The darkness in light impressions: Kurdish character sketches

International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Jan, 2002 by Vera Beaudin Saeedpour

Over time an accumulation of words attaches to events and to people, melding into a kind of stereotype. The composite is a shorthand that simplifies and summarizes the complex and imposes something resembling order on life's pristine chaos. And that's good. But in the process, information that might give us a fuller picture tends to be neglected, distorted or buried. And that's bad.

Something along these lines attached to Kurds over centuries past. It took hold in the spoken and written words of the missionary, the military, the scholar and the sojourner. It developed throughout the 19th and lingered through most of the 20th century, only to be abruptly replaced by another stereotype in the wake of the Gulf War. The old image depicted Kurds as predators, the new as victims. This paper is devoted to the writings that drew the dark side. Sections revealing motivations and sentiments likely to have influenced the author's impressions precede the descriptions in italics.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARIES

1840

Rev. Horatio Southgate

It may not be amiss to state here, in few words, my impression with regard to the practicability of missionary effort among them. Were there any to go to them, with the spirit of the Apostles, abandoning, for Christ's sake, every thing on earth, and unrestrained by family ties, they might be instrumental in planting among those wild mountains the standard of the cross. Multitudes of this people, residing in villages, might also be reached by missionaries in the large cities. There is no part of Kurdistan where they can be approached so nearly as on this route, none, at least, where they also retain, as here, their distinctive character and habits. In the case of a mission established in the cities, the best means of approaching them would be through the Christians; the work would, in that case, naturally extend itself to the settled Kurds, dwelling, in many instances, in the same villages with the Armenians ... A missionary family could reside in Moush, or in Van. The numerous villages in the vicinity of the former place would render it a very important centre.

The chief benefits of these missions, however, would be confined to the Christians, and, doubtless, there are not three other places