The Yezidi depiction of God takes the form of a peacock, symbolising the colour and beauty of the natural world. The village of Lalash, an important site for Yezidi ritual and a symbol of the distinctiveness of the people. 

The traditional Yezidi livelihood of semi-nomadic herding persists Yezidis have been persecuted historically for their perceived ‘devil worship’, partly due to the importance of the symbol of the black snake and the use of 
fire to their rituals and beliefs.

The The aim of this paper is to explore how identity and ethnicity as distinct from other groups in the area has been seen by Yezidi Kurds throughout the last century. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the division of its lands into a number of countries where Yezidis live there have been many political and social changes which have had direct impact on the lives of the community, and the ways they practice and express their faith. Lalash and Jayia shangar where I spend some days to do filed work and document what you read . 

In Iraq, the birth place of Yezidism, where current religious leaders and pilgrim sites are based, Yezidis have been forced to show their loyalty and acceptance of the government’s political demands to form a sort of coalition with the central government. After the fall of Saddam once again the Yezidis have changed their sense of affiliation, and now publicly announce that they are of Kurdish descent. 

There have been seventy two genocides ordered by the Muslim rulers in the past, before the fall of the Ottomans, in order to wipe out the Yezidi community, who were often viewed as devil worshipers. After the creation of the modern states in the Middle East, these practices stopped. Therefore, Yezidis viewed the creation of these nation states, unlike their fellow Kurds or ethnically oriented minorities, as bringing a sense of security for their religious rights. It is true that these developments served to protect them from local warlords and Muslim rulers. Also, the political situation and the centralised government created opportunities in which the Yezidis began to freely express their religious ceremonies in terms of Haj and large annual gatherings attended by thousands. The government even assisted with this, allowing Yezidis to build shrines and pilgrim sites in Sanjar, a place called Lalash where the teaching of Yezidi religion takes place. The physical isolation of the place, along with its ritual significance, has helped the Yezidi communities there to develop a sense of identity separate from their neighbours which is also acceptable for the regimes in power. 

Yezidi Kurds from Iraq are mostly based in an area call Jayi Sanjar (Sanjar Mountain) which was the battle ground in the war between Kurdish militias and the Iraqi regime in the past. Yezidis were in a perfect position to be manipulated in a ‘divide and rule’ approach to maintaining power in the area. Throughout the recent historical eras since the fall of the Ottomans, the Yezidi community has kept itself closely aligned with the changing powers in the area, Arab or Kurdish, and regardless of their particular focus on religion in the public domain. This strategy has enabled them to survive as a coherent and bounded group, and kept them safe from local religious antagonisms.(Fuccuro,1997:565) As Islam is the predominant religion in the countries where Yezidis reside and practise, the hostility between Yezidi and Muslim communities discouraged Yezidis from engaging with surrounding social and political developments. This has meant the community largely maintained traditional tribal structures, and in terms of education for example, they remain largely illiterate. As the schools did not allowed the religion of Yezidi thought into the curriculum, communities have often responded by not sending their children to schools. Endogamy is practised by these Yezidi communities, and intermarriage with any one out side yezidi religion is strictly forbidden. On occasions, acting in contradiction to this has even carried death orders from the Yezidi religious leadership.

The traditional Yezidi livelihood of semi-nomadic herding persists Yezidis have been persecuted historically for their perceived ‘devil worship’, partly due to the importance of the symbol of the black snake and the use of fire to their rituals and beliefs. 

Given the religious differences between Yezidi Kurds and other Muslim Kurds, which worked to their advantage, the government started by ‘Arabising’ the Yezidi Kurds, encouraging them to change their identity on their Iraqi ID cards from Kurdish to Arab ethnicity. Their religious book was published in Arabic, and their religious leader offered a seat in the Iraqi National Parliament. As well, financial development grants have been offered to the area in a bid to ensure the loyalty of the Yezidi Kurds to the government. 

After the fall of Saddam, past developments with respect to Yezidis which had taken place under his regime began to unravel. The Yezidis begun to reinvent themselves as Kurds, to the extent that changes to their formal dress code (which used to be Arabic in style) in a Kurdish style have begun in a few short years. Also, their religious books are now printed in Kurdish by the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, and the community has now been giving special treatment socially and politically by the new regime. 

