The Kurds: No friends but the mountains

An Assyrian monk (top) looks over the Nineveh Plains from the 7th Century Rabban Hormizd Monastery outside of Al-Qosh.

Carved out of the mountain and built with the local rock, it is almost impossible to see Rabban Hormizd Monastery until you are in its shadow. But when you do catch sight of it for the first time, it takes your breath away. Looking up at its cliff's-edge perch overlooking the Nineveh Plains, you know you are gazing upon a structure that has stood at the center of the cradle of civilization. 

Down the road in the small town of Al-Qosh stand the new Chaldean Catholic monastery and a tomb to a Jewish prophet from the 7th Century BC. And, of course, there are mosques in every nearby town and village. The Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) has many religious and ethnic minorities, including the Yazidis, the Kakai, Chaldean Christians, Turkmen, Shabaks, and, of course, the Kurds themselves. The Kurds, with pockets of populations in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, are the world's largest ethnic minority without their own homeland.

Truth be told, from the foot of the switchbacked road Rabban Hormizd Monastery looks more like a fortress than a place where, since 640 AD, Assyrian ascetics came to meditate in the hundreds of caves carved into the mountain.

A fortress might have been wiser in these parts. For, though there have been long

With Father Denha Toma.

periods of tolerance and co-existence, there have also been the most atrocious pogroms and genocidal sectarian slaughters. A priest at the Shrine of Marbina Qadisha outside of Koya told me that the hills around his beautiful shrine were stained red with blood and filled with graves. Few people, added Father Denha, had died of natural causes. It is dangerous around here to ask about history - unless you have an iron constitution and a very flexible schedule.

Everybody knows the bloody history of the region. But my two years in Iraqi Kurdistan were indeed filled with surprises, most of them pleasant. The semi-autonomous region, dubbed The Invisible Nation by reporter Quil Lawrence, sprung up in 1992 after the Gulf War. The politics of the region are convoluted, tribal, sectarian, vicious and will not be discussed in this blog. (And, despite the many achingly beautiful sights and places I will describe here, I must point out that Iraq as a whole remains under a Level 4 travel advisory by the U.S. State Department. This means do not travel there due to terrorism, kidnapping, and armed conflict.)

The turban seller in Erbil's Bazaar gave us free masks.

Selfies!

The most pleasant surprise was the Kurds themselves. They are perhaps the warmest, most hospitable, fun-loving and kindest folks you'd ever be lucky enough to meet - though with a distinct gallows sense of humor. They are also tough, oft-sinned against, fatalistic, and fiercely independent. They have been betrayed by so many so frequently and often with disastrous consequences that their unofficial motto is, "No friends but the Mountains." For, when their enemies came for them, it was to the mountains they headed, there to regroup and fight for their survival. A dozen or so of these exoduses, known sardonically by the locals as "Kurdish Marathons," have happened in the last 40 years or so.

Dalma (top). And this is what you call a dinner table; literally, a table made of dinner!

Yet still they are the most hospitable of people. It is difficult to describe the vast quantities of food deemed necessary for even a low-key Kurdish repast with guests. They are perhaps the original all-you-can-eat buffets. The assault is unending, with new dishes streaming out of the kitchen for hours until guests, their merry pleas for mercy all ignored, are recumbent either in body or in spirit. Yet the laughter and the music that accompany the feasts make such evenings among the most fun I've ever had, even if my belly left the building about three minutes before the rest of me reached the door!

The respect and genuine affection the Kurds have for the United States was also overwhelming. Surprising, too, considering the, shall we say, complicated relationship between our two lands. (Again, no politics here, but if you wish to delve into the multiple betrayals of the Kurds by the international community as well as their own vicious infighting, check out Jonathan Randall's After Such a Knowledge What a Forgiveness or the aforementioned Invisible Nation.) 

Another surprise was the sheer depth of history in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Not only that, but the pure magnificence of some of the remains told of civilizations centuries ahead of other parts of the world in their time.

Neanderthal remains from 35,000 BC were found here.

