This lack of emphasis on Eastern music in general and Kurdish music in particular seemed to me a serious loss. The Kurds have an enormously rich musical tradition that differs from region to region. There are hundreds of Kurdish battle songs, love songs, children’s songs, work songs, dance songs, wedding songs, religious songs, lullabies, and epics that tell heroic legends. Various instruments are used, including long-necked lutes (saz, tambur), short-necked lutes (aud), frame drums (daf ), cylindrical drums (dehol), goblet drums (dimbek), oboes (zirna, nerme ney, balaban), flutes (shimshal, shebbabe, dudik ), zithers (qanun), whistles (pik), and spike fiddles ( kemanche, richek).
Was the institute’s emphasis on Western art an attempt to validate its program to the outside world? Ironic, if so, as the world wasn’t paying attention. Or did it have more to do with the Kurds’ traditional attitude toward musicians? For centuries, Kurds regarded musicians as chawash, or low class, and in some regions, musicians were considered to be a separate, gypsylike caste who did not intermarry with others, despite often earning a decent living.
But with or without an Eastern music program, the mere existence of a fine arts institute in war-torn Kurdistan seemed remarkable—a sign that people do, after all, need more than food and drink, shelter and work, and even freedom to survive.
As we were touring, many students came up to me, wanting to know who I was and what I thought of Kurdistan. Two especially curious young artists pulled me aside. Don’t believe everything people tell you here, they said. It is not true that we are free. The KDP controls everything, and they say we should not protest against two subjects—society and government. As artists, we must protest, it is our job, but they say, You are Kurdish; it is your national duty to make art that says only good things about the Kurds.
This was my first concrete validation that all was not precisely as it seemed in Kurdistan. As in every society, darker currents flowed beneath the shining, little-engine-that-could surface. The enormous power of the two governing Kurdish parties had already been making me nervous, as had Dr. Shawkat’s frequent phone calls, wanting to know where I was going, to whom I was talking. It is only for your own protection, you are free to do whatever you like, he always said. That was true, and I often operated without KDP—or, later, PUK—assistance, using taxicabs and independent translators. However, I was also growing slowly more aware of being loosely monitored, albeit in a friendly fashion. Dr. Shawkat, especially, seemed to regard my safety as his personal responsibility.
AS IT HAPPENED, the day of my visit to the institute was also the day of the school’s graduation play. Though I was not especially interested in attending, Amin and Sirwan talked me into it. I returned to the institute that afternoon to find it mobbed with a well-dressed crowd of students, families, city officials, and a television crew. This student production was a major event, a place to see and be seen.
The small theater was crowded with fold-up chairs, the majority filled with men in dark suits. The far fewer women in attendance sat mostly in back. Four officious men reigned by the stage, kicking off the event with a moment of silence for the martyrs.
The play began. Called Body Language, and more a work of modern dance than a play, it starred three lithe young men in tight white bodysuits. Illuminated red fish and green mountains glowed on a backdrop, while music sounding suspiciously like Philip Glass drifted out. The young men stretched their limbs, from the fetal position into birth, war, suffering, death, and beyond. I could have been viewing a student dance performance in any cultural capital in the world. And in contrast to the Western music and painting classes I’d visited that morning, the performance seemed authentic and organic, a true melding of Kurdish experience and a contemporary art form.
After the performance, Amin led me down the street to two nearby exhibition halls—the Martyr Salman Gallery, named after a slain student, and the Dohuk Gallery. The Salman was filled with allegorical paintings of the Anfal that made me cringe, but the Dohuk Gallery was more interesting, with the works of dozens of artists, ranging in style from realistic to abstract. Some were simplistic and amateurish, but others, like the dance performance, felt authentically modern Kurdish. Sirwan’s abstract, romantic landscapes—dark, with splashes of light—were there, as was Amin’s work.
But I had to specifically ask to see the latter, which Amin showed me only after we had toured the rest of the museum. Then, and with some reluctance, he led me to two small paintings on a side wall that I hadn’t noticed before.