Cohen, in Two-Dimensional Man talks about the power order and the symbolic order as interdependent, and points out that this symbiotic nature has often been overlooked by wider social and political science. His explanation suggests that power and symbolism function together to maintain social institutions, and that adaptations in either system can be affected by changes in the other. (Cohen, 1974:23-24)

In the case of the Yezidi community in Iraq, we in fact see that there is a close parallel between political events and the ways their ritual and symbolic order respond or adapt to wider political events. Their position of privilege has always been maintained by a creative manipulation of religious identity, by aligning it at times with Arab leadership, at times with Kurdish ethnicity. Therefore, by creating a distinct boundary of “Yezidi identity” they can operate in relation to the changing power order regardless of who fills the role of Iraqi leadership. 

Political powers, the economic and political, are indistinguishable one from the other. They certainly differ in a number of respects. The relationships which they govern are formally regulated by different mechanisms. Political power is ultimately maintained by physical coercion. Economic power is ultimately maintained by reward and deprivation.  

Similarly, the institutions of kinship and ritual, though distinct in form, have a great deal in common, and the separation between them is often arbitrary and sometimes misleading. They are both normative, governed by categorical imperatives, or ‘oughts’ that are rooted in the psychic structure of men in society through continuous socialisation. 

Cohen’s discussion of the relationship between the ‘two dimensions’ can be a useful tool in looking at the case of the Yezidis. Throughout the last century, Yezidis have not been a politically oriented community, and traditionally kept distance from active political participation. At the same time, they have been present in the political arena by using their alignments to gain privilege, siding with those who were in power. While there has been number of political changes and shifts of power in the area, the Yezidis have maintained they loyalty to the power order. In this way, their symbolic systems have always remained relevant and powerful as a source of identity to the Yezidi population, while being adapted as a useful political resource in managing relations with other power groups.

Emile Durkheim, on the other hand, says that church members (who here we can understand as any religiously based community), find

“…the beliefs and practices of his religious life ready-made at birth; their existence prior to his own implies their existence outside of hime self. The system of signs I use to express my thought, the system of currency I employ to pay my debts, the instruments of credit I utilize in my commercial relations, the practices followed in my profession, etc function independently of my own use of them”. (Durkheim 1909:85)  

Recent political changes mean the Yezidis have changed from Arabic to Kurdish styles in their material culture, including style of dress and script in religious texts.The recent Iraqi free elections brought a change in power to the Yezidi areas in the north. The Kurds are in power and the Yezidi interests themselves have been voiced. Kurdish identity, in language and other areas, has re-emerged as a factor in the lives. 

Durkheim argues that social facts are real because their effects can be felt. People are compelled to live according the rules of their society and violate them at their peril. While Cohen’s ideas about the power order and politics suggest that they always work together, Durkheim’s  ideas seems to view religion as fixed in society, and not necessarily associated with other aspects of life. Looking at the case of Yezidis in present day Iraq, we see that while the image of this community is one of isolation and cultural distinctness, they have also adapted to changing social and political situations. Yezidi identity has even been used as a way to maintain good relations with those in power. This can be observed in material culture as much as beliefs, as in the example of the changes to religious texts and dress codes of contemporary Yezidis. We might say that from the perspective of the Yezidis themselves, Durkhiem’s ideas seem most accurate, however if we look at things from an external perspective, we see that the close interaction between power order and behaviours surrounding religious practice illustrates Cohen’s ideas about the ‘two dimensions’ of man. Each act and belief is a political one and a symbolic one.    

The Yezidi pir, leaders of the Yezidi temples, are both unmarried men andwomen who officiate at rituals, including sacrifice. They belief includes many folk traditions such as way to request for blessing and luck.Yezidis believe the bridge symbolises ascent to the heavens.  

