No friends but the mountains @arianaarin-blog - Tumblr Blog

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Kurds look out a window of their house adorned with doves June 16, 2003 in Southern Kurdistan. The painting was part of the Peace Winds Japan 2001 Arts for Peace Project in which various artists painted local buildings with symbols of peace. (Photo by Mario Tama)

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Photographer Murat Yazar is tracing deqs which he sees as the lost and hidden history of Mesopotamia. Having photographed Kurdish women and men with deq for a long time, Yazar expresses deq as the holy symbols turning the human body into a temple.

The art of adorning the face and body with tattoos has a very long history in Kurdish culture. Traditionally, tattoos are made by mixing soot with the breast milk of a woman who has given birth to a girl and the poisonous liquid from the gall bladder of a sheep or goat. The design is drawn on the skin using a thin twig and is, with the help of a sewing needle, penetrated under the skin. Most are done between the ages of eight and twelve. The most common tattoo symbols are those that protect against evil forces; maintain good health or cure illnesses; show tribal affiliations; and enhance beauty, sexuality and fertility.

The tree of life seen in the 4th picture, which in ancient times is said to have reached the skies, is one of the most common symbols used in Kurdish tattoos. It represents immortality. This tattoo starts between the breast and climbs upwards towards the chin like a vine. Some also have a tree of life tattoo on their ankles. It features a row of circles bisected by a vertical line, symbolising mating and reproduction.

The tattoo on this elder’s forehead seen in the 5th picture represents the sun to Ezidis, to which they pray every morning.

Two semicircles over the wrist symbolise testicles and men’s reproductive powers. A comb at the base of circles represents strong muscles required to work the land successfully. The V symbols are tribal identifiers, the size of the symbol corresponding with the size of the family group.

Sources: (x) (x) (x)

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Kurdish Jewish community of Moshav Eshbol, Israel, 1986.

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Kurdish Jews in their home in Seneh, Eastern Kurdistan, 1977. (via The Jews of Kurdistan: Daily Life, Customs, Arts and Crafts by Ora Shwartz-Be'eri)

Seneh (name changed to Sanandaj) was a commercial center with two synagogues and 300 Jewish families living among 50,000 Muslim families. Jewish Kurds from Seneh spoke both Kurdish and Persian in public and “Jewish Kurdish” in their homes.

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“Comradeship and Courage is the guarantee of our victory. The whole world should know, we will win.” (x)

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Palangan

Village in Iranian Kurdistan, to the north of Kermanshah and east of Kirkuk

Welat Kurdistane

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‘’The Ink Is The Geometry To My Soul'’

Alluring face and body tattoos have a very long history in the Kurdish Culture dating as far as the bronze age. Designs can be traced back to ancient belief systems, such as paganism, shamanism and Zoroastrianism.

Placed on significant parts of a woman’s body, the most frequent symbols are those protecting against evil forces, maintaining good health or curing illnesses and enhancing beauty, sexuality or fertility.

The “Deq” tradition is now extinct amongst Kurdish Females under the age of 50. The power of pan Arab & Islamist movements deported and arrested gypsies who practiced the art of facial tattooing. Their art could not be replicated , for it is seen as “Haram” in Arabic culture that dominates the lands of Kurdistan.

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‘’A person’s country; is the geography of their heart.’’

Heval Jehat Berti, PKK fighter

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Jews of Kurdistan. circa 1940

By Anthony Kersting

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Happy Purim! Did you know that Kurdish Jews had a special henna ceremony to celebrate the beauty of Queen Esther? I featured it a few years ago in this article (and see this post too). This pattern is taken from Kurdish Jewish art - check out the wonderful book “The Jews of Kurdistan: Daily Life, Customs, Arts and Crafts” for more! Hag sameah!