I looked at the two appealing small dark nudes, and was struggling to find something insightful to say, when I noticed Amin staring at me, anxious and more intense than ever. Quiet and solemn, with a dark shock of hair and deep eyes, throughout the day, he had often seemed lost in his own thoughts.
“It is dangerous, but I can defend myself,” he said.
I stared, having no idea what he was talking about.
“I am willing to make the sacrifice, I have nothing to lose,” he said.
It dawned on me. In this Muslim society, this conservative city, the depiction of the nude was unusual, bold, and shocking.
“People are talking, even at the institute,” Amin said. “They say I am a lustful man. I once made a nude sculpture, and they made me cover it. But the body is art.”
AMIN AND SIRWAN had invited me to lunch. Since they lived separately, I assumed that meant going to one of their homes or the other, but when I arrived at the institute on the appointed day, I learned that the men had two lunches planned.
“First you will go to Sirwan’s home, and then come to mine,” Amin said.
“But you will eat so much at my house, you won’t be able to eat at Amin’s! My wife is an excellent cook,” said Sirwan.
“What?” I said. “I can’t eat two lunches.”
“It’s your own fault,” Amin said. “Because you say you don’t have enough time to come on different days.”
It was true. I was making frequent day trips to villages outside Dohuk and, unsure of my schedule, was hesitant to make luncheon appointments. But my friends’ double invitation, and their eagerness to host, saddened and embarrassed me. To think that so little happened in Kurdistan—aside from war and death—that my arrival was a major event. I wished I’d tried harder to visit them on different days.
Sirwan lived on an unpaved road not far from the institute. Beyond the house to one side was the White Mountain; beyond the house to another was one of Dohuk’s newest housing developments. Built along hilly roads, it held huge marble homes, both mansions and caricatures of mansions. Not quite large enough to support their architectural elements, the strange edifices sported tall spindly columns framing normal-sized doors, gingerbread eaves, and turrets with too-tiny bay windows. The homes belonged to Dohuk’s nouveau riche, who had made their money—how? Perhaps semi-legal trade?—such as the oil trade between Baath-controlled Iraq and Turkey, banned under international sanctions, but a major source of revenue for KDP Kurdistan. Or smuggling? No one could say, although everyone agreed that the homes belonged to families who’d had nothing before 1991.
Kurdistan, and especially Dohuk, also thronged with a surprisingly large number of expensive cars—BMWs and Mercedes, Land Cruisers and Jeep Cherokees. Most had arrived in the country only after 1997, when the oil-for-food agreement went into effect. Most were also refurbished seven- to ten-year-old models, purchased for $5,000 to $8,000. Still, to see so many expensive vehicles in a land of reconstructed villages, poverty, and much recent suffering was disconcerting, and it raised questions in my mind as to what exactly was happening behind closed doors.
The day of my luncheon visits was cold, wet, and miserable. I was shivering as we made our way through the muddy roads and fields surrounding Sirwan’s home. Even after reaching our destination, it took me some time to feel at ease. Though spacious, Sirwan’s house felt cold and dispirited, filled with aging furniture and faded photographs of a more prosperous era. Some depicted Sirwan’s uncle, who had served as
a minister in the Iraqi government.
“My uncle was very famous. When he died in Switzerland, Barzani shipped his body home,” said Sirwan.
I nodded, trying to be appreciative, while wondering at the way in which so many people I’d met attributed everything positive directly to Barzani—father or son—much as they attributed everything negative directly to Saddam. Do the Kurds see the world much more personally than we do in the West? And, if so, is this due to their tribal heritage, with its emphasis on the community and agha, or tribal chief? How much of the Kurds’ constant praise of the Barzanis was heartfelt, and how much pro forma?
Sirwan’s wife’s cooking was indeed outstanding—the same biryani rice, tershick, and other dishes I’d eaten elsewhere, but cooked to perfection, with unusual spices. The television was blaring throughout much of the meal, but no one seemed to notice until I brought it up, then Sirwan obligingly switched the channel to one broadcasting romantic vistas dubbed with the music of Celine Dion.
