site on Monday night, speeding over the rough roads in the darkness, three hurried voices and three mobile phones. Hundreds of men milled about a mile from the site. After conferring with others, and inspecting the site eerily lit by headlights in the half-moon night, the mayor decided that the recovery actions would have to wait until the morning.

The next day a legion of 30 front-end loaders, bulldozers, and dump trucks began to nibble away at the unstable mass, uncovering some of the quarry's twisted heavy equipment, but no bodies.

Wednesday morning we drove back under overcast skies, Mr. Sereni having just gotten a call that one body had been recovered. Another call came while driving – the second body was being exhumed from the rubble.

A leg was all that was left to remove when we arrived. It was quickly wrapped in a prayer rug and carried away by a son, shouting at others who tried to stop him. It was laid covered on the ground with the rest of the body under the watchful eye of a serene white- turbaned imam, then put in the back of a pickup truck and driven down to Mawaliyah for burial.

Two men were already scratching the rocky soil in the small cemetery when we arrived.

Mr. Sereni was at peace, telling stories from his youth of his father's friend, Zaniwar Ababakey as we drove back to Rawanduz.

Robert Leutheuser

2009 Travel Color Photo Sampler

2009-11-01T08:36:00.001-07:00

Mount Ararat - Dogubeyazit, Turkey

Diyarbakir, Turkey

Barzan Region, Iraqi Kurdistan

Village of Gobal, Sinjar Region, Kurdistan

Ba'adra, Iraqi Kurdistan

Village of Karsi, Sinjar Region, Iraq

2009 Travel Black and White Photo Sampler

2009-11-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Pir Malaho, Sinjar Region, Iraq

Lalish, Iraqi Kurdistan

Ba'adra, Iraqi Kurdistan

near village of Karsi, Sinjar Region, Iraq

near village of Karsi, Sinjar Region, Iraq

Isthandbul Photos

2009-10-27T16:17:00.000-06:00

NOVEMBER 2009

Handmade Photos from Prague

2009-10-16T13:03:00.000-06:00

NOVEMBER 2009