The problem is that most Yezidis all over the world identify themselves first by their religion, but in Armenia this has been used in official circles to therefore define themselves as a separate ethnic group. The same is particularly true with regards to language and the problems emerging from this fact are no obvious. Of course, its every person’s right to call themselves what they want, but when a the somehow superficial results of the 2001 Census are used for political purposes it becomes something else.

It’s a bit like taking citizenship above ethnic origins in the United States and concluding that there are no ethnic Armenians (or any other group in fact) as a result. The point is that this issue is more complex than how the Government appears to want to interpret the Census.

Comrade Beritan

I am lying down on a sleeping bag right near the stove. I have two pairs of eyes staring at me: Ocalan’s eyes from the right and a young freedom fighter’s eyes from the left. The stove is already off, it is cold here. Some beams of the kitchen light have found their way into the room from under the door and are dimly lighting the images.

[…]

Alagyaz is the biggest Yezidi village in Aragatsotn Marz. But the villagers say they are Kurds by nationality and Yezidi by religion. They do not leave me any room to doubt; the villagers speak Kurmanji, a Kurdish dialect and watch a Kurdish TV channel called Roj TV, and almost everyone has posters or pictures of Ocalan.

[…]

Beritan runs the Center alone. She was born in Alagyaz, graduated from medical university in Yerevan, and worked five years in the Yerevan State Reanimation sector as a nurse. In 1999 she left for Iraqi Kurdistan, where she spent several years in the mountains as a doctor and a nurse.

http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0605-beritan.html

YEZIDI PUPILS HAVE THREE TEXTBOOKS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

YEREVAN, AUGUST 30, ARMENPRESS: When Yezidi schoolchildren in Armenia will go to school on September 1, when academic year here begins, they will find, for the first time, three text-books in their native language. They are the ABC, and textbooks on Yezidi language and literature.

Hasan Tamoyan, head of a radio program broadcast by the Public Radio for Yezidis, said the Union of Yezidis was instrumental in helping to develop and print the textbooks. Yezidis have now media outlets- a 30 minute radio program and an official newspaper run by the Union of Yezidis.

Yezidis, also known as Yezidi Kurds, are Armenia’s largest minority community, numbering officially more than 40,000. Many Yezidis began to settle in Armenia during the Russian-Turkish wars of the 19th century and more fled with Armenians during the massacres of 1915.

Neither Christian nor Muslim, practicing their own ancient rites, the Yezidis stayed when Azerbaijanis and Muslim Kurds fled Armenia at the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in 1988-90. They keep an ancient nomadic lifestyle and live by breeding cattle and sheep.

When Armenia became independent, serious discord spread in the Kurdish community here over national belonging. Some of the community’s representatives regarded Yezidis as a separate nation called Yezidi and others regarded themselves as Kurds professing Yezidism.

Yezidis who consider themselves to be Kurds, have three non-governmental organizations and those who regard themselves as Yezidis, have two non-governmental organizations.

[…]

“Kurdistan Committee” non-governmental organization leads the policy of KADEK (former Kurdish Labor Party headed by Abdullah Ocalan who is in prison in Turkey) illegally functioning in Turkey and “Kurdistan Committee” can be considered as its branch. It publishes “Mijagetk” (Mesopotamia) and the editor in Armenia Charkiaze Rash is also a member of that Party.

http://www.armenianow.com/archive/2004/2003/march21/news/borderwar/index.htm

KURDS DECLARED CEASE-FIRE

[04:45 pm] 04 October, 2006

From October 1 the Union of Kurdistan Organizations declared cease-fire calling on the Turkish authorities «to give up their attempts to solve the problem by force and to start negotiations».

This was the order of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish people, who is sentenced to life imprisonment in Turkey. The Kurds have decided to follow it, as «Turkey displays a desire to settle separate issues».

President of «Kurdistan» Committee, editor-in-chief of newspaper «Mesopotamia» Rash Charqyazeh says that after 2.5 years of bloodshed between the Kurds and the Turks the international community and the Turkish and Kurdish public and political circles are seriously concerned and make statements about the necessity of a new cease-fire. The previous one was violated on June 1, 2004.

