Imagine a Kurdistan without Yezidis
For thousands of years Shingal and the holy land of Lalish continued to host the followers of the ancient Kurdish Yezidi religion. For centuries, its followers have steadily decreased as lands were occupied by aggressive neighbors whose bloodthirsty genocidal campaigns seized every opportunity to wipe them from the face of earth. Yet, surviving dozens of acts of genocide – 72 of them poorly documented -- the Yezidis have lived on in Kurdistan long after their enemies, despite heavy material and moral losses.
Last year in August, the radical militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) led what many of the Yezidis describe as the bloodiest and worst of all the previous campaigns against them. Women and girls in their thousands were and are being raped, enslaved and sold in slavery markets. Boys are being brainwashed and possibly used against their fellow Yezidis; men are beheaded and executed. Worst of all, many of the abuses were recorded by the ISISI media and others, some wittingly taped to invite yet more fanatic fighters from across the world to join ISIS.
“A tall man with a long beard came close to me," a very young Yezidi girl, hardly 10, allegedly told her mom after a massacre. "Then he put something big into me. It hurt a lot!"
Obviously she lacked the vocabulary to describe what happened to her. Yet, worse, she put the experience into the frame of physical pain. As she comes of age, she would certainly start to realize other and more devastating psychological dimensions of her horrible experience. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one possibility, for which unfortunately services are very scarce.
I just came back from Duhok where literally more than a million refugees and IDPs take refuge in the province -- some still in unfinished buildings here and there. Even for those who are better off, especially the Yezidis, leaving the country is a strong possibility. Currently the Yezidis are leaving the country in their thousands.
I met a Yezidi friend who has got a job at Duhok University. But he, too, said that he is leaving for Germany.
The only Yezidi I met who insisted he would stay in Kurdistan had German citizenship. “When I tell my fellow Yezidis not to leave our land,” he told me, “they say you have got your German citizenship and can leave the country any time you wish.” The troubling question now is, who can reassure the Yezidis that after 10 years there will not be another genocide? Obvious as it seems, answering this question in today’s Iraq is most difficult.
In his Christmas message to the Christian community and other minorities, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani warned: “We should not empty the country to terrorists." He further elaborated: "We understand these feelings and hopelessness. We don’t forget that in the 80's and 90's we were attacked by the Baath regime, but we didn’t flee"
It is the responsibility of the Kurdish authorities, together with the Western countries who are most keen on offering asylum, to reassure that the Yezidis do belong and would be protected from possible future atrocities in their homeland. Hosting the Yezidi community in foreign countries has only one meaning: the failure to protect a sizable religious community in their own land.
A Yezidi told me that it is ok for the Muslims or Christians to say their prayers anywhere in the world and practice their religion in a mosque or a church. But for the Yezidis, the land is so attached to every aspect of the religious rituals of the Yezidis and their identity that being a Yezidi, say in Germany, hardly means anything. By inviting the Yezidis to every part of the world except Kurdistan, we help the Islamists to achieve their goal: the extinction of the Yezidi religion.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
Last year in August, the radical militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) led what many of the Yezidis describe as the bloodiest and worst of all the previous campaigns against them. Women and girls in their thousands were and are being raped, enslaved and sold in slavery markets. Boys are being brainwashed and possibly used against their fellow Yezidis; men are beheaded and executed. Worst of all, many of the abuses were recorded by the ISISI media and others, some wittingly taped to invite yet more fanatic fighters from across the world to join ISIS.
“A tall man with a long beard came close to me," a very young Yezidi girl, hardly 10, allegedly told her mom after a massacre. "Then he put something big into me. It hurt a lot!"
Obviously she lacked the vocabulary to describe what happened to her. Yet, worse, she put the experience into the frame of physical pain. As she comes of age, she would certainly start to realize other and more devastating psychological dimensions of her horrible experience. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one possibility, for which unfortunately services are very scarce.
I just came back from Duhok where literally more than a million refugees and IDPs take refuge in the province -- some still in unfinished buildings here and there. Even for those who are better off, especially the Yezidis, leaving the country is a strong possibility. Currently the Yezidis are leaving the country in their thousands.
I met a Yezidi friend who has got a job at Duhok University. But he, too, said that he is leaving for Germany.
The only Yezidi I met who insisted he would stay in Kurdistan had German citizenship. “When I tell my fellow Yezidis not to leave our land,” he told me, “they say you have got your German citizenship and can leave the country any time you wish.” The troubling question now is, who can reassure the Yezidis that after 10 years there will not be another genocide? Obvious as it seems, answering this question in today’s Iraq is most difficult.
In his Christmas message to the Christian community and other minorities, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani warned: “We should not empty the country to terrorists." He further elaborated: "We understand these feelings and hopelessness. We don’t forget that in the 80's and 90's we were attacked by the Baath regime, but we didn’t flee"
It is the responsibility of the Kurdish authorities, together with the Western countries who are most keen on offering asylum, to reassure that the Yezidis do belong and would be protected from possible future atrocities in their homeland. Hosting the Yezidi community in foreign countries has only one meaning: the failure to protect a sizable religious community in their own land.
A Yezidi told me that it is ok for the Muslims or Christians to say their prayers anywhere in the world and practice their religion in a mosque or a church. But for the Yezidis, the land is so attached to every aspect of the religious rituals of the Yezidis and their identity that being a Yezidi, say in Germany, hardly means anything. By inviting the Yezidis to every part of the world except Kurdistan, we help the Islamists to achieve their goal: the extinction of the Yezidi religion.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.