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Kurdistan

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the treatment of kurds under ba’athist syria (something hardly anyone knows about):

1946–1957: kurds had no political organization representing them in government as it was illegal

the kdps (kurdistan democratic party of syria) was founded in 1957

1960: leaders of kdps were arrested and tortured

more than 5,000 people associated with kdps were arrested

1958: with the creation of the short-lived united arab republic (the joining of egypt and syria), the rise of the ba’athist or pan-arab government was born

recordings of kurdish music were destroyed in cafes

publication and posession of books printed in the kurdish language was illegal and punishable by imprisonment

egyptian teachers were sent into kurdish areas to teach the kids arabic

1960: the citizens of amûde (a kurdish town) accused the arab authorities of setting fire in a movie theatre that caused the death of 282 kurdish children

motive behind this was presumed to be anti-kurdish sentiments

1960–1980s: kurds were victims of racist propaganda from the arab media

examples of campaign slogans are: “save sarabism from jazire” and “fight the kurdish menace”

1960s-1970s: syrian authorities plan to arabize the kurdish countryside – change the original kurdish names of villages in

in the northeast: hasakah province

kurdish area of kurd mountains

northwest: afrin and aleppo province

began to implment it in the 1970s

all kurdish villages in afrin now had arabic names

kobane: ain al-arab

girdeem: sa’diyya

chilara: jowadiyya

derunakolin: deir ayoub

bani qasei: ain khadra

1962: via legislative decree no. 93 and the creation of “census committees”, syrian authorities randomly stripped tens of thousands of kurdish families of their syrian nationality

implemented exclusively in hasaka province, a predominately kurdish inhabited city; occurred in a period of less than 24 hours

kurds lost their nationalist and found themselves deprived of their citizenship and civil rights and became one of two things

ajanib (foreigners [of hasaka province]):

members were given red identity cards that had “did not have name on list of syrian arabs according to the 1962 census”

holders of this card were not entitled to freedom of movement; could leave syria but were not allowed to return to syria

limited the holders’ rights to some services (i.e. hotels, luxury items) because approval from the division was necessary to admit someone with a red card

maktoumeen (unregistered)

personal data of members was not registered in any official record at all

cannot acquire any identification documents other than

a letter of reference from the mayor

a residency certificate which is granted only after obtaining the approval of political security police

in legal terms: these people do not exist

according to the government, the reason for this enactment was groups of kurds infiltrating the hasakah province in 1945

government claims kurds came into syria from neighboring countries illegally

claims they settled down gradually in cities like amude and qamishlo until they were the majority of the city

claims many kurds were capable of registering themselves illegally in the civil registers

claims kurds intended to settle down and acquire property – especially after the agricultural reform law

in order to benefit from land redistribution, even though it was illegal for kurds to own land

falsely claimed that kurds who were original inhabitatnts of the land were foreigners and stripped them of their citizenship

1963: proclamation by the minister of the interior is created, prohibiting inhabitants of hasakeh province, mostly kurds who are farmers, from transferring their civil entry cards/status to other provinces

1965: syrian government created an arab cordon [prohibited region] (hizam arabi) in the jazire region along the border with turkey

stretched from ras al-ain (kobane) in the west to the iraqi border

begining of the arabization of rojava

1967: all references to kurds in syria were removed from geography textbooks

1967: kurdish citizens were subject to pressure from the staff of civil registry departments to not give their children kurdish names

results in the ban of kurdish names in

1973: syrian government confiscates a portion of land measuring 375 km long (233 miles) and 10-15 km wide (6–9 miles) along the border with turkey and iraq in the hasaka province

land was owned and cultivated by tens of thousands of kurdish citizens

government gave it to arab families who moved from the provinced of aleppo and ar-raqqa at the request of the government

1986: governor of hasaka issued a resolution (no. (1012/ S/ 25)) which prohibits the use of the kurdish laguage in the workplace

1986: police fired on thousands of kurds celebrating newroz, killing one, in damascus

four were killed when police attacked a newroz celebration in afrin

40,000 people attended the funeral of the man who was killed in damascus, located in qamishlo

1989: governor of hasakah issues another decree to re-confirm the band on the kurdish language

prohibited non-arabic songs to be played at weddings and holidays

1992: paternal verification of all births (recent, old) is needed in the hasaka province and can only be performed by one of the security police apparatuses [STILL IN EFFECT]

all new births in hasakah province are subject to authorization by the political security directorate - an intelligence service of syria