Bibliography

Fuccuro, Nelida (1997) Ethnicity, and state formation: the case of yezidi Kurds of sanjar in International Journal of Middle East Studies vol, 29, No. 4 pp 559-580

Maclver (1947) in Cohen, Abner (1974) Two-Dimensional Man London: Routledge Publishing 

Cohen, Abner (1974) Two-Dimensional Man London: Routledge Publishing 

Islam Awareness Week, 2005

Islam Awareness Week enters its twelfth year in 2005, and is set to be the biggest yet.

The organisers of this year's IAW face the daunting challenge of educating people about the previously little known history of Islam and Britain, in a bid to demonstrate that being British and Muslim is not a new concept.

The events of 7/7 put the British Muslim community in the spotlight, after it was revealed that the bombers were raised and educated on English soil. While questions are being asked about the loyalty and role of Muslims in Britain, organisers of Islam Awareness Week (IAW) seek to remind people that Islam is not an alien culture and Muslims have been living in and trading with Britain for centuries.

The theme, '1,000 years of Britain in Islam', continues past themes, which have included 'Your Muslim Neighbour' and 'Muslim Heritage'. This year's theme draws heavily upon the history of white Muslim converts in Britain and the wider contributions from Islam and Muslims to British culture.

Julie Siddiqui, deputy co-ordinator of IAW, explains the importance of the week. 'Islam Awareness Week is about putting as much focus as possible into dispelling myths and building bridges with the community. We don't always give that as much focus throughout the year, so IAW is a perfect opportunity. And it's more important now than it ever has been. Since 7/7, in terms of people's perception of Islam, we've moved back about hundred steps.'

'The notion of history is important because we all presume, Muslims included sometimes, that Islam arrived in the 60s, with the textile community. It didn't. As I was looking at some of the resources for this week, I was amazed by some of the links that Britain had with Islam. I saw photos of families who were, to all intents and purposes, typical white English families, but they were actually Muslims. There have been whole communities of white Muslims for over a hundred years.'

Paul Rippingale, organiser of the IAW national cinema listings, says: 'The history of Islam in Britain has been completely whitewashed, which has led to a sense of alieness. People think Muslims have been invading since the 1960s, but Islam has influenced Britain since the 11th Century and been present in the country since the 16th century. If people recognise that Islam has shaped and formed Britain's past, then they can't look at Muslims and think it is something that is alien and different from themselves.'

Terrorism in the name of Islam used to be seen as perhaps a foreign thing, but since 7/7, the British Muslim community have had to face a number of challenges in their everyday life. Shafeeq Sadiq, project co-ordinator said 'A handful of people have taken actions that have demonised the entire community. Muslims have received verbal and physical abuse, and most can tell you about the feeling of being under a microscope of suspicion. But the response to IAW has been great from the wider community, and each year it gets bigger and bigger. For example, last year we launched from the Globe Theatre, this year we're launching in London City Hall.

'People have realised there are problems facing Muslims and they see it as a societal problem, not just a Muslim problem.'

FROM: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/features/awareness/index.shtml

New terror law will harm race relations

By John Tummon

5 January 2006

We reproduce here the letter sent by the Director of Oldham Race Equality Partnership to Tony Blair on proposed anti-terror laws and the damage they are likely to cause.

The Executive Committee of the Oldham Race Equality Partnership has asked me to write to government, local MPs and others who are in a position to affect the above proposed legislation and to set out our concerns, particularly about provisions in clauses 1, 2 and 21 which we believe will be discriminatory and / or cause further damage to race relations.

Our overall concern is that government has no joined-up strategy on the post 7/7 situation in the sense that it has developed policy on the security implications of 7/7 quite separately from considering its race relations implications. Specifically, it seems, in our view, to have given no consideration within the Terrorism Bill to its effects on race relations and, in effect, acted as if the race relations implications of 7/7 are of little comparative interest to government - when the Task Force published its report (Preventing Extremism Together), this was allowed to slip away almost unnoticed.

This is entirely against the spirit of the government's own Race Relations Act (as amended in 2000), which requires new policies to be assessed for their impact on race relations. While this requirement does not extend, legally, to new legislation, there can be no doubt that the intention of parliament in amending the Race Relations Act was that it should guide government towards looking for the impact on race relations when it is carrying out its function of legislating.

