Yezidis, Alagyaz, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1998

UNICEF in Armenia have an interesting press release on their web page highlighting new moves to tackle the problem of minority education in the Republic. For sure, school drop out rates are higher among rural minority communities than for Armenian ones with the exception of villages made up of refugees. Not surprisingly, the UNICEF press release makes for happy reading.

YEREVAN, 1 September – UNICEF and the Ministry of Education & Sciences of Armenia joined their efforts Friday in promoting education for ethnic minority groups, living in Armenia.

“The right to quality basic education is fundamental right of all children in all communities,” UNICEF Representative, Sheldon Yett said in a ceremony marking the start of a new academic year in a Kurdish-populated community of Alagyaz, 50km north of Armenia’s capital.

“Investing in the education of all its citizens is one of the best investments a country can make. It is the lever with which children can lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully in their communities.”

The UNICEF Representative noted that the Ministry of Education & Sciences has promoted basic education for minority groups through the distribution of textbooks in minority languages and through the training of teachers in minority schools.

There’s just one problem, though. Recent travels to various villages inhabited by Yezidis in Armenia highlight disturbing news. In at least four I visited — and various foreign academics researching the Yezidi in Armenia tell me in many more — schools are refusing to accept those same minority-language textbooks.

According to the 2001 Census there are approximately 42,000 Yezidis and Kurds living in Armenia, of which around 33,000 speak what the Armenian Government has ratified under the European Charter for Minority Languages as Yezideren. Outside of Armenia, however, this language is known to be the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish.

Moreover, everywhere else other than Armenia, including Georgia, Yezidis are recognized as being ethnic Kurds. However, the 2001 Census is now being used to reinforce what many consider to be the artificial division of the Yezidis in Armenia.

When Aziz Tamoyan sits behind his desk in the cramped and dilapidated room that serves as his office in the Armenian capital, he says that he does so as president of the country’s largest ethnic minority, the Yezidis.

Pointing at the handmade posters stuck on the wall to one side of his cluttered desk, Tamoyan reads aloud the slogan that also serves as the motto for his newspaper. “My nationality is Yezidi, my language is Yezideren, and my religion is Sharfadin,” he proclaims, opening a copy of Yezdikhana to reveal the results of the last census conducted in Armenia three years ago.

“There are 40,620 Yezidis and 1,519 Kurds living in Armenia,” he continues. “These are the official figures from the census and that should be all that you need to know. The Yezidis have no connection with the Kurds and there are no Muslim Kurds in Armenia. According to the census, nobody speaks Kurdish in Armenia.”

But Philip Kreyenbroek, head of Iranian studies at the University of Goettingen in Germany and a leading specialist on the Kurds and the Yezidis of Turkey and northern Iraq, disagrees.

“The Yezidi religious and cultural tradition is deeply rooted in Kurdish culture and almost all Yezidi sacred texts are in Kurdish,” he says. “The language all Yezidi communities have in common is Kurdish and most consider themselves to be Kurds, although often with some reservations.”

However, what many academics consider to be the artificial division of Yezidis in Armenia as to identity is now manifesting itself in potentially huge problems for minority language education. I highlighted this point in my 2004 article for Transitions Online.

“The division of the Armenian Yezidis into one smaller group identifying themselves as Kurds and Kurmanji [Kurdish]-speakers and one group defining themselves as Yezidis with their own language is part of the post-Soviet search for identity,” says Robert Langer, a scholar at the University of Heidelberg in Germany who is researching the rituals and traditions of the Yezidis in Armenia.

And it is language that might prove to be the most vexing problem facing the community in Armenia. According to Hranush Kharatyan, head of the government’s department for national minorities and religious affairs, so significant is the issue that it is now “the most actual problem existing among national minorities in Armenia.”

When the Armenian government considered ratifying Kurmanji as the name for the language spoken by the Yezidis and Kurds, for example, emotions ran high and Kharatyan says she was accused and threatened by both sides. In particular, she says, Yezidi spiritual leaders demanded that their language instead be classified as “Yezidi” even if in private they acknowledge that it is Kurmanji.

Unable to satisfy both sides of the community, the government ratified both Yezidi and Kurdish under the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Although there is a sizeable but still-unknown number of Yezidis who consider themselves Kurds, there are just as many who do not. As a result, says Kharatyan, the government was right not to come down on one side or the other.

The same line is being taken by UNICEF, and as I’m currently writing an article on Yezidis in Armenia for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) I sent a number of questions to them regarding the fact that for some reason the new minority language [Yezidi] school books that are being distributed to — and rejected by — village schools are being printed in Cyrillic script. Kurmanji is usually written in Latin.

While not answering my main question as to whether UNICEF were aware of this problem, they did at least respond to the main issue of the Yezidi - Kurdish split here. This is what Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Armenia, wrote in response.

UNICEF Armenia works together with the Government, NGOs and civil society groups to ensure that every child in Armenia exercises the right to a quality basic education. A UNICEF survey indicated that children from some minority groups in the country are at a higher risk of dropping out of school than children from other groups, an issue which we are supporting efforts of the govenment and these communities to address. Issues related to the dialect used in the textbooks are best decided by the communities themselves.

Basically, they ignored the main questions asked of them, but that’s hardly surprising. The Armenian Government gives the same response and as UNICEF only do what they’re told to — even if it means not properly addressing an issue — it’s no wonder that it’s apparently up to the “communities themselves to sort out.”

Yet, I have to say that I find this approach rather difficult to swallow. For example, in all the villages I’ve recently visited I’m told by Yezidis that they’re not happy with the situation and that they do not recognize Aziz Tamoyan, the main individual responsible for the division within the community, as their representative.

