Kurdistan and Hayastan
While looking for new blogs about Armenia using Google’s excellent Blog search engine I stumbled upon a new one about Yezidis and Kurds in Armenia. Given that I’ve covered Armenia’s largest national minority extensively since 1998 it was certainly interesting to find and nice to see some of my past work on the Yezidis in Armenia being used on the site.
It was also interesting because the blog’s author is of Armenian and Kurdish descent. Fascinating.
My great grandfather was the general Ihsan Nuri Pasha and other kurdish nationalists relatives from my fathers side led the Ararat rebellions until the turkish airforce crushed the republic of Ararat hung them all in open streets and beheaded them in public. They also participated in the Republic of Mahabad during 1946. My mothers relatives suffered from the armenian genocide my grandfather and grandmother was forced to change names and became hidden armenians in turkey my great grandfather was Barzum Aga a well known armenian landlord driven by humanity to both the christians and the kurds. Many of my relatives lost their lives during the genocide. …this is why i am interested in the kurdish-armenian issues and the relations.
The blog, Kurdistan and Hayastan, is here.
Barev Baron Onnik!
Thank you!
I am sorry, of course i will credit you! I was surprised because i read this blog almost everyday and i have read articles from you but i never knew that this was your blog!
Take care baron /Gurgin
Comment by Gurgin Bakircioglu — July 23, 2007 @ 12:04 am
No worries.
BTW: Interesting post on the Armenian Pre-School in Iraqi Kurdistan:
Comment by Onnik — July 23, 2007 @ 4:53 am
Hi,
good to hear about this blog and hopefully not just a blog. I have been talking about Armenian Kurdish common aims and rapprochement with many concerned Armenians, and to my surprise nobody gives a second thought about it. Response is either negative (hard-core Diaspora can not forgive that Kurdish tribes participated in massacres) or indifferent. The last time I spoke about it was at the meeting of some “prominent” Armenian leaders in LA, who were discussing what to do after USA and Turkey admit genocide (isn’t it funny?). When I asked what they are thinking about what is happening in the region, geopolitical situation and necessity of Armenians to strike a deal with Kurdish about common enemy and possible cooperation, the answer was so stupid, ignorant and simple minded, that I didn’t find it even viable to continue discussion.
However the fact is that Kurdish independence is real possibility this time around. The fact is that independence of Kurdistan in northern Iraq will most probably cause serious conflict with Turkey. There is a chance that some parts of eastern Turkey (including western Armenia) become under control of Kurdish rebels . The fact is that these lands are populated not by Armenians, neither by Turks, they are populated by Kurds. If it goes under Kurdish control it will be senseless to demand anything from Turkey.
Of course most of what I say is remote and may be fantastic possibility. But I think, it is time that Armenians (government in Yerevan, Diasporan groups) start a dialogue with Kurds, lend them support (lobbying, reconnaissance and many other forms of help they may need) with firm agreement what to do after victory. I just hope something of these sorts happening undercover, not publicized, trough Russians or not, otherwise we will be just a bunch of empty talkers like mouse from infamous “Mkneri Joxov’”
Comment by GT — July 23, 2007 @ 7:44 am
Two weeks ago while visiting the southern shore of Lake Sevan near Martuni, I started speaking with a blue-eyed man who turned out to be a Yezidi - a shepherd from Ararat Marz. He said he considered himself a Yezidi first, then an Armenian citizen. He was adamant that while Yezidis and Kurds were the same ethnicity and he understoodspoke Kurmanji he and Yezidis were not Kurds because of religion.
He also said that Yezidis were well treated in Armenia.
Comment by R — July 23, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
R, and this is the problem. Ask another Yezidi and they’ll tell you something different. Basically, the community is divided although some will even deny that they speak Kurmanji which they obviously do.
Anyway, more on the division within the Yezidi community of Armenia can be found here, here and here. It’s very definitely a sensitive subject, however, and one that few journalists here can be bothered to tackle as such.
Even though I spent a long time explaining this issue to a journalist at Hetq Online, for example, she still persists in taking the easiest approach possible although beforehand, the publication actually refused to accept that Yezidis were Kurds until I literally had to take the editor and his journalists to Yezidi villages where they were adamant that they were.
However, the bad thing about this is that they have totally ignored the other side of the coin — those Yezidis that say they are not Kurds, although actually it’s because the journalist in question really doesn’t understand the subject matter properly. This is a huge problem in a country such as Armenia where there are very few professional and objective journalists or media outlets around.
Regardless, the long and the short of it is that some will say that the Yezidis are Kurds, while others that they are not. In fact, the real situation is this. While most academics and ethnologists outside of the Republic of Armenia consider the Yezidis to be ethnic Kurds, the community in Armenia is divided.
Actually, such divisions do exist to a much lesser extent in Germany, Iraq and Georgia, but in Armenia, they have become far more exaggerated probably because of the tit-for-tat expulsion of Armenians and ethnic Azeris/Moslem Kurds from Armenia and Azerbaijan at the start of the Karabakh conflict, and also because of the role of the Kurds in the Armenian Genocide.
For example, I’ve even been in villages in Armenia where Yezidis say they are not Kurds and they don’t speak Kurdish (Kurmanji) while paradoxically having posters of Abdullah Ocalan and PPK rebels on their walls. Basically, the question is perhaps more political than religious, although I once again stress that the Yezidi community in Armenia is divided.
Outside of Armenia all I can do is point you in the direction of online resources such as Wikipedia or you can use Google to find more references yourself. Nearly all of them will say the Yezidis are ethnic Kurds who practice a non-Moslem Yezidi religion. However, it is true that relations between Yezidi and Moslem Kurds has always been strained and usually tense.
The interviews I’ve conducted on this division as it has materialized in Armenia can be found here.
Comment by Onnik — July 23, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
It is complicated, but the Yezidi identity is almost identical to the Kurdish identity and Yezidi people is considered generally by the Kurds as their brother.
This picture was published yesterday by a talanted graphic designer named Amer Salih :
http://bp3.blogger.com/_5jpp7u4Ogag/RsN9FBUOpfI/AAAAAAAAAOs/qwt9txyGr2U/s1600-h/ezidi-200708.jpg
What i want to say is that the original nationality of the Yezidi peopl is Kurdish just as a Jew can be a ethnic African man, the religion is a belief and the nationality.. another!
Just as Yezidi Kurds can sometimes say that they dont consider themselves as Kurds but as Yezidi´s, Kurds in Turkey can sometimes say that they are Turks for a better life, I´ve been around many Armenians and i know that the Kurds is not a very popular people in Armenia so i think this is a inferiority complex behaviour.
/ Gurgin
Comment by Gurgin Bakircioglu — August 16, 2007 @ 4:54 am