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Iranian Kurdistan: His love gained was my
love lost
2.10.2007
Interview by Kameel Ahmady
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Kolsom Ahmady lives in a village on the Iran-Iraqi
Kurdistan border. As a young girl, 40 years ago, she
had chosen her intended. Then her elder brother
eloped - and she found herself paying for his
happiness with her own freedom.
October
2, 2007
Iran-Iraqi Kurdistan border, -- I have never
told anyone this story in its entirety before. My
name is Kolsom Ahmady. I don't know how old I am
because I never went to school and have lived most
my life in a village in Iran called Gardashewan. But
I suppose I must be over 50. I was born into a poor
family. My father died when I was five, leaving
behind four girls and two boys, and we were brought
up under the close supervision of our uncles and
other family elders.
When I was about 10, Uncle Abdoulla (then the head
of the entire Ahmady family) ordered my mother to
move to his home; he felt that a widow living alone
with her children might bring into question the
honour of the whole family. Our new life in the town
of Nagheda was great; it was a different world: new
things, new clothes - and electricity. Although
there were six families living together and we were
under the constant observation of the male elders
and our young male cousins, there was always a
chance to go outside to fetch drinking water from
the nearby pump. That's when we used to flirt with
boys, who would wait for us in the evenings. There
was no exchange of words but we found other ways to
communicate: you could choose your intended by
accepting the small bottles of perfume they would
offer, or sometimes a carefully waxed apple. They
would wax them so that they shined, and this fruit
had such a fragrance. We called them shemama.
Life went on this way until we realised that Karim,
our oldest brother, was spending more and more time
in a village about six or seven hours away, buying
livestock to sell on at a profit in the large cities
such as Tehran. It was on these trips that Karim
fell in love, and asked my uncles to send a
messenger to the girl's family to request permission
for a marriage. But each time we tried we were
turned down - perhaps because they didn't want their
daughter to live so far away from them.
After all these negotiations, life returned to
normal, until late one evening Karim returned after
a few days' absence; however, he was not alone. I
would guess the young girl with him, Amina, was
around my own age. She looked tired, was soaked
through from the rain, and covered all over in thick
mud. My mother shouted in happiness, saying: "Karim
Jani helgertoa!" ("Karim my son, you have lifted a
woman!") - a phrase commonly used when a young man
convinces a girl to elope with him. Days passed and
many messengers, elders and clergymen were sent to
the young bride's house, in order to reach a deal
after this small scandal, but her father wanted only
one thing: a woman in return for the loss of his
daughter - one from our family to marry his eldest
son.
In those days, I didn't have a care in the world. I
believed in love, but what did I know? I was in love
with a boy from the neighbourhood, and all day I
would wait for the moment each evening when, with
the other girls, I would fetch water from the pump.
Once there, I used to see him, waiting for me with a
smile, playing with a nicely waxed shemama in his
hands. He would follow me almost all the way home -
but not getting too close in case my cousins or
uncle noticed.
One night, not too long after my brother had brought
Amina home, my eldest uncle's wife called to see me.
"Amina's family has asked for you," she said. "They
want you to marry their eldest son, Qadir." I was
shocked, and certainly I didn't want to marry a boy
I had no feelings for, someone I didn't even know. I
cried for days, but the decision had been made. I
didn't dare tell my uncle Abdoulla that I didn't
want to marry this man, that I rejected his
decision. I tried speaking to his wife, to my mother
and all the other female elders, but all knew there
was no way around it, however much they might have
sympathised with my sadness. The family's "honour"
was at stake and a way had to be found to solve this
dispute that my brother Karim's elopement had
caused. He had found love and happiness, but it
appeared that I must sacrifice my own for that. In
order to make the marriage halal, I must give up my
freedom and my chance for love.
