|
Iraq's Yazidi Leader: 'We Are Part of the
Kurdish People'
2.9.2012
By Abdul-Khaleq Dosky, Duhok - Niqash |
|
|
|
The head of Iraq’s religious Yazidi minority,
Tahseen Saeed Bek. Photo: Niqash.
•
See Related Links
September 2, 2012
DUHOK,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq',— The Yazidi minority
in Iraq must deal with religious persecution,
poverty, a lack of services and a rash of suicides
and immigration among their young people. Yet they
still support local Iraqi Kurdish politicians.
The head of Iraq’s religious Yazidi minority,
Tahseen Saeed Bek, spoke to Niqash about why his
people will continue to support the government in
the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Numbering over half a million, they make up a
sizeable proportion of the local population. Yet
many members of the community live in poverty, young
Yazidis have recently been in the news because of a
rash of suicides amongst them and many Yazidis are
still seeking asylum outside of Iraq due to
religious persecution.
Niqash met Bek, the emir (or prince) of Iraq’s
Yazidi in his home in the Shikhan area, near the
city of Duhok in northern Iraq.
Q: Traditionally
the Yazidi people have allied themselves with the
Kurdish people and considered themselves part of the
Kurdish political movement. Do you think this has
been in your people’s best interests?
Tahseen Saeed Bek:
We consider ourselves a part of the Kurdish people
and we do not intend to separate from the Kurdish
political parties or from the Kurdish region.
However we do want the region to re-consider some of
the laws concerning Yazidis that we consider to be
unjust.
Q: So have the
authorities in the semi-autonomous region of Iraq
Kurdistan paid you back for your support in an
appropriate way?
Saeed Bek: We
haven’t yet achieved everything we wanted. But we
will continue to insist that we are Kurds and that
the Kurdish language is our own language. We simply
want the Kurdish region to acknowledge our rights
and to pay us more attention. Most Yazidis prefer to
stand with the Kurdish political parties and 80
percent of our people belong to Kurdish political
parties.
Q: Yet the
services provided to mainly Yazidi areas are still
bad. Why haven’t they improved?
Saeed Bek: This
is because Yazidis live in two adjoining areas. Most
– 90 percent – live in the Mosul area and 10 percent
live in the Dohuk area. Mosul authorities have
stopped handing out funds allocated to the Yazidis;
we should be compensated for this by the Iraqi
government.
[Editor’s note: because of the ethnic makeup of the
city’s residents, Mosul remains one of the most
conflicted cities in Iraq. As a result, the Mosul
authorities,www.ekurd.net
answering to the Iraqi federal government in
Baghdad, only partially rule the area. No doubt,
this is a part of the reason why federal funds are
not reaching the Yazidi minority.]
Q: Rumour has it
that some Yazidi shrines were attacked recently. Do
you think the Iraqi Kurdish government does enough
to protect your holy places?
Saeed Bek: It is
true that there have been attempts to destroy one of
our shrines near Dohuk. But we were able to prevent
these attempts.
The Iraqi Kurdish government allocates huge amounts
of money for the restoration and maintenance of
religious minorities’ places of worship, including
those that belong to Christians, Sabeans and Yazidis.
However during this process we Yazidis were
marginalized and most of the allocated funds were
given to the Christians. After exerting political
pressure we’ve been able to get a fair share of the
funding. We should have a separate budget determined
according to the size of our population and we hope
that we can get our fair share.
Q: How would you
describe the Yazidi relationship with the current
Iraqi government?
Saeed Bek: There
is no enmity between us and Baghdad and there are no
disputes between us and any other Iraqi political
component. It is just our distance from the federal
government in Baghdad that brings us closer to the
government in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Q: So where do
the Yazidis stand when it comes to the current bad
blood between the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan and
the authorities in Baghdad?
Saeed Bek: We
want the conflicts between the two regimes resolved
though dialogue, understanding and consensus. We are
against the use of violence – this can only have a
negative impact.
Q: Let’s turn
now to social issues in your community. You must be
happy that elements of the Yazidi religion are now
being taught in local schools?
Saeed Bek: I am
very happy. A number of scholars have written about
elements of the Yazidi religion and that is now
being taught in schools Yazidis attend. But I would
love to see these books translated into other
languages, like Arabic, as well as taught in other
than Kurdish-language schools.
Q: And how do
you feel about the migration of Yazidis to Europe –
especially young Yazidis? After all the second
biggest population of emigrant Yazidis in the world
now resides in Germany.
Saeed Bek: We
are against immigration because it has a negative
impact on Yazidis in Iraq. Most Yazidis from here
who immigrate to Iraq do so because of poor economic
conditions. There are also some social problems.
Many of them go to Germany because Germany grants
them asylum more readily than other countries.
[Editor’s note: Yazidis have experienced persecution
from other ethnic and religious groups in the past
because their religion involves a mixture of
elements from, for example, Christianity, Judaism
and Islam. This means that some Muslims regard them
as devil worshippers].
Q: You talk
about social problems. In the recent past, suicide
among young Yazidis seems to have been a major
issue. What could be making these young Yazidi
people so unhappy that they want to take their own
lives?
Saeed Bek:
Suicide exists even in affluent societies. In the
area you’re talking about, Sinjar, poverty and
forced marriage are some of the most common reasons.
Many young Yazidis also dream of leaving the country
but they don’t have enough money to travel. They may
kill themselves because of this.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
niqash.org
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the
content of news information on this page
|
®
