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Minorities in Iraq Memory, Identity and Challenges

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Minorities in Iraq Memory, Identity and Challenges Minorities in Iraq Memory, Identity and Challenges 1 2 Sa’ad Salloum Minorities in Iraq Memory, Identity and Challenges Masarat for Cultural and Media development 2013 3 A Guide to Minorities in Iraqi Memory, Identity and Challenges First edition Baghdad - Beirut, 2013 Translation into English: The Syrian European Documentation Centre Filing at the National Library and Archive, Baghdad: 2041/2012 All Rights Reserved to Masarat (MCMD) 2013 4 Table of Contents Foreword: Minorities in the Wind........................................................ 7 1) La Reconnaissance Internationale de la Diversite´ Culturelle Et Des Minorite´ s.............................................................................................. 17 PART I: MAPPING THE MINORITIES IN IRAQ........................... 41 2) Jews: Forced Exodus and The End of The Dream of Return............ 43 3) Christians in Iraq: Decreased Numbers and Immigration Chal- lenges.................................................................................................... 59 4) Yazidis: A Deep-Rooted Community in an Unstable Present........ 66 5) Sabian Mandaeans: A Millennial Culture at Stake......................... 79 6) Baha’is: Religious Minority in the Shadow..................................... 90 7) Black Iraqis: Scarred Memory and Recovered Identity................... 102 8) Faili Kurds: the Curse of Compound Identity and Scars of Collective Memory.............................................................................................. 112 9) Kawliyah (Gypsies): Challenges of Adaptation in Changing Rea- lity....................................................................................................... 127 10) Sheikhiya: Minority within a Sectarian Majority.......................... 137 11) Turkmen: The Third Largest Ethnic Group in Iraq.................... 145 12) The Shabaks: A Minority Identity Struggling Against Major Identities............................................................................................. 156 13) Kakaism: Secret Confession and Symbolic Expression................ 167 PART II: MINORITIES AND NATIONAL CHALLENGES......... 181 14) Minority Women: Reality and Challenges................................... 183 15) Minorities and Participation in Public Life.................................. 194 16) Minorities and Curriculum Reform.............................................. 199 PART III: MINORITIES IN THE IRAQI CULTURE.................... 203 17) The Iraqi Novel and the Kurds.................................................... 205 18) Traditional Music of Iraqi Minorities.......................................... 225 19) Toward a Minority-Oriented Cinema in Iraq.............................. 230 PART IV: PROSPECTS OF MINORITIES IN IRAQ.................... 237 20) Towards a Pluralistic Memory in Iraq......................................... 239 21) Conclusion: Toward an Integrative Solution for the Problem of Minorities in Iraq............................................................................... 249 Sa’ad Salloum: Curriculum Vitae........................................................ 267 Masarat for Cultural and Media Development (MCMD)................. 270 5 6 Foreword Minorities in the Wind In Iraq’s extremely diverse ethno-religious map, there is great focus on the three major communal groups - Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. They enjoy clear political representation and jostle for power through different political elites. Beyond the three major ethno-sectarian groups, Iraq is home to various ethnic, religious, sectarian and linguistic groups: - Christians are ethnically diverse (Armenians, Chaldeans, Syriacs and Assyrians) and are divided along sectarian lines (Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants and Baptists). They are to be found in different parts of Iraq but their main concentrations are in Baghdad, Erbil (Ainkawa) and Mosul (Nineveh Plain). - Turkmen live in northern Iraq in an arch stretching across the districts of Tal Afar (west of Mosul), Mosul, Erbil, Alton Kopri, Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmatu, Kifri and Khanaqin. They have called for their community to be better represented demanding that they be regarded as the ‘fourth component’ of Iraq (alongside the Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds) in effect turning them from a ‘minority’ into a ‘major group’. However, their lack of success in that regard prompted them to embrace their minority status as the best channel through which to claim their rights. - Mandaeans who live in Baghdad and southern Iraq (Amarah in particular) represent a culture that has overcome challenges throughout the many empires and religions that existed in Mesopotamia along more than 20 centuries. - Yazidis live in Sinjar Mountain (115 km west of Mosul) and also in Shekhan east of Mosul. - Shabaks live particularly in Nineveh Plain. - Kaka’is live in villages to the south east of Kirkuk. - Faili Kurds are spread along the borders with Iran in the Zagros Mountains. There is also a significant Faili presence in Baghdad. 