2004: clashes between kurds and ba’athists at a football game, resulting in police killing six people, including three children – all kurds

ba’athists began taunting kurds with photos of saddam, began insulting kurdish leaders such as masoud barzani and jalal talabani

kurds, in response, proclaimed “we will sacrifice our lives for bush” due to their “help” on ousting saddam hussein who committed a genocide against kurds, leaving 500,000 dead and thousands missing

tensions rised, ba’athists began attacking the kurds with sticks, stones, knives

2004: 26-year old kurd was tortured to death in a prison in the city of afrin

2005: a kurdish religious cleric, sheikh mohammad al-khaznawi, who was outspoken about discrimination against kurds, disappeared and was later learned to be assassinated and tortured

10,000 kurds protests in the streets of qamishlo after his funeral

2007: syrian authorities in the agricultural association in malikiyah [hasakah province] signed contracts granting 150 arab families from the shaddadi region (hasakah] about 6,000 sq. kilometers in malikiyah

thus, evicted tens of thousands of kurdish people from these villages

forcing them to move to other areas inside and outside of syria in search of a decent living [became refugees]

2008: police open fire at a newroz celebration, killing three people

2010: the ministry of agriculture and agrarian reform issued an order instructing departments of agriculture in hasakah province to remove the names of some farmers from the records of wages or rental contracts under the pretext that they had not obtained legal licenses

all of them were kurdish citizens

2011: kurdish leader mashaal tammo was gunned down in his apartment by masked men believed to be government agents

syrian security forced fired into a crowd of 50,000 mourners at his funeral the next day – killing five people

2011: assad signed decree 49, providing citizenship for kurds who were registered as foreigners in hasaka

actual number of non-citizen kurds who obtained their national ID cards does not exceed 6,000

number of registered ‘foreigner’ kurds exceeds 300,000

in order to obtain an ID card, kurd must be interviewed by the state security – in reality interrogated and intimidated

Dateless:

syrian government continues to prevent kurds in syria from enjoying or exercising basic rights relating to their ethnic identity

newroz is banned

kurdish ethnic dress is banned

continues to use every means possible to prevent kurds from exercising their natural right to speak their mother tongue: kurdish

the kurdish language is not recognized as an official language

government also uses every way possible to prohibit kurdish citizens from speaking or conversing in kurdish including:

torture

limiting freedom of movement

issuing criminal indictments

kurds are not allowed to:

prohibited to start businesses that do not have arabic names

not permitted to build kurdish private schools

not allowed to teach kids kurdish or in kurdish

prohibited from publishing books and other materials written in kurdish

public school became a place of arabization

tight surveillance system was established in school, following the turkish example

spies were used to stop the children from speaking kurdish among themselves

children caught speaking kurdish were physically and brutally punished

kurdish students and workers are subjected to arbitrary transfer or expulsion from governmental institutes, departments, and universities/institutions under false and unjust pretenses stemming from ethnic biases

stateless kurdish citizens suffer discrimination in health care

they are denied admission in public or military hospitals

military hospitals that provide services to veterans do not provide free medical care to stateless kurdish veterans who served in the army prior to 1962

kurdish citizens are subject to discrimination regarding property ownership

kurds, both citizens and those stripped of it, are not allowed to own real estate (agricultural, houses) in some regions

they are forced to register their property in other people’s names

syrian law does not recognize the yezidi religion

yezidis are prevented from learning the basics of their religion in public schools

forces yezidis to study islamic religioin in public schools

religious courts do not apply yezidi religious rules and do not recognize them as a community

recognized religious communities are allowed by the state to follow their own religious teachings and apply their own rules in personal matters (marriage, divorce, paternity)

kurds are not allowed to resort to civil courts

this is why rojava needs to be recognized as its own state. we have suffered too much to go back to living under someone else’s rules.

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Residents return to shattered Kurdish town of Cizre in the southeastern Turkey after authorities partially lifted a curfew in place since December for a controversial military operation against Kurdish PKK militants, on March 2, 2016.

(Photos: AFP/Getty Images)