Sirwan and his family had stayed put during the 1991 uprising, when much of Dohuk had fled to Turkey, he told me over tea. His father had had a stroke and couldn’t be moved. They’d been frightened, of course, but the Dohuk citizens had done nothing to antagonize the Iraqis and so stayed safe. I would remember his words later, in Erbil and Suleimaniyah, where some complained about the conservative, placid nature of Dohuk, which had played a feeble role in the revolution, they said.
While Sirwan was talking, the front door handle moved with a jerk. I jumped. Rain was pouring around the house. We were isolated by water and mud. Who knew what could happen here? The handle jerked again, accompanied by a thump.
“What was that?” I squeaked, heart racing, imagining armed men outside.
But it was only the family cats, who had learned to jump up to the door latch when they wanted to come in. I laughed, embarrassed. I don’t know how to read this world yet, I thought.
But even many weeks later, near the end of my three months in Iraqi Kurdistan, I still didn’t feel I had a true bead on the possible danger there. And neither, it seemed, did most of the populace. A few people chilled me with dire warnings, others seemed too cavalier, while most appeared to be as uncertain as I was about where things stood. Fear has little to do with reality, I learned in Kurdistan, largely because reality is so impossible to gauge.
How does prolonged fear affect the human psyche? I was in the country for only a short period, but the Kurds had lived with the suffocating weight of often indeterminate dangers their entire lives.
AMIN ARRIVED TO take me to my second lunch. The rain had let up somewhat, and we hurried to a ramshackle car parked about a hundred yards from Sirwan’s house, where the road was still passable. Inside, his father waited.
“B’kher-hati,” he said with a chuckle as we climbed in. Shorter and rounder than his son, he was dressed in a red sweater vest, tweed jacket, and fedora, cocked at a rakish angle. A former Communist who’d once been imprisoned for throwing a drink at Saddam’s picture while drunk, he worked as a lawyer.
Driving down Dohuk’s main street, we traveled into a part of town I hadn’t seen before. Along the way, we passed various short commercial districts devoted to one product—refrigerators, TVs, carpets, sinks, couches. The buildings grew more decrepit.
“This is the poor part of Dohuk,” Amin said as we finally parked. “Where you are staying is the rich part.”
Entering a sullen apartment building, we climbed up crooked, uneven cement steps—typical of Kurdistan, where much has been built on the cheap and in a hurry—to a large but threadbare apartment. Amin’s mother, a thin, dark woman who must once have been ravishing and still was beautiful, met us at the door in a knee-length skirt and blouse, a cigarette in her hand.
Amin and I moved into the main room, furnished with carpets, a television set, and a table at which lunch had been set up for two. Apparently, the rest of the family had already eaten.
Amin’s mother glided in with various dishes, not saying a word. At first, Amin and I filled up the uncomfortable silence with idle chatter, but soon settled into what was a favorite topic among young Kurds: getting out of Kurdistan. Fed up with the region’s high unemployment, insecurity, and sorrows, coupled with exposure to the West through the Internet and TV, many Kurds under thirty wanted out. But without passports, which were issued through Baghdad, most Kurds could leave the country only through the human smuggling “mafia” run by cooperating Kurds and Turks. Everyone knew about it, and when you were ready to go, you approached it like any other job—asking around, getting recommendations.
About $3,000 bought a third-class passage by truck and boat, first to Istanbul and then on to Greece or Italy. About $5,000 bought a second-class ticket, also by bus and boat; and $7,000, a first-class ticket, via airplane, to the European country of your choice. The cheapest option was the most dangerous, of course. People sometimes suffocated in the holds of the trucks or drowned in the boats.