The first of these, chronologically, is Shanidar Cave. From an anthropological point

Solecki statue.

of view, the discovery of the remains of 10 Neanderthals by American Robert Solecki in the late 1950s was, if you'll pardon the pun, groundbreaking. The remains, thought to be anywhere from 35,000 to 65,000 years old, showed Neanderthals living a life very different than previously thought. One skeleton showed signs of surgery; another was buried with flowers (the famous "flower burial"), believed to show that Neanderthals were spiritual and believed in an afterlife. Other discoveries led Solecki, from Columbia University, to believe that Neanderthals cared for their weak and diseased and had projectile weapons used for inter-personal violence - none of which was known before. He learned, in other words, that the Neanderthals were more than mere knuckle-dragging hunter-gatherers. 

The hike up to Shanidar.

Like most, if not all, of these treasures, the cave sits largely uncelebrated. In many parts of the world this cave alone and its significance in terms of understanding our forbears would be the jewel in the crown of the tourism industry. But this is Iraq, and with the exception of a couple of billboards at the site with some basic explanations, the cave sits very much as it was during Solecki's time: nestled in comfortable obscurity amidst some gorgeous mountain scenery. 

It's a theme you'll hear throughout this blog: if only people could get their act together, this part of the world would be a powerful draw to history buffs, pilgrims, tourists, or people who simply want to come to biblical and mythical places - the Garden of Eden is said to be down around Basra; some speculate that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may have been in Nineveh, current-day Mosul.

Erbil Citadel, at left, from the air.

The Citadel has loomed over Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, for millennia. As you can see from the above photo, it sits atop what is basically a giant tell, filled with layer upon layer of human civilizations stretching 100-feet into the air.

Erbil's Citadel.

Layers upon layers of life.

The Citadel is billed as the world's longest continually occupied human structure, clocking in at almost 7,000 years. Every time they start renovation work there the work is almost immediately halted when they break ground ... and discover signs of another human settlement. A timeline of the Citadel reaches back to the furthest capabilities of our histories. Words we recognize, but do not really know. The Ubaid period – 4,000 B.C.; Ur, Assyrian. Elam is beaten. Nineveh, Babylonians, Medes. Darius III was here before being thrashed just down the road by Alexander the Great at Barbela. Then came the Seleucid Empire, followed by Tigran the Great of Armenia. Then the Romans. In the first century AD, Erbil became an important center of Judaism – a Star of David still bedecks the walls of the Citadel’s baths. Then Christianity came. 

Another layer of history uncovered at the Citadel.

But we’ve just begun, folks. We got Byzantines and Sassanids, before the Muslims came shortly after Muhammed in 638. Here come the Mongols, the Safavid Empire, and the Ottomans. And this is just a quick scan of the records. All have called the Citadel home at one point or another.

A massive renovation project - or, rather, several individual projects - is underway at the Citadel. It is not slated to be complete for another 60 years - a mere blink of the eye in these parts. But it is a hat-tip to the vital importance the structure plays in these region. All but one family has been moved out of the Citadel during this project, to assure that the structure can maintain its title of longest continually occupied.

Amedi (not my picture).

Perhaps the most awe-inspiring trip was to Amedi, a fortress town a few miles

At Badinan Gate.

south of the Turkish border. It is a truly stunning place. Sitting atop steep cliffs, the town was further fortified by walls leaving just one entrance, the inspiring Badinan Gate. Founded before 3,000 BC, Amedi or Amediya has also been bandied about from one marauding empire to the next. None of the names will mean much to you unless you're deep into that sort of thing. It's a fascinating place. It had a thriving Jewish community until the 1940s and the locals still tend to a tomb believed to be that of Ezekiel. The mosque was built on the site of a church which, in turn, was built on the site of a temple to earlier Gods. At the foot of the mesa upon which Amedi sits are the remains of an ancient school dedicated to the study of science and which, hundreds of years ago, had sister-city-like ties to Cairo. The Three Wise Men are said to have set off from Amedi on their visit to the newborn Jesus.

The ruins of a madrasa at the foot of Amedi and rooms with views at the top.

There are also tombs but, to be honest, I'm just writing this sentence to justify putting in the above two photographs. This post is becoming tediously long. I intend to write more about the amazing people and places of Kurdistan over the next few weeks and will flesh out many of the themes begun here.

But here I go again! 

