Abstract
Based on Kwame A. Appiah’s take on the moral revolution as well as on the concept of moral imagination, this chapter analyses selected Kurdish literary and cinema narratives. It shows that while the traditional honour relied on courage and faithfulness, the understanding of dignity developed by modern narratives recognises the value of life and elevates love for human life as a guiding moral principle. This process engages many traditional motives which have been updated according to the needs of modern society. The chapter also links postcolonial approaches with the recent studies on dehumanisation and suggests that reading Kurdish narratives through the lens of moral imagination can assist in overcoming the entrenched dehumanisation of the Kurds.
All the beauty you see here is only visible to those in whose souls the poet has overcome the king.
Bakhtiyar Ali (2007, 573) Unless stated otherwise all the English translations of Kurdish literature in the chapter are made by the author.
I threw my stone toward the place I heard the voice with the blindness of a hunter. While my stone was still in the air, I glanced at the spot from where I had heard the voice and I regretted what I had done. The small kitten. White. The ball of snow. I wanted my stone to become cold, to fall to the ground or return and hit my head.
Mehmet Dicle (2010, 82).
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Notes
- 1.
They were respected only within their own group of followers and not by orthodox Muslims, who often perceived the members of such sects as heretics deserving less respect than Christians and Jews.
- 2.
See Dostoyevsky’s letter to N. Strakhov (1869), after Ryszard Przybylski (1971, 398) ‘Fyodor Dostojewski’.
- 3.
Russian colonialism cannot, of course, be reduced to this pattern. Since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Russians redefined their identity many times, perceiving themselves as European, Asian or Eurasian (Schimmelpenninck van der Oye 2010). The latter proved to be fruitful, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when it became necessary to integrate other, non-Russian, groups into the Soviet State and then into the Russian Federation. The modern Russian Eurasian focus is associated with autocracy, order and paternalism, which are contrasted to the ‘irresponsible’ (Putin 2017) offer of the Western democracies. Accordingly, Russian involvement is often portrayed as preserving the local order and cultures. For example, in the English summary to her book on Kurdish khanates in Khorasan, Olga Ivanovna Zhigalina says ‘The author also highlights the difference between British and Russian colonial practices. Russia left the traditional historical usages of the Kurdish khanates intact, abstaining from interfering in the long-established macrostructure. (…) The British invasion of the Kurdish khanates of Khorasan, on the contrary, accelerated the disintegration of Kurdish tribal alliances’ (Zhigalina 2002, 246). The same approach reverberates in President Vladimir Putin’s grasp on the contemporary Russian mission. For instance, in one of his speeches, Putin (2017) criticised the engagement of ‘some countries’ in Middle Eastern affairs by indicating that their foreign model of development was unsuccessful whereas the Russian one, based on respect towards others and their cultures bears fruits and is much more propitious. This directly proposes that democracy is foreign and unattainable for many others whose culture is ‘different’.
- 4.
A good illustration of how the value of life became inscribed into the traditional religious discourse is The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) by John Paul II (1995) in which he presented the value of life as absolutely inseparable from Christianity. He quoted from the Bible, pointing to its many pieces and offering an interpretation that elevated the value of human life. However, it is hard to accept that such an interpretation of the religious texts was always inherent to Christianity, or obvious and widespread among Christians. In such a case there would have been no need to write Evangelium Vitae.
- 5.
One such example is the events after the Kurdish referendum of 2017 and the widespread Kurdish reactions to the withdrawal of the Kurdish peshmerga from Kirkuk in October 2017. This happened under the threat of overwhelming Iraqi army and Shia militia forces. Although the move was explained by the commander Cafer Sêx Mustafa as reasonable and aimed at not wasting peshmergas’ lives in an unequal fight (2017), many people called it a betrayal. Also the agreement between some representatives of PUK and the Iraqi army on which the withdrawal was based was perceived by many as ‘treason’.
- 6.
In one of the interviews on the eve of the referendum, the president of the KRI , Mesud Barzani (2017), said that ‘we [the Kurds -JB] would prefer to die of starvation than to live under the oppression and occupation of others. If this decision is made by referendum and the reaction is to isolate us, let our people die.’
- 7.
However, we should not forget the atrocities committed in Europe, especially during the World War II, which were designed not to remodel but simply to annihilate those who were not seen as proper humans.
- 8.
It is important to add that body and spirit were also separated in the Middle Eastern Sufi tradition. In the introduction to Mem and Zîn, Ehmedê Xanî insisted that spirit was united with body by force, on God’s order (2005, 120). In Rumi’s Masnavi-ye Ma’navi we read that ‘the reed-flute’s sound is fire, not human breath’ (2006, 7) and that only the ‘Beloved lives, the lover is a corpse’ (9). The motive of the soul, which frees itself from the corpse, is exposed, among others, in Farid ud-din Attar’s allegory of the birds in The Conference of the Birds or in his Elaahi-naama (The Book of God).