It also flies in the face of the March 2005 recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee on Terrorism and Community Relations, that 'the Home Office review the links between its work on community cohesion and anti- terrorism'.

The race relations implications of 7/7 have been given a much lower priority than the security implications and yet there has been no community consultation on the Terrorism Bill even roughly comparable to the visits to Oldham and other places by Hazel Blears and other ministers to hear from us on what could be done locally to reduce inter-racial tensions in the aftermath of 7/7. There has been no national Task Force with representatives of Muslim organisations and no consultative process asking us what we wanted by way of protection against bombers. The Task Force's Terms of Reference were steered away from a definition of security which encompassed the issues being simultaneously developed, quite separately, within the Terrorism Bill.

We can see no justification for this inconsistency or for the artificial separation of community relations from security - in November, the police launched a national consultation on policing, asking the public how we want to be protected from criminals, so why is it apparently inappropriate to ask us what we want by way of protection against bombers?

This failure to consult on the race relations implications of the Terrorism Bill will lead in practice to undermining the work of the Task Force, the considerable race relations work being carried out by such as ourselves at a local level in response to 7/7 and, more generally, the work carried out up and down the country since 2001 to improve community cohesion in the aftermath of the riots of that year and the attack on New York.

Government is well aware that the British Muslim community has been increasingly alienated since 9/11 from British foreign policy in the middle east in general and the role of Britain in President Bush's so-called 'War on Terror' in particular. Against the background also of the 2001 riots in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley and the consequent increase in support for the BNP among adjacent white communities, the British Muslim community has increasingly been required to demonstrate its loyalty to the UK at precisely the same time that it has felt under increasing pressure from the tone of government foreign policy statements and from sections of the white population who continue to vote in large numbers for the BNP and to carry out racist attacks on Muslim individuals as well as on Mosques.

The 6th report of the Home Affairs Committee on Terrorism and Community Relations endorsed this view in its conclusion that 'community relations have deteriorated, although the picture is by no means uniform, and that there are many positive examples to set against our overall assessment. International terrorism and the response to it have contributed to this deterioration, particularly in relations between the majority community and the Muslim community'.

OREP works in a borough in which there can be no doubt that community relations have deteriorated as a result of terrorism AND the response to it.

More specifically, British Foreign Policy has over the past 4 years involved a military invasion of two Muslim countries, which have led to repeated allegations that British soldiers have tortured Muslims. The government has done little to prevent the United States' unlawful incarceration of many hundreds of Muslims, including British Muslims, in Guantanamo and elsewhere. In these circumstances, and bearing in mind too the fourfold increase in stop and search operations carried out among British Asians by the police, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, it has never been harder for British Muslims to feel British than it is right now. This response to terrorism puts a particular strain on race relations, or on community cohesion, as it is more fashionably called today. This is the context with which OREP and our partners grapple in Oldham and which makes our work in helping the borough recover from the Riots so much harder than it should be.

It is no accident that the BNP, both through its leaflets and its website, has become more and more a single-issue, islamaphobic, organisation over the past 4 years. In simple terms, the 'War on terror' provides a context which helps them to further deteriorate race relations whereas it harms our attempts to improve race relations.

All these processes have been accelerated since 7/7 and the Terrorism Bill is ratcheting this up still further. In particular, we wish to draw your attention to the following proposed provisions and their likely effect on race relations:

Proposals in Clause 1 of the Bill to create new offences of encouragement to terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications are very broad in scope. Despite the government's amendment, the crown would still not need to prove intent to incite others in order to secure a conviction. This poses a serious threat to legitimate free expression, particularly free expression within the Muslim community. The obvious concern is that people who express support for armed resistance to the occupation of Iraq - resistance that many people around the world feel is legitimate - could be caught-up in the new laws. To vocalise one's support for the Iraqi resistance may constitute 'glorification' for the purposes of the legislation. Simply stating that one can understand what leads some people to become suicide bombers may also lay people open to prosecution. It is clear that Muslims feel particularly exposed to the possibility of being criminalised as a consequence of this provision in Clause 1.

