Journeys in Kurdistan
An intrepid Skinny wanderer ventures into Iraq
There are different approaches to guide books among tourists. Some forswear them altogether, believing it dilutes the experience to know about it in advance. Some won’t walk down the street without a Rough Guide map pressed to their face. I’m quite addicted to buying Lonely Planets, which I use mostly for advance planning and gazing wistfully at after I put them battered and dog-eared on my bookshelf. However, I also love the History sections, which I devour before I get to a country and while I’m there. I find that it puts the inevitably solipsistic perspective of travelling in a country for only a few short weeks into a context of pleasing insignificance. It doesn’t matter if I’m walking through Epheseus or the centre of Beirut, it’s all just history in the end and when you’ve been travelling it can be an utter joy to feel caught up in its breeze. But there’s a lot of history in the Middle East, and much of it isn’t talked about.
I had been in Iran for three weeks. My next stop was supposed to be Turkey, but the plans always change. After talking to another backpacker, I was convinced and excited to travel through Iraqi Kurdistan. With a free 10-day visa available at the border, there are a few vibrant young cities and an interesting population that made it a great experience for my friend. However, most of the sights lie just outside the Kurdish Autonomous Region, near Mosul and Kirkuk. The exception is Lalish; the home, pilgrimage site and sanctuary for the the Yazidi religion and people.
The Yazidi religion holds that the Peacock angel, Taus Malak, descended to Earth at Lalish, after the world had been left in his charge by God. The Yazidi faithful have suffered frequent and severe persecution at the hands of the Muslims of the region, not only for simple tribal differences, as they tend to keep and to marry within their own, but also for the tenets of the faith. They believe that Taus Malak was told to submit to Adam after God created him. Taus Malak refused, saying that Adam was born from dust, while he was born from the luminance of God’s own breath. God forgave the Peacock angel for his refusal and placed the world and all in it in his care. The comparison to the figure of the prideful and punished Satan in the Abrahamic religions is obvious and for this reason the Yazidis have long been unfairly labeled as Devil-Worshippers.
I had planned to get around Iraqi Kurdistan using shared cars, but some Erasmus students that I met were finishing up their 9-day trip in the region and had so far managed to spend under $110 each using camping, hitch-hiking and couchsurfing (most of it on whisky and beer). My route was safer and away from the Arab part of Iraq. Their route was cheaper, quicker and more fun. So, we caught a few pickup trucks and, checking for the Kurdish flags that meant that we weren’t veering towards Mosul, made our way to near Lailish by nightfall. We caught the final part of the trip with three young guys, who drove us to the shrine and sanctuary complex. Lalish offers a place to stay for any returning Yazidi, but not for a bunch of smelly backpackers pitching up in the middle for the night. Without hesitation, the three young guys, Jamal, Dian and Fahrad, took the six of us to Dian’s house.
Dian spoke very little English, but Farhad was much better than he gave himself credit for as he happily informed us of his uncle’s high position in the army and therefore ease in negotiating police checkpoints. After a polite but extremely brief welcome from the women of the family we were shown into a living room. The men of the family then proceeded to give us beer, cigarettes and fruit. It was typical hospitality from that part of the world, but that made it no less special. The evening passed with great cheers as Dian introduced us to all his kids (4 at 22 years old!) and we bellowed with laughter, trying to hide any grave concerns, as he encouraged his baffled toddler son, of whom Dian was clearly proud and utterly besotted with, to drink some of his beer, while WWE played on the TV in the corner.
AROUND 7 April, 2007 a young Yazidi woman named Du’a Khalil Aswad was beaten to death by men from her town. One in a long line of honour killings in the area. What was the heinous act for which they had to extract revenge to reclaim their honour? She fell in love with a Muslim boy. This happened in Beshika, a Kurdish speaking village outside of the Kurdish Autonomous Region, not far from the town of Shekhan, the town on the outskirts of Lalish where I was now sitting. This led to a long string of attacks against the Yazidis through the summer of 2007, during which almost 800 Yazidis were killed.