- 9.
Personal interview with the writer, Örebro, Sweden, April 2009.
- 10.
Personal interview with the writer, Silemani, May 2014.
- 11.
Personal interview with the writer, Istanbul, July 2017.
- 12.
Personal interview with the writer, Mardin, July 2015.
- 13.
Personal communication with the writer, email, October 2017.
- 14.
Personal interview with the writer, Sine (Sanandaj), July 2017.
- 15.
Secondary emotions such as shame, indignation and love appear later in life and are linked to the process of education. This is in contrast to primary emotions, which we share with animals. They depend on other social variables, such as the development of morality or cognitive capacities. They are considered culturally specific, and may differ between cultures. Furthermore, they are cognitive constructions, which means that they relate to internal rather than external appraisals. In other words, they rely on ‘the interpretation of the situation’, and not only on ‘the situation itself’ (Demoulin et al. 2004, 75).
- 16.
Bedlîsî does not provide any etymology of the word Kurd that would explain its origin from ‘brave’. However, it seems that the word in question is the Persian ‘gord’ (گرد), the transcription of which is very close to the word ‘Kurd’ (کرد). According to Dehkhodā’s dictionary (1341(1969), 164), the Persian ‘gord’ means height, glory, or brave, courageous, and combative. The letter گ, not existing in the Arabic alphabet, was sometimes not reflected in Persian writing either. Nevertheless, according to the phonetic rules of the Iranian languages, the initial ‘g’ cannot become ‘k’ in Persian or Kurdish and therefore it is highly unlikely that the word Kurd originated from ‘gord’, even if there were some exceptions to this rule that came into being under the influence of the script such as the New Persian word ‘keyhān’ originating from the Middle Persian ‘gēhān’ (world).
- 17.
Namely its four books devoted to the rulers of Kurdistan, whereas there is also an annalistic part on Ottoman and Safavid history.
- 18.
Based on the version I received from Prof. Calîlê Calîl from the Celîls’ family archive in Eichgraben in 2010.
- 19.
Personal interview with Estêra, July 2013.
- 20.
The story told by Estêra may be a variation of the folk tale Eşkewtî Gewerê (The Cave of Gewer), which was broadcasted by Radio Mahabad as a radio play around 40 years ago. For this information and the story I am very grateful to Prof. Jafer Sheyholislami. According to the version of the tale written on the request of Sheyholislami by Salah Payanyani, the young woman, called Gewer, a wife of the landowner, travels with her two infants to another village where her parents live. She is accompanied by a servant who brings her the news of her father’s illness so she sets out to visit him. When it starts snowing they decide to take refuge in the nearest cave. However, the servant soon reveals that he wants to rape her and threatens to kill Gewer’s elder son if she does not comply. She rejects his demands and the servant cuts the child’s head off. Then, he threatens her that he will kill her other child. Meanwhile Gewer realises that she has a knife in her pocket so she agrees to his demand thinking that at a convenient moment she can grab the knife and kill him. That’s exactly what happens. She manages to kill the servant and remains in a cave until her brother Reşid finally finds her. Gewer declares that what happened is ‘not a problem’ because her ‘conscience remained clean and the heart calm’ as befits a proper Kurdish girl.
- 21.
YPJ —Yekînêyên Parasitna Jin (Women’s Protection Units)—are a part of Rojava forces widely known as YPG .
- 22.
Women peshmerga are a part of the Kurdish peshmerga forces based in Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan, which today may represent KDP, KDP-I and PUK.
- 23.
See: Nazand Begikhani 2014. ‘Sexual Violence as a War Strategy in Iraq’.
- 24.
The examples of such culturalisation and stigmatisation are numerous. In her book Honour Killing. Stories of Men Who Killed, Ayse Onal (2008), a Turkish journalist, presented these crimes as an inseparable part of the Kurds’ backward culture. We cannot learn from this book about the Kurdish struggle to bring an end to these crimes, nor about the Turkish state’s violent policy against the Kurds, which benefits from preserving the sense of their ‘backwardness’. In his book As Strong as the Mountains. A Kurdish Cultural Journey (2007) Robert L. Brenneman presented the honour killings as an inseparable part of Kurdish culture and morality and many times confronted such values with the Western ones stressing the obvious differences.
- 25.
See, for example, the 178 chapter of Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Openings) by Ibn Arabi (1165–1241).
- 26.
- 27.
The word pêşmerge is used especially in Sorani Kurdish and literally means ‘in front of the death’, which is also an example of honouring the Kurdish people’s readiness to die for their homeland.
- 28.
The first Kurdish Kurmanji novel is considered to be Sivanê Kurd (Kurdish Shepherd) by Erebê Semo (Arab Shamilov in Russian) published in 1927 in Armenian SSR.