It has been pointed out by the Association of University Lecturers and others that this provision would severely restrict the legitimate study of controversial historical events, terrorist activity, the motivation of those who use terrorist means and the use of violence for political ends. If, during such study, students are required to read, listen to or watch texts and statements that do indeed glorify terrorism or could be seen to encourage it, their lecturer could be committing an offence if he/she had reasonable grounds to believe that a student was likely to understand this study material as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The fear is that a Muslim lecturer addressing a class which included a group of Muslim students might well be targeted under this provision, whereas a white lecturer addressing a group of largely white students would not be likely to come under surveillance of this nature in the first place.

The Home Affairs Committee Inquiry already referred to these type of concerns in its observation about the existing anti-terrorist legislation that 'we accept that there is a clear perception among all our Muslim witnesses that Muslims are being stigmatised by the operation of the Terrorism Act: this is extremely harmful to community relations..........we believe that special efforts should be made by the police and Government to reassure Muslims that they are not being singled out unfairly'.

Instead, Hazel Blears' comments to the Committee confirm the perception of stigmatisation among Muslims. She said that 'the threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or who are falsely hiding behind Islam. It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community. I think that is the reality and I think we should recognise that. If a threat is from a particular place then our action is going to be targeted at that area.' (Our emphasis).

Hence the fears that Muslim lecturers, alongside Muslims active in protests against the government's Iraq policies, will be disproportionately targeted for surveillance, arrest and detention without trial under the provisions of the Terrorism Bill.

It is already a criminal offence to:

• 'encourage, persuade or endeavour to persuade any person to murder any other person'
• 'counsel or procure' any other person to commit any indictable offence
• 'solicit or incite' another person to commit any indictable offence
• incite another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the UK
• conspire with others to commit offences outside the UK
• invite support for a proscribed terrorist organisation

Is this not sufficient to protect the public? What sort of people who constitute an actual terrorist threat could be apprehended by widening the net in the way proposed in Clause 1? Our concern, based on ministerial comments such as the above, is that the sort of people who will be targeted will be Muslim activists and academics, many with a lot of credibility and support within the wider Muslim community either nationally or locally, and that the campaigns which will inevitably arise in their support will further polarize the Muslim community in places like Oldham from adjacent white communities, who get their information about race relations almost exclusively from a tabloid press which frequently reports such matters in a way which plays into the hands of more overt islamaphobes on the far right. This is the kind of development we refer to through when we say that the legislation will 'ratchet up' the problematical race relations which we are already grappling with.

Similarly, a 'terrorist publication' is defined under Clause 2 to include any item which contains 'information of assistance' to someone planning a terrorist attack, meaning presumably that an A-Z map of Oldham and Rochdale may be a 'terrorist publication' for the purpose of this offence. The clause provides that a person may be guilty of disseminating a terrorist publication merely by making such a publication available in the knowledge that someone somewhere may regard it as useful for terrorism. It is enough under the provisions of the Bill to be simply 'reckless' as to whether members of the public who see or read such a publication would understand it as such, regardless of whether the publisher of the statement foresaw any risk that it would be. It is also irrelevant, under Clause 2, whether any person was actually encouraged to attempt or to commit an act of terrorism as a consequence of what was published; instances in which no-one was will not count as a defence. This is a recipe for witch-hunting.

Crucially, it is likely in practice that it will be considered 'reckless' to circulate some documents among Muslims whereas it will not be regarded as 'reckless' to circulate the same documents among non-Muslims. For anyone to email a copy of an article from Hizb-ut-Tahrir's website may place them in breach of Clause 2 if those receiving it believe that it glorifies those who die fighting against injustice; in practice the test of 'recklessness' is likely to differentiate sharply between Muslim and non-Mulsim recipients of such an email.