A few days earlier, I had met one thirty-something woman who had been smuggled out on a third-class ticket two years before in order to marry, sight unseen, the brother of a colleague living in Austria. The woman, who spoke flawless English and German, was home visiting her mother when we met, and she told me about her dangerous ride. The first leg had been easy enough, she said, but from Istanbul to Athens, she and about thirty other Kurds had been tightly packed into a two-story hold hollowed into the center of a truck. The women had been in the top section, the men in the bottom. They squatted the whole way, for twelve hours. Once in Athens, they were placed in a refrigerator truck with the same two-story arrangement, and the truck boarded a ship en route to Italy. The truck had two fans, one blowing air in, the other pulling air out, but as the ten hours of the passage ticked by, the engine grew weaker, and the fans turned slower and slower. She thought it was the end.
I shuddered at the scene. Could I be as strong as she if I were in her shoes?
Amin’s parents could perhaps afford to buy him a second-class ticket should he decide to emigrate, but he wasn’t sure yet if he really did want to leave. He didn’t know where to go or what to do when he arrived. Getting asylum in Europe was far more difficult now than it had been a few years before. The United States was out of the question: the long trip was too expensive, and visas virtually impossible to obtain.
“If I could get a good job here, I would stay,” Amin said. “But to get a good job, you must belong to the party.”
As I was learning, contacts and influence were key to success in Kurdistan, and helped to account for the schism I found between “can-do” Kurds on the one hand, and Kurds who seemed thoroughly exhausted, depressed, and without hope on the other. For Kurds with contacts, money, or education, the new Kurdistan had much to offer, as there was an enormous amount of challenging work to be done. But for the disenfranchised, as always, there was mostly hardship.
Amin and I moved on to other topics. Every week, he taught classes at the Juvenile and Women’s Prison.
For the most part, street crime was a minor problem in Kurdistan. Theft and assault were rare, and drugs, still virtually unknown—so much so that the police often didn’t recognize contraband when they saw it. The country also remained all but untouched by hepatitis and AIDS. But under Iraqi law, by which Kurdistan was still governed, children as young as eleven could be imprisoned for six months for stealing a pack of cigarettes, and women jailed for “sexual misconduct.”
One young woman in Amin’s class had been arrested at age fifteen for having sexual relations, he said. She’d gotten pregnant and gone to the hospital, where she told a doctor she wanted an abortion. But instead of helping her, the doctor reported her to the police, who placed her in jail, where she lost the baby. A Dohuk court then sentenced her to fifteen years in prison, of which she’d already served three. “It is better for her in prison,” Amin said. “If she was free, her family might kill her.”
Although I didn’t know if all the details of Amin’s story
were correct, its overall thrust was. When it comes to sex, Kurdish culture is highly traditional. Women are expected to be virgins when they marry, and pre- or extramarital sex is strictly prohibited, as is flirting and “allowing” rape. Women who break the taboos are sometimes murdered by their own families, in so-called “honor killings”—a problem in various traditional tribal areas in the Middle East and southwestern Asia, but especially prevalent in parts of Pakistan, Jordan, Palestine, and Kurdistan.
Amin himself had once been arrested, at age 16. He’d had long hair then, which had led some to accuse him of being homosexual—another Kurdish taboo. One day a guard harassed him and Amin hit him back. He’d spent ten days in prison and afterward cut his hair.
The rebel is highly prized in Kurdish society, but only if he or she rebels against an outside authority such as the Iraqi government. Rebelling against the culture itself carries a heavy price.
BAYAN AHMED, AN INTERPRETER I’d met through the Women’s Union, offered to show me around the Dohuk bazaar. A small woman in her mid-twenties, Bayan was always dressed from head to toe in dark-colored garments, with long-sleeved blouses, skirts brushing her ankles, and head scarves that revealed not a single strand of hair or inch of neck. When I’d first met her, I’d barely noticed her, as she had been one of many and had said few words. But after a few days together, spent interviewing Anfal victims in the villages surrounding Dohuk, I’d grown to greatly appreciate her eager intelligence, curiosity, open-mindedness, and streak of mischief.
A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts Page 10
