Date:Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:56:17 +0300
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TEL AVIV NOTES - "The Yezidis of Iraq: an Endangered Minority"
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Editor: Bruce Maddy-Weitzman August 30, 2007
The Yezidis of Iraq: an Endangered Minority
Idan Barir
Tuesday evening, August 14, 2007 marked the latest turn in Iraq's
ongoing nightmare, when a chain of blasts hit the heretofore tranquil
and isolated Yezidi Kurdish villages of Gir Uzeir and Siba Sheikh
Khidir in the Jebel Sinjar area, near the Iraqi-Syrian border. Four
truck bombs destroyed a large portion of the houses of these
villages, killing 500 of their inhabitants and leaving many others
severely wounded. The attacks marked a low point in the historically
delicate relations between the Yezidi minority and its Arab and
Kurdish surroundings, raising the question whether or not this small,
oft-persecuted community could even continue to exist in Iraq.
Believers in an ancient, heterodoxical Near Eastern religion that
claims to predate Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the majority of
Yezidis inhabit the mountainous Kurdish regions of Northern Iraq.
Large Yezidi communities also exist in Syria, Armenia and Germany;
the latter hosts a bustling and socially aware community of roughly
50,000 Yezidi refugees from Turkey and Iraq. The number of Yezidis
residing in Iraqi Kurdistan is estimated at 300,000 residents,
divided into two secluded enclaves: the first, in Jebel Sinjar, 150
km. from Mosul, adjacent to the Syrian border; and the second, in the
Shaikhan region, 50 km. northeast of Mosul, and home to the holiest
Yezidi shrine the sanctuary of Sheikh `Adi, the renovator of the
Yezidi religion, in Lalish. It is noteworthy that while Shaikhan has
been an integral part of the Kurdish autonomous region since 1991,
Sinjar has always officially fallen under the authority of Iraq's
central government. Although the Yezidis of Sinjar identify
themselves as Kurds and take an active part in the activities of the
Kurdish national movement and in the Kurdish Regional Government
(KRG), the formal attachment of the Sinjar area to the Kurdish
autonomous region is not yet within reach.
The Yezidi religion includes a belief in a single God, Allah, as well
as the belief in an archangel that refused to obey the godly command
to bow down to Adam. This myth has resulted in Muslims comparing the
archangel to Iblis, the Qur'anic Satan. Unlike Muslims, the Yezidis
believe that their archangel, symbolized by a peacock named Melek
Tawus (the Peacock Angel), is the source of all goodness and beauty
in the world. It is this allegedly satanic religion, combined with
cultural and religious seclusion, that led to continuous persecutions
of the Yezidis by Muslims. Throughout the Ottoman period, and
particularly during the 19th century, anti-Yezidi persecutions and
military campaigns designed to Islamize Yezidi populations in the
Kurdish mountains were periodically carried out.
Following the establishment of British-mandated Iraq at the beginning
of the 1920's and the establishment of the independent Iraqi state in
1932, Yezidis enjoyed a period of almost fifty years of freedom of
religion and relative tolerance. In the 1970's, the wheel was turned
back by the Ba`th regime of Saddam Hussein, and Yezidis were
subjected to continuous campaigns of Arabization and forced
alteration of their identity. The creation of the Kurdish autonomous
region in 1991 under the American umbrella gave the Yezidis an
aperture of hope, but the persecution and Arabization campaigns
continued, particularly in the Sinjar region, which had been left out
of the Kurdish autonomous region.
The 2003 American invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam has been a
double-edged sword for the Yezidis. On the one hand, they have never
hidden their support for the American presence in Iraq, which
provided them with some protection from religious-based persecution.
On the other hand, it was the American presence that catalyzed the
entrance into Iraq of al-Qa`ida, the organization that acts under the
banner of Jihad against the infidels, al-kuffar. For al-Qa`ida
activists, the Yezidis are the worst sort of infidels, as they are
not only non-Muslims but devil worshippers as well. The organization
has published several proclamations calling for the killing of
infidel Yezidis and has taken responsibility for a number of such
acts. The first major incident of this kind was Black Sunday (al-Ahad
al-Aswad) in April 2007: in reaction to the stoning to death of a 17
year-old Yezidi girl who had announced her wish to convert to Islam
in order to marry a Muslim, the most abominable sin possible in
Yezidi doctrine, al-Qa`ida activists killed 23 Yezidis on their way
to work, near Mosul. Yezidi publicists were quick to warn that "Black
Sunday" was merely the beginning of further radical Islamist attacks
against Yezidis. The August 14 blasts proved their pessimistic
assessments correct: they constituted not only the largest terrorist
attack since the 2003 invasion, but also since the September 11
bombings in the US.
For their part, the Yezidis suffer from a political and social schism
between those who see themselves as a natural part of the Kurdish
people and culture, and hence the Kurdish national movement, and
those calling for cultural segregation, owing to their distinct
religion. The inability to create a united Yezidi front, along with
the fact that the Yezidi villagers in Sinjar do not receive the
protection of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish army, and that the
enhancement of American protection of the large Iraqi cities have
made it more difficult for al-Qa`ida to carry out large-scale attacks
there, have all contributed to making the defenseless Yezidis a
relatively easy target for terrorists. These reasons are complemented
by the religious facet, al-Qa`ida's proclaimed war against infidels
that provides the legal seal for attacking the Yezidis.
Battered and bruised from the brutal bombings, a big question mark
hangs over the Yezidi community's existence as a religious minority
in Iraq. Its options are limited: either remaining divided, and thus
risking a state of disintegration and/or forced exile or,
alternatively, uniting behind the demand to have all Yezidi areas
annexed to the autonomous Kurdish region and working to persuade the
KRG to act in that direction. With the priorities of the KRG focused
on more pressing matters, particularly control of oil-rich Kirkuk,
attaining its sustained backing will not be a simple matter. If the
Yezidis do succeed in both putting aside their traditional divisions
and winning the KRG's support, the current crisis might turn out to
have been a blessing in disguise.
TEL AVIV NOTES is published with the support of the V. Sorell Foundation
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