I wasn't in a position to speak to Karim; he was as
young as I was and, to be fair, he didn't have much
power over the elders' decisions. Finally facing the
reality of my situation, I asked Amina how Qadir
looked, how old he was, trying to get a picture of
the man I would have to spend the rest of my life
with. She told me he was much older than me, but she
had a thought - her other brother Ali was more
handsome and younger. Having no chance to be really
free, I sent a message to the male elders that I
would only be willing to reconcile the dispute by
marrying Ali, and not Qadir. The reply came back: it
was their family tradition, the eldest son was to be
wed before other sons. Qadir it would be.
No one could help me and I was too terrified to run
away with the man I loved, though I thought about
it. I sent my younger sister to tell him what was
happening. Although I knew he couldn't help me, he
returned the message by saying he hoped one day we
would be together. (I didn't see him for many years
until I met him by chance in a textile store: I
walked in, and it turned out he was the owner, but
neither of us had anything to say.) There were so
many considerations. My mother was stuck between her
love for two of her children, and both our futures
were at stake.
A few days later, two cars came to the house,
bringing Amina's father and a clergyman, and there
they married me to Qadir in an Islamic ceremony,
with my uncle as my representative and Amina's
father as Qadir's. Neither I nor Qadir were present.
Half an hour later I was on my way to my new home in
the village of Gardashewan. The first time I met
Qadir was later that same day, my wedding night. I
was so angry, scared and embarrassed that I hardly
looked at him.
Well, my life began there. A new life - cleaning up
after the animals each morning before the sun rose,
and milking large numbers of livestock twice a day.
I was supposed to bake bread, clean the house, make
blocks of fuel from the animal waste. These were my
routines now. The most difficult part of the year
was when some of us used to go to the mountains and
live in tents for four or five months to graze the
livestock in summer pastures, although nowadays I
find this a relative freedom from the dull village
atmosphere, and the air is fresh. I can relax a bit.
My first child was born a year after my so-called
marriage began. I named her Zolegha, and she was
followed by another five boys and girls. I watched
Zolegha growing up, and every now and then I used to
tell her stories from my past, the sweet days back
in the town. I knew she had fallen in love with a
young man, Ahmet, from the village. But Ahmet had
only a mother to speak for him and my husband's
family did not approve. In some ways, it was just
like it had been for my mother's family after my
father died; without a man as a family head, we had
no say over our own futures.
Thinking back about what I went through and how I
was forced to marry someone I had never met and
didn't feel any love for, I couldn't allow the same
thing to happen to my daughter some 20 years later.
One evening, I asked Zolegha's boyfriend to meet me
in a hidden spot outside the village. Zolegha and I
went to see him, and I told him there and then that
I gave them my blessing. I did this at great risk,
but I did not want my daughter to live a loveless
life. The three of us knew that Zolegha would not,
after that moment, enjoy any support from her
family, and that is the decision she made. My only
valuable possession was a pair of earrings, which I
gave to her that night. Then I sent them off, with
my tears flowing down my face. After a few years, I
pushed for a reconciliation between our family and
Ahmet's; it began with us, the women, who would try
to socialise. Eventually, my husband came to accept
his daughter again.
Maybe what I did wasn't something women do, or at
least not those from the Kurdish tradition in those
days. I knew that I would be looked down upon by
other families because our girl had run away. I knew
it would be hard to take all this tension within the
family itself, where men are quick to blame mothers
for not raising their daughters "properly". But how
could I allow my little girl to suffer in the way I
did for so many years?
Looking back on those days, who should we blame for
this? My uncles? My brother Karim? Amina? Or the
tradition and religion I come from? For so many
years I have lived with this man and looked after
him, and he looks after me. We are like one unit
now. I know how much anger I stored within me for
much of that time. But now my oldest uncle has
passed away, and recently Amina died of a brain
haemorrhage. Having somehow, after all this time,
got used to my husband, I guess I found a way to
forgive them all.
- Kolsom still lives in the village of Gardashewan
near the Iran-Iraq border of Kurdistan.
guardian co.uk
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