“Cease-fire does not mean weakness; it means decisiveness to take new political and diplomatic steps”, says Midia Rezan, representative of the Caucasian wing of the Kurdistan Organizations Union>

According to member of “Kurdistan” Committee, member of the National minorities committee adjunct to the RA President Knyaz Hasanov, during the last 20 years the Turks have leveled to earth more than 5000 Kurdish villages, more than 10 000 Kurdish people have been sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and tortured. “They have also blown up a kindergarten where 11 children died and more than 10 were injured”, he added.

And still, the Kurds of Armenia condemn every kind of terrorist act, whoever might commit them.

http://www.a1plus.am/en/?page=issue&iid=41602

Furthermore, and most interestingly, inhabitants of the Yezidi village of Ferik in the Armavir region are identified as Yezidi and not Kurds in the document. This is fine by me as the term Yezidi outside of Armenia usually refers to someone who is Yezidi by religion, but who is considered to speak Kurmanji and if you look up the definition of Yezidi, of Kurdish origin.

However, in Armenia the term “Yezidi,” and especially in the 2001 Census is being used to define Yezidi as a separate ethnic identity with no connection to any form of Kurdish origin or language. Although this is everyone’s right — to define themselves and their own nationalit — it conflicts with standard widespread academic views on the Yezidi as well as most Yezidi communities.

Yet, when I was in Ferik recently everyone I met identified themselves as Yezidis and ALSO acknowledged their Kurdish roots and the fact they spoke Kurdish. All of them also praised the United States for getting rid of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a Regional Government in Iraqi Kurdistan. All also asked for the latest news about Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Anyway, here’s the interview with Hasan Tamoyan excluding the half hour interrogation he gave before I said I would leave if he didn’t allow me to record what was being said.

OK: According to academic sources outside of Armenia, Yezidis are ethnic Kurds who speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish but practice the Yezidi religion.

HT: I don’t know anything like that. I only know that my ethnicity is Yezidi, my religion is Sharfadin, and my language is the Yezidi language which we call Ezidiki. There is so much distorted material published about Yezidis so this is the reason that our meeting started with my questions to you.

I consider this matter [about the division of Yezidis in Armenia] not relevant to this interview. That’s also why I asked you for your previous interviews on this matter so that I can have them translated to estimate them. I don’t want to sound rude, but I have met many of these academics and I know very well what aims they have.

OK: And what aims do they have?

HT: The only aim is to assimilate and use us. Thank God they’ve failed, but we are not the only nation to be treated like this. Armenians have also been treated like this. I need to know who I am and I don’t want someone else telling me that.

OK: Do the majority of Yezidis in Armenia feel the same?

HT: Not the majority, but ALL of them.

OK: Amarik Sardar, Editor of Riya Taza [the oldest surviving Kurdish newspaper in the world], is a Yezidi though, right? Yet he also considers himself a Kurd.

HT: I’ve never asked him.

OK: He’s a Yezidi.

HT: I am thinking like the majority [of Yezidi].

OK: Yet you said that all the Yezidis in Armenia feel that way.

HT: That’s right. All.

OK: We have Yezidi villages in Aragatsotn such as Alagyaz and Riya Taza?

HT: Yes.

OK: But there’s also a very strong Kurdish identity there as well.

HT: I have no information about this.

OK: I’ve been there, and from my experience there is a division within the community although I could not say how many Yezidis consider themselves to be Kurds and how many do not.

HT: I can say, and I can give you facts.

OK: But I’ve been to many Yezidi villages where they say they are Yezidi, but also identify themselves as ethnic Kurds.

HT: How can they substantiate that? Instead, I can give you evidence that they’re not.

OK: They say so.

HT: Allow me to say what I think. Earlier you said that you’ve seen the results of the 2001 Census, and so you should have seen that there are over 40,000 people identified themselves as Yezidis and only 1,500 identified themselves as Kurds. What does this say? This is not my opinion. This is the opinion of the community. Are you inclined to believe in some personal cases, or to believe official data?

[…]

OK: Okay, so there’s another issue regarding the new textbooks that are going to [Yezidi] schools. There have been some reports that villages in the Aragatsotn region are refusing to accept them because they are in [Ezidiki] Cyrillic script whereas they believe they should have books in the [Kurmanji] Latin script. UNICEF and Hranush Kharatyan have also heard these reports.

HT: You named someone who said they spoke Kurmanji Kurdish. That’s his right to say what he wants, but in the Census is Kurmanji included there as a language? There is no Kurdish language even mentioned. There is only the Yezidi language [Yezideren ` Ezidiki].

Anyway, the full interview with Hasan Tamoyan is here.