The Kurds have a distinctive culture, one that, despite the traumas of real life, seems like a celebration - in food, poetry, music, and dance. Perhaps everything is so exuberant and excessive precisely because the Kurds more than anyone realize that life is short. I want to end with some videos so that you can get a better sense of life in this unique part of the world. Below is some traditional Kurdish music I was lucky enough to hear during a concert at the Citadel:

One day in Akre we were treated to a stunningly surprising display by some Sufi Dervishes from Eastern Kurdistan. I had seen the, I guess, more traditional Whirling Dervishes in Syria some years back. They would spin themselves into trances in a most hypnotic way. These Dervishes, said to have preserved some of their customs from the ancient Zoroastrians, however, were not those. These Dervishes would not be out of place at a Metallica concert.

But they were every bit as mesmerizing and mystical. Accompanied by the Kurdish Daf drums, they shake their heads over and over and over again and do appear to slip into some sort of trance. To be in the company of such ancient tradition was a treat quite unlike any other.

Another such treat was to be invited to hear the call to prayer at a mosque in Erbil. I heard this call five times a day, beginning early morning. To be inside the mosque when this famous muezzin plied his trade was deeply moving.

I was also able to attend a midnight mass at a church in Erbil on Christmas Eve. I

St. George over a church.

am not a religious man, but to see these worshippers sing songs - some familiar, some in Aramaic, the language of Christ - in Iraq left a profound impression on me.

A walk in the beautiful gorges outside Rawanduz with some local hikers was elevated to something I will never forget when they broke out in song. It was a simple celebration, a tribute to the mountains, but also a simple expression of happiness at being able to walk in the mountains on a good day.

Again, were the country able to get its act together and safely court tourists, these mountains, this nature, would be another major market for them. Treckers, mountain climbers, even skiers would pay top dollar to experience the beauty that is Kurdistan.

These experiences and many others wedded me to the people of Kurdistan and their spirit of tolerance and deep spirituality. It is a most remarkable place. 

I certainly don't want to paint too rosy a picture of the fascinating part of the world. We went everywhere with security. ISIS is still around, popping out occasionally to murder unsuspecting farmers. They are still no doubt plotting away in their caves. Iranian-backed militias maraud the countryside, particularly the contested zone between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. They threaten and grift like mafiosos - but with much more ferocity and seeming impunity. In the north, the PKK and the Turks are fighting with regular collateral damage in the civilian population.

The story of the Kurds is not a happy one. Time after time they have been targeted.

Adrian squared.

The last of these assaults came at the hands of ISIS who, having taken Mosul, came after the Kurds and particularly the minorities living in the IKR. From 2014 to 2017 any progress the Kurds had made - and the IKR was being likened to a bit of a miracle at the time - was halted as all resources were redirected to the battle against the marauding hell-hordes. Many skeletons of high-rises to this day stand as testament to the still-born boom.

One day I met a young lad called Adrian. He was from a town that had been overrun by ISIS. Naturally, I wanted to make a fuss over him, what with that cool name of his. After a while his mother came over to me and said, "Since ISIS, he doesn't talk any more." 

The trauma spreads over the land like a blanket. Or, as the great Kurdish poet Abdulla Pashew wrote in his "The Unknown Soldier," there is a tomb "over every inch of earth, under every yard of sky."

I was given a beautiful picture of a traditional village by a friend. The villagers are all in traditional Kurdish gear, celebrating Nowruz, the Kurdish New Year.  

The village of Roste.

I took the picture home and framed it. Only a few weeks later did I discover the history behind the photograph. It was taken on March 21, 1972, by a school teacher who left the film in his camera and forgot about it. By the time, many years later, that the film was developed, Roste and more than 4,000 mountain villages like it had been bulldozed and destroyed by Saddam Hussein during his homicidal campaign against the Kurds. Roste itself was levelled in 1975. Likely many pictured here in their finery would not have survived.

Peshmerga troops restoring the cross atop a church.

I suppose the other side of the story is the remarkable persistence of the Kurds. The Peshmerga, their famed fighters, put ISIS to the sword, along with help from the international community. I love the above picture. The Peshmerga restored the cross of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Tel Skuf after the savage two-year ISIS occupation. And perhaps that is the quality I most admired during my time in Erbil: the astonishing tenacity (resilience is a much over-used word these days). Despite the atrocities they have endured, they welcome strangers with open hearts and perform kindnesses they know can never be repaid. They have learned, after all, that tomorrow might never come.