I asked Farhad about this with some sympathy, but he immediately became slightly defensive. He maintained that they (the Yazidis) didn’t know who did it despite video footage of the crime being captured on a mobile phone and distributed across the internet. He told m e that they felt embattled in the area. There was no feeling of security in this area and town. No matter how many good, Muslim friends each individual Yazidi might have (and Jamal, the third young man there, was one of them, although he was out of the room at this point, allowing Farhad to be frank) there was just pure distrust and fear between the communities.
The Baba Sheikh informed us that we were welcome in his house. After some requisite small talk, we found time to ask some questions. We wanted to know what the most important lesson of the Yazidi faith was. This prompted a long explanation from the Baba Sheikh and his son, mirroring Farhad’s from the day before that they were constantly under siege. They didn’t know when or if peace would ever come. They felt threatened because they were so few and the Muslims so many. I understood why they felt the need to talk about their siege mentality, but I wanted to move away from this and learn about their religion. I rephrased the question and tried again to learn what the most important tenet of the faith was. Once again, we found ourselves spectators to the young listening to the old explain how they were in danger and all they wanted was peace, but how could they find it when they were so few and the Muslims so many. I knew this. I didn’t want to interrupt a people venting their frustration and fear to a neutral third party, but this could have been my only chance to learn about a religion from its leaders. I pressed the question again and finally from the Baba Sheikh came the answer.
Peace. Peace is the most important thing to them.
No side is ever blameless in any squabble, feud, crusade or war. However, it was difficult not to be moved by their preoccupation and obsession with peace. Violence comes in bursts, but when it does, whole percentage points of their population dies. More than their sorrow, their lack of answers or solutions was the most disheartening. “But what can we do? They are so many and we are so few.”
WE left the Baba Sheikh with handshakes and kisses on the cheek. We were told that we would always be welcome in his house. It was the same kind of hospitality that you can find in many places in the Middle East, but it seemed that these people could do with, and were deserving of, all the friends they could find.
I am embarrassed to admit it but my only awareness of Du’a Khalil Aswad’s killing was as part of a general awareness of how bad things were in Iraq, and the honour killings in particular. My only exact knowledge of this sequence of carnage came from a box in the Middle East Lonely Planet. However, the article was purposefully vague and I was left with the impression that Muslims were responsible for the killing and the subsequent attacks. It was only after later research that Farad’s reluctance to talk about it made more sense. The Yazidis themselves were responsible for the killing of Aswad. Various motives have been offered: the simple act of falling in love with a Muslim; she was going to convert to Islam to marry the boy (the rumour of which led to the reprisals); she had spent a night away from her house. Whatever the explanation (and it seems a poor mockery of that word to try and apply it to this situation) a thousand to two thousand Yazidi men gathered and supported 8 or 9 men who beat the seventeen year old girl for thirty minutes before finally caving in her head with a concrete block.
The Yazidi community in Kurdistan is so close and insular. Did the three young men who had welcomed me into their home know the men who were there on that horrible day? Had the leaders of the faith that I met at the Baba Sheikh’s house condoned or disregarded the attack in the wake of the reprisals, the venerable men who had so sorrowfully proclaimed their persecution and desire for peace? Did I shake hands and share tea with anybody who had been there?
I’ve lived a life happily lacking in violence, but I come from a family with a long military history. I’ve shared meals and drank with men and women who I know have killed. This felt different. This wasn’t just murder. This was a lynch mob. I can’t help but hope and doubt that the family I stayed with had anything to do with it and it absolutely does not taint the hospitality and friendship that was offered and received in any way. I think I was just mistaken to give affection or sympathy to one group or another when travelling. Is it an act of cowardice to keep neutrality? Or is it a part of keeping the open mind that is crucial to travelling?
No side is ever blameless, I still believe that. But in the Middle East, the cradle of civilisation and home to countless Empires, the origin of any enmity is almost timeless. Every tribe has its turn, bad bastards are conquered by worse bastards and to stand in the middle of such a treasure trove and hornets’ nest of history and say “They’re right and you get what you deserve” is foolish and arrogant and will exclude you from much that the area has to give. I won’t forget the men and the family that offered us help, hospitality and friendship. And I won’t forget Du’a Khalil Aswad.