- 29.
Hashem Ahmadzadeh, in his article entitled ‘Magic realism in the novels of a Kurdish writer Bakhtiyar Ali’ (2011) translated the word perwane as ‘butterfly’ (291). I would, however, argue that his translation does not fit well because it hides the mystical context that the word perwane (translated as moth) contains. The Sharezoor dictionary of Sorani Kurdish translates it as ‘moth’(Qazzaz 2000) and it was the word perwane that was widely used in Persian and Kurdish classical poetry. Though the meaning of perwane may also be the ‘butterfly’, I think that the English ‘moth’ is more appropriate in the context of Bakhtiyar Ali’s novel.
- 30.
The mystical image of a Sufi or prophetic religious leader was merged with the modern artist in other Kurdish contemporary works such as the film Nîwmang (Half Moon) by Bahman Ghobadi (2006) or the novel Mîrname by Jan Dost (2008). In Ghobadi’s film we are confronted with Memo, the musician, who is called baba that is father by the members of his musical band. The word baba cannot refer to the family bonds between him and other musicians, as many of them are older than he is. It rather suggests a mystical relationship where baba or dede was often the title of a spiritual leader. Ghobadi makes this connection stronger by showing the traditional mystical brotherhood that Memo visits on his way to Iraqi Kurdistan (see Bocheńska 2013b). Mîrname by Jan Dost, the Kurdish writer from Rojava , presents the life of Ehmedê Xanî and the Kurdish classical poet is portrayed not only as a mullah or Sufi but also as a philosopher and statesman resembling the modern artist more than an inhabitant of the traditional world.
- 31.
To compare, in Labîrenta Cînan (Labirynth of Jinns, 1994) written in the Kurmanji dialect, Hesenê Metê depicted the gradual fall of an idealistic teacher, Kevanot, who dreams of changing ‘backward’ villagers. Contrary to Eşqistan’s inhabitants he is not exalted and distant from average people but becomes their close friend. The problem is that they simply do not want to change, being very attached to their lifestyle and customs. Finally, after spending some time in the village, it is Kevanot who gives up his ideas and values, starts to behave like other villagers and finally goes mad. This way, by showing the triumph of the irrational side of human nature, Metê undermined the belief in the power of reason and education.
- 32.
The role of Xendan may be compared to the role of Yadgar in Eta Nehayi’s novel Gulî Şoran (The Şoran Flower). In Gulî Şoran, the voice of Yadgar emerges at the end of the novel, bringing a new perspective to the whole story. Yadgar is the son of Las, a Kurdish revolutionist who sacrificed his life for the national struggle. In order to do so, he abandoned his wife Xanzad and their small son. After a few years, Xanzad learned that he had died. Subsequently she and his brother Ferxo entered a love relationship that ended in their marriage which was strongly condemned by Las and Ferxo’s mother, Diya Gulê, who never believed in Las’ death. She perceived Xanzad and Ferxo’s relationship as dishonourable and drove the couple from her home. After many years Las unexpectedly returned. In spite of her love towards Las, his mother displayed uneasiness and coldness towards him (12, 145). It seemed unthinkable for her that after such dishonour within her family Las would be able to stay with them. After a few days spent at home Las shared her views and left. It was, however, his son Yadgar, who decided that he need to see his father (155) and after receiving the news of his departure asked his grandmother the simple question ‘why’ (168). Determined to see his father he followed him to the village. Nevertheless, Las died before his son was able to see him. The last chapter of the novel, narrated from the point of view of Yadgar who pays attention to others, to how they feel and dither, allows us to see the tragedy of people being trapped by the cruel code of honour. Confronted with Las’ death and Yadagar’s grief we are able to see the value of Las’ life which is elevated over honour but also over the national struggle linked to it.
- 33.
I refer to both the original Sorani Kurdish text (2007) and its English translation (2016) published under the modified title ‘I stared at the night of the city’. All translations from this novel here were by Kareem Abdulrahman and come from this edition.
- 34.
The name Ghazalnus (Ġazalnus) means ‘the one who writes ghazals’ that is, the classical form of love and Sufi poetry widespread in the Muslim Middle East. Ali uses double names for many of his characters, which may be associated with the Sufi differentiation between batin (inner, hidden) and zahir (exterior, apparent) aspects of the world. In the case of Ali’s novel one of the names counts for the plot exposing its apparent elements, whereas the second name conceals a characteristic that is crucial to grasping the metaphorical meaning of the text. For instance Ghazalnus is an obvious name for the poet but one may wonder if the name Bahman does not pay tribute to the famous director from Rojhilat, Bahman Ghobadi, the master of Kurdish images. Yet, by the means of the ghazals, Ghazalnus creates powerful images, not only poetry.