7 - Baha’is live in different parts of Iraq. Their exact numbers are unknown as they fear disclosing their identity. - Jews in Iraq total six people in all - according to recent estimates. They live in Baghdad and represent the last evidence of the disappearance of Jews from Iraq where they had lived for more than 2,500 years. - Black Iraqis in Basra are experiencing an emerging identity, especially since Barack Obama’s 2008 election to the Presidency of the United States. - In Basra as well there is a sectarian minority known as the Sheikhiya living amongst the Shi’a majority. In response to the challenges of past years, they have developed mechanisms with which to preserve their sense of self and their community. - Gypsies (Kawliyah) are also a minority in Baghdad and their deteriorated conditions are mentioned in most international reports about Iraqi minorities. They live in Baghdad and some southern governorates. This rich cultural diversity (ethnic, religious, sectarian and linguistic) is threatened by emigration and assimilation into the majority culture. Minorities risk becoming helplessly crushed beneath a complicated legacy of demographic manipulation and being ultimately lost in the conflict between major forces competing for space, power and fortune. Some religious minorities are endangered and may soon be consigned to memory especially since the challenges they face target not just their freedoms and rights but their very existence and sustainability in a land they have lived on for dozens of centuries and who have become so rooted in Iraq that no one can imagine an Iraq without them. This is not an imaginary perception or an abstract warning; rather, it is a fact. Emigration leads to the restriction of the transmission of minority languages, disrupted cultures, lost memories and ultimately a loss of identity. In other words, emigration leads minorities to extinction as communal groups even if their individuals, scattered all over the world, are still alive. This scenario of cultural genocide is evident; minorities moving 8 temporarily or permanently to other countries will not think of going back even if the security situation has improved. For most, it is one-way migration1 that recalls the scenario of Iraqi Jewish displacement that is so present in the minds of Iraqi minorities. To many minorities, it seems they are destined to follow the path of Iraqi Jews; a path that led to the Jews’ final departure, the loss of an irreplaceable part of Iraqi memory and terrible humanitarian consequences. Majority in Danger The risk of extinction and one-way migration threaten not only minorities but also, by extension, Iraq’s identity, prosperity and existence. It points to the cultural bankruptcy of Iraq that will impoverish and deprive the country of its sources of strength. It is the cultural desertification of Iraq that seeks to turn Iraqi identity into a blind, empty mono-identity. Thus, not only are minorities in danger but the ‘majority is as well’.2 Despite the assurances that diversity is one of the strengths of the nation, the political authorities seem unaware of the importance of this source of material and cultural richness. Ur, for example, from which Abraham started a journey that changed the ancient world, was a cynosure for Christians and Jews just as Najaf and Karbala are the Mecca of the Shiite communities. The country is also home to some of the world’s oldest Christian groups and of the universal chairmanship of some religious communities such as the Mandaeans, Yazidis and Chaldeans. Moreover, religious authority for most Shiites resides in Najaf. For some more recent religious minorities, like Baha’is, Iraq is a sacred 1Interviews with immigrants of minorities in Vermont, Kansas, Texas in USA (March 2010); Berlin (July 2010); Brussels (August 2010); transit countries (neighbouring countries): Damascus (September 2010), Amman (July 2011), Beirut (November 2011) and Istanbul (January 2012); and in Erbil and Duhok in different dates between 2007 and 2012. 2An expression used by Father Dr.Yousif Toma during an interview with the author on January 6, 2012. 9 region because it hosts their holy places and their religious faith started on its territory. Religious minorities reflect multi-millennia cultures that have miraculously survived in the same place. They also constitute evidence of the value of coexistence as a social and historical contract for the groups that have formed the historical components of Iraq and preserved its memory to this day. Is not this
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