Extension of the grounds for proscription in Clause 21 will criminalise membership of non-violent political organisations on the basis of their opinions. If Hizb-ut-Tahrir is to be proscribed for speaking out against British foreign policy, which some ministerial comments suggest to be government's intention, then what of the 2 million British people who have marched against the invasion of Iraq, including members of OREP's staff and Executive Committee? If Hizb-ut-Tahrir is to be proscribed for criticising despotic rulers throughout the Muslim world, then how will the government deal with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs who routinely condemn these regimes? If it is for calling for the uniting of Muslim lands under one Caliphate that Hizb-ut-Tahrir is to be proscribed, then how will the government deal with other Muslims in Britain who share this belief? There is not one instance to date in British history of a non-violent group ever being proscribed. Even Sinn Féin, at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, was never proscribed, despite the belief within successive governments of the day that is was operationally linked to the Irish Republican Army.

To proscribe Hizb-ut-Tahrir would therefore be to follow the tradition of dictatorial regimes around the world which do not tolerate political dissent and proscribe non-violent organisations with alternative viewpoints. This is not only fundamentally undemocratic but it runs the serious risk of adversely affecting race relations, in that it will be seen by the Muslim community as aimed at Muslim-based organisations at a time when their own concerns about the activities of the British National Party are frequently brushed aside by public agencies on the grounds that the BNP is a legitimate political party. This lack of even-handedness can only play into the hands of the very organisations and ideologies against which this proposal is aimed, who will be able to portray it as an attack not on Hizb-ut-Tahrir or even on their aspiration for a Caliphate but as an attack on the Muslim 'Umma', which is a key concept for all Muslims.

Overall, the view of OREP is that Clauses 1, 2 and 21 of this Bill will harm race relations and thereby undermine other aspects of the government's response to 7/7. Kofi Annan, the UN's Secretary General has taken the same view of overly-expansive anti-Terrorist measures - 'compromising human rights cannot serve the struggle against terrorism. On the contrary, it facilitates achievement of the terrorist's objective - by ceding to him the moral high ground, and provoking tension, hatred and mistrust of government among precisely those parts of the population where he is most likely to find recruits. Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with a successful counter-terrorism strategy. It is an essential element in it.' So is upholding the conditions in which good race relations can flourish.

Consequently, it is unrealistic for the government to pass the Terrorism Bill in its current form and expect any significant cooperation from Muslims by way of providing community intelligence information about people who might be involved in actively supporting terrorist attacks. It will simply be a waste of time for the police to create new community cohesion posts within Special Branch for the purpose of facilitating this intelligence, which has just been done in the North West of England. Like the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, British Muslims have a different identity to the majority community and are discriminated against in employment to the extent that they are virtually absent from whole sectors of mainstream employment. In the case of Muslims in Oldham, this means being consigned mostly to marginal self-employment as taxi-drivers, take-away workers and off-licensees, too alienated and lacking in trust for the police to bother reporting racial attacks against themselves and, just like the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, highly unlikely to 'shop' one another in an atmosphere which allows for extended internment without trial or recourse to effective legal advice.

OREP agrees with others that an appropriate strategy would to increase the resources available to the police and security services to focus on apprehending those who are actually committed to carrying out terrorist outrages rather than criminalising ever-widening circles of people and communities around them. There have been a number of well-publicised security blunders in respect of the threat which this bill seeks to address and dealing with any resourcing or structural issues which have contributed to these blunders would seem to offer better protection to the public than the Terrorism Bill as it stands.

Those of us engaged in trying to improve race relations have watched while British Foreign Policy initiatives have put an enormous strain on race relations. We have watched and listened to the increasing alienation of young men who feel keenly the suffering of the Muslim victims of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have become angered by reported atrocities from Abu-Graib prison to Guantanamo Bay. This 'War on Terror' is making it harder for me, my colleagues and OREP's partners to do our jobs than it should be.

For all the above reasons, our considered view is that, if the Bill goes ahead with these clauses in it, race relations in places like Oldham will, in effect, have been subjugated to the overriding priority of the 'War on Terror'.

We therefore ask government to re-think the relative importance of its domestic and foreign policy objectives, to give race relations the importance it merits in practice, to carry out what amounts to an impact assessment of the Terrorism Bill on British race relations and to withdraw those clauses which will cause foreseeable harm to race relations.

FROM: http://www.irr.org.uk/2006/january/ha000009.html