- 35.
Ali uses the words xewn for dream and xeyal for imagination. Interestingly, the word xeyal has important roots in the Sufi tradition. Stepaniants (2009) discusses the term in relation to Rumi’s poetry indicating that the term alemi-xeyal, ‘the world of images’ was usually ascribed to Ibn Arabi, and Rumi borrowed it (146). According to Stepaniants, the word xeyal referred to the ability of creating images and ideas in one’s own mind but also to the individual and collective images and ideas that were not simply a product of human imagination but according to Sufis emerged from the alem-i xeyal that was independent from human mind (146–147). Such a world of images was hierarchical and spread from simple images of the earthly life towards the more sophisticated ones that were reachable to those who followed the Sufi path of spiritual development. The Sufi world of images bears resemblance to Plato’s theory of ideas or, as emphasised by Rodziewicz (2012, 219) Plato’s ‘soul of the world’ which determined the physical forms. The concept of the ideal spiritual world that emanates shaping the imperfect material one is also represented in Plotinus’ Enneads, which were partially known to the Muslim world as Theologia Aristotelis.
- 36.
Not accidentally the Baron of Imagination’s second name, Jewahir Serfiraz, consists of the words jewher and serfiraz meaning jewel and pride.
- 37.
The book was translated into English as Sinful Words and published in 2017.
- 38.
The second name applied in the novel for the Real Magellan is Zuhdi Shazaman, which is also a meaningful combination of words. It elevates this figure and his understanding of love. While Zuhdi is an Arabic name meaning ‘ascetic’ or ‘devoted to God’, Shazaman can be translated as ‘the king of our times’.
- 39.
To compare, in the 178 chapter of Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya Ibn Arabi (2010, 14) suggested that the words işq and aşiq cannot refer to God because they imply being wrapped in love or being overwhelmed by it. To him the word aşiq originates from aşaqa meaning convolvulus and is not of Quranic origin. See also: Maurice Gloton (2000), ‘The Quranic Inspirations of Ibn Arabi’s Vocabulary of Love – Etymological links and Doctrinal Development’.
- 40.
There are, however, Yezidis who do not consider this story true but rather invented by non-Yezidis under the influence of Muslim Sufi tradition where this motive was present too. According to the Yezidi concept, evil does not exist and God has no opponent, so talking about Satan loses meaning and is incompatible with the fundamental order of the world.
- 41.
The snake becomes a symbol of good in the novel Gava ku Masî Tî Dibin (When Fish Gets Thirsty) by Helîm Yûsiv. It is even one of the characters of the novel entitled to narrate the story and he directly compares itself to good (2008, 34) and love (33, 34). The novel was published in English translation in 2016.
- 42.
Korucu (or qoriçi in Kurdish) is the Turkish word that stems from the verb korumak, which means to guard/protect. The system of korucus was established by the Republic of Turkey in Kurdistan in the 1980s and its aim was to rule and divide the Kurdish society (Yildiz 2005, 17).
- 43.
See more: Bocheńska (2016b), In search of moral imagination that tells us ‘who the Kurds are’.
- 44.
For more, see Bocheńska (2014a).
- 45.
See, for example, the collection of articles Kürt Sineması Yurtsuzluk ve Ölüm edited by Müjde Arslan (2009).
- 46.
There are of course many other similar scenes in Ghobadi’s movies, portraying Kurdish characters going through the snow in the mountains. I would argue that they were an inspiration taken from both Güney’s film, which was screened in Iran in 1980 and from the local context of the Kurdish town of Bane in Iranian Kurdistan, where Ghobadi was born and where he started his career as a filmmaker. I often heard from many Kurds that the march through the snow in Güney’s film is the most impressive scene in Kurdish cinema, which means it might have had an impact on the young Ghobadi too. Nevertheless, I think that in Marooned in Iraq Ghobadi referred to this particular scene, its meaning and not only the poetics.
- 47.
In Turkish and Kurdish the Arabic word zina has the meaning of adultery. As witnessed by the author, the name Zina or Zine tends to be given to prostitutes by the Kurds.
- 48.
In contrast, the name Emine comes from emin, which is also an Arabic loanword used in both Turkish and Kurdish and having a sense of being faithful, reliable, sure about.
- 49.
The name Sayed chosen for Henare’s husband, although it sounds a bit different in Sorani Kurdish, is most probably not accidental and refers to the figure from Güney’s film, strengthening the intertextual context between both films.
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Work on this chapter was supported by the Polish National Science Centre, grant DEC-2012/05/E/HS2/03779.
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Bocheńska, J. (2018). Between Honour and Dignity: Kurdish Literary and Cinema Narratives and Their Attempt to Rethink Identity and Resistance. In: Bocheńska, J. (eds) Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93088-6_2
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