The Kin of The Mountains
Mam Qadir (on the right) with a relative.
Mam Qadir and his wife Bayan welcome us into the living room of their family, with their sons and their only remaining daughter. If Zeitun had not been killed by an Iranian mortar in 2019 she would have been 21 years old. She would have been the oldest child of the family, the big sister on whose shoulder their heads would rest in times of sorrow. The mortar took everything - the house, all the trees that they had planted with their hands in the orchard. The Iranian mortar annihilated their hope to rebuild a home in their ancestral village of Bole. The mortar took their wealth and their dreams of return.
“I would not exchange one nail of Zeitun for the wealth of the whole world”
Even though the sound of drones could be heard at all times flying over their heads, reminding them that the Turkish occupation is watching them, that at any time they might be suspected of being a PKK guerilla and drop a bomb on them; even though they knew that the Iranians were watching them and suspecting them of being KDPI Peshmargas and shoot at them with mortars and artillery at any time; they insisted on creating their haven, their way of returning to the land of their ancestors.
It takes a long time for a community to abandon the traditional ways of living, of relating, of connecting to the land, to the home and the country. Mam Qadir’s family belongs to the Bradost tribe. Almost all the families of victims that I have met with the CPT team belonged to Bradost, Herki and Surchi tribes and Balak Area, whose ancestral land stretched far beyond the artificial borders that Turkey, Iran and Iraq are still trying to impose on Zagrosian communities with genocidal violence.
But even though the local empires of Sefevids and Qajars (in Iran) and the Ottomans (in what is now Turkey), have tried to have a stable border between them, that cuts right through the traditional land of Kurdish and other Zagrosian tribes and nations, the local communities never cared about those borders. The Herki tribe continued going far beyond the Iranian border into Eastern Kurdistan until the end of 1970s. And cross-border marriages, trade, unauthorised traffic, pilgrimages to Muslim and indigenous holy sites, tribal negotiations and other community related activities still continue. It is one of the last still unoccupied areas of Kurdistan.
After several Iranian mortars hit the house of Mam Qadir and his family, killed their 17 year old daughter Zeitun, and injured their other son; they did not want to go back to that area. They have not rebuilt the house and they do not have any plans to do so.
But one day not long ago, after the insistence of several of his old friends whose nomadic encampment was in the area, Mam Qadir went there for a visit. He wanted to experience the joy of togetherness with his kin and friends. He used to enjoy hunting, and he wanted to go for a hunt with his friends. When he tells the story, he shines, and one can see a slight smile under his moustache. He went for a hunt and he killed a wild rabbit.
Bombing of Bradost in the area area inhabited by nomadic families in October 2020.
They came back to the encampment, had food, cracked jokes and drank black sweetened cups of tea made over an open fire. They all made themselves comfortable in their beds and wanted to enjoy some highland sleep under the goat-hair nomadic tents.
Someone called and said that there would be an Iranian bombardment in the next couple of days and that they needed to leave immediately. Word went around among the encampments of the area, and the total exodus of all 500 families in the area was initiated. Mam Qadir helped his friends and his kin with the move. They had to gather up everything, take down the tents, organise the animals in order to lead them down the mountains and organise the transport with all the available cars and pickups. It reminded him of the big exodus in 1991, when most of the population of Iraqi Kurdistan left their homes for the borders because of their fear of the Baathist regime forces returning. Videos were published on the internet, and anyone who saw the caravan of fleeing nomads in the early morning was shocked, horrified, reminded, and retriggered.
Mam Qadir found himself in a mosque in one of the villages outside Soran, where he lives now. “My eyes were full of dust, it was as if someone had pushed dust into my eyes with their hands” he tells us. He did the Uthu ritual in the mosque, washing the dust from his eyes and his face, washing his arms and his legs and his forehead. He did the morning prayer and called Bayan to prepare breakfast for him. But he was so tired that once he was home he could not even have breakfast - he just lay on the floor and fell asleep until 2pm.
There was no bombardment in the coming two days. But everyone knew what they fled from. One can rarely find someone in the Bradost, Herki and Surchi tribe who have not lost a friend, a cousin, a parent, kin or neighbour to the Turkish and Iranian bombardments, shelling, and drone attacks. This is how the cultural genocide against the indigenous peoples of the Zagros mountains works in its day to day activity. This is how mountains and villages of Kurdistan are depopulated and replaced by military bases and buffer zones. This is how mountains are forcibly separated from their loyal custodians and kin.
Surchi, Bradost and Herki are kin of the mountains. And kin does not forget kin. The mountains will always remember Zeitun, they will always be waiting for those five hundred families to return every summer with their animals. It is not the first time the nomadic lifestyle of the indigenous Zagorsians has been disrupted by occupation forces, and not the last time they will return, sit under their goat hair tents, drink tea, crack jokes and grill wild rabbits in warm fire embers glowing in the darkness.
Runbir Serkepkani