I’m also told that most of those 1,519 citizens that identified themselves as Kurds are Moslems and not Yezidi who stressed their Kurdish roots over their religion. As such, it seems quite bizarre that UNICEF identify Alagyaz as a Kurdish village when residents are actually Yezidis who support the Kurdish National Liberation Movement in the form of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Indeed, at a recent wedding party in the Armavir region of the Republic, hundreds of Yezidis in attendance danced wildly to songs dedicated to the PKK and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan. Everybody in three villages inhabited by Yezidis greeted each other by the traditional pro-PKK Heval (Comrade) and all asked for news about Ocalan.

Moreover, at the local Kurdistan Committee office staffed by two PKK members from Turkey and Syria a portrait of Yusuf Avdoyan takes pride of place next to others killed fighting for the outlawed organization. Avdoyan was a Yezidi from Armavir killed with six other members of the PKK in Batman, Turkey, last year.

His sister is now fighting in his place, and I took the opportunity to briefly interview the Kurd from Turkey now in charge of outreach activities to the 17,665 Yezidis in Armavir. However, because she still has family members in Turkey she asked that I not identify her by name.

QUESTION: When was this center established?

ANSWER: Two years ago.

Q: And you’ve been in charge of it since then?

A: Yes. I’m Director of the [Kurdistan Committe] Office in Hoktemberian [Armavir].

Q: There are about 40 villages inhabited by Yezidis in this region?

A: Approximately, yes.

Q: What sort of activities does this center engage in?

A: We’re mainly here for cultural activities and raising awareness among people. Of course, we’re not the only ones visiting villages and talking to people. Aziz Tamoyan does as well, but our main interest is in bringing people together regardless of what they believe and whether they think they’re Yezidis or Kurds. It’s a small community so we should all stay together and support each other.

Because many Yezidis go to Armenian shcools [in jointly populated villages] there are no Kurdish language classes or anything about their culture so they can come to us instead. We teach them about their background, their history, their ancestors, their culture, and their language.

Q: When you first arrived in Armenia what were your first impressions regarding the Yezidi-Kurdish division here?

A: When my colleagues first arrived and came to this region they said that it was quite difficult at first. However, now it’s easier, but the main problem is instead one of migration. Most people are leaving and now its mainly old people and children that remain. Anyway, even those people who say they are not Kurds but Yezidis are sympathetic to the PKK. Whenever you mention Abdullah Ocalan…

Q: It seems a bit strange not to recognize their Kurdish identity, but to support Ocalan and the PKK.

A: Some people might not say they are Kurds for whatever reason — some don’t want to say while others don’t believe they are — but when it comes to Abdullah Ocalan they are very enthusiastic. Maybe it’s because of his struggle against the Turkish Government because nobody likes the Turks here. Remember, many Yezidis here ran away from persecution and inhuman acts in [Ottoman] Turkey.

However, the main reason for this division is that most people refer to themselves by their religion and not by their identity. However, when you talk to them about their history and their origins they have the same opinion as us [Moslem Kurds]. I’ve only met three or four people in the past two years who have said we are Yezidis and our religion is Sharfadin and we have nothing to do with the Kurds. The majority believe that they are Kurds.

Q: Yesterday’s wedding was an example of that, perhaps. There were songs about Yezidis and Sharfadin, but the Kurdistan Committee was invited and [Moslem] Kurds [from Turkey and Syria] sang pro-PKK and pro-Ocalan songs in Kurmanji.

A: And the Yezidis themselves sung songs about Kurdistan and Abdullah Ocalan. Besides, Sharfadin is not something new and the first song sung by the PKK on Roj TV was about it. This is also sung by our members [PKK] and Yezidikhana has two connotations. One is Yezidism and the other is “Home of Yezidis.” This doesn’t mean that these people consider themselves not to be Kurds. They do consider themselves to be Kurds but their religion is also very important to them.

Sharfadin means a religion honoured by God.

Q: This portrait of Yusuf Avdoyan [on the wall] is very interesting. Can you briefly tell me who he was?

A: He was a Yezidi from the Arazap village in the Armavir region and one of his sisters is now a PKK member in Turkey. Seven PKK members were killed by chemical weapons in Batman last year, and Yusuf Avdoyan was one of them.

Interestingly, UNICEF’s Representative should be aware of this, and not least because of an incident I blogged about in a Yezidi village we visited in 2005.

Indeed, it reminded me of a visit with the head of UNICEF, Sheldon Yett, to another Yezidi village last year. In Barozh, not only did teachers openly say that the language their pupils were learning was [Kurmanji] Kurdish, but they also knew other traditional PKK-linked greetings such as “Rojbash.” Ironically, however, when Yett entered one family home, the head of the household was most adament that the Yezidi were not Kurds to the astonishment of his wife and eldest daughter. It was then that I noticed the large portrait of Ocalan on the wall behind him.

“Oh,” he said, somewhat embarrased. “We didn’t know who it was. We just liked the colors.”

Yeah, right. I couldn’t be bothered to ask him about the photographs of PKK guerillas that were hung below the portrait.

Anyway, UNICEF also didn’t answer my main question as to whether they are aware how this division is now creating problems regarding many schools in Yezidi villages refusing to accept school books. They also didn’t respond as to when a report on minority education completed last year will be released. Well, until then — and until the article for IWPR is ready — my series of interviews on the division of Yezidis in Armenia is here, and my most recent article for Transitions Online is here.

Sister of Yezidi (pictured behind her) killed fighting for the PKK in Turkey, Alagyaz, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1998