ANKARA: Tiny ethnic minority disputes `common’ error

Tiny ethnic minority disputes `common’ error
VERCÄ°HAN ZÄ°FLÄ°OÄ=9ELU
YEREVAN – HÃ¼rriyet Daily News
Sunday, October 4, 2009

The world knows them as the `Yazidis,’ but this tiny ethnic minority
disputes the common misconception and calls themselves the `Ezidis.’
`The whole of the Muslim world, Turks foremost, call us the
`Yazidis,’ which means devil worshipper. But we, the Ezidis, worship
the sun,’ said Pir Razmi Siyabend Rashoyan, the religious leader of the
three Ezidi villages in Armenia.
According to Rashoyan, the Muslim world is prejudiced against the
Ezidis because of their line of descent. `They call us the Yazidis
because we came from the bloodline of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid bin
Muawiyah, who killed Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet
Mohammed in Kerbala,’ he said.
Ezidis make up an important Iraqi minority community. Estimates of
the size of the Iraqi communities vary significantly, between 70,000
and 500,000. They are primarily Kurdish speaking, and most live in the
Mosul region of northern Iraq. There are traditional communities in
Georgia, Turkey and Syria, but these have declined since the 1990s with
some of their members migrating to Europe, especially to Germany.
Some scholars have derived the name Yazidi from the Old Iranic
`yazata,’ or divine being, while others say it is a derivation from
Umayyad Caliph Yazid, revered by the Ezidis as an incarnation of the
divine figure Sultan Ezi.
Despite the migration trend in other countries, Armenia has a more
stable Ezidi community, accounting for about 40,000 people, and they do
not see themselves as a minority in Armenia. The Ezidis in Armenia
mostly live in the villages of Talin, Barozh and Hogdemperyan, which
are 300 kilometers away from the capital, Yerevan.
Due to their village lives, the Ezidis experience chronic water and
gas problems. Aziz Tamoyan, the leader of the Ezidi people in Armenia,
said the lack of water was felt most during the winter. `Taking a bath
is a luxury for the villagers,’ Tamoyan said. `They try to survive in
the wintertime by melting ice to get fresh water.’
Anna Mistoyan, a resident of Talin, which is few meters away from
the Turkish border, said: `There is neither water nor gas. It is
torture to live here. During the winter, we cannot even get the amount
of water that we get in summer. There is no gas, so we cannot get warm.’
The village’s primary school is poorly cared for and dilapidated.
Kinarik Sivazian, one of the longest tenured teachers in the school,
said the building desperately needed reconstruction.
`It is almost impossible to study in here during the winter,’
Sivazian said. But Garush Hiroshoyan seemed more optimistic about the
situation in the village. `I am 90 years old. My father and mother came
here after fleeing from Turkey,’ Hiroshoyan said. `Yes, we do not have
water and gas, but we have peace in this country.’
Tamoyan said the Ezidis in Armenia fled Anatolia during the late
days of the Ottoman Empire and suggested that they had also suffered
during the 1915 killings of Armenians. `My people got their share from
the Armenian genocide in 1915,’ Tamoyan said. `After those days, some
Ezidis came to Armenia, and some of them migrated to various countries
across the world. Although our roots were in Anatolia, the Ezidi
population there is almost none at the moment.’
Recent normalization talks between Yerevan and Ankara have been
facing various woes and opposition from many sides, but the Ezidis have
their own reasons. They do not hesitate to voice their opposition
against the negotiations and openly confessed that they still have some
bias against not only Turks but also the Kurdish population in
southeastern Turkey. The Ezidis said they were fearful that they would
encounter problems if the border between Armenia and Turkey were opened.
Tamoyan said they were happy to live in Armenia: =80=9CWe see ourselves
as a part of the Armenian society and totally do not feel like a
minority. We can get education in our mother tongue, so we do not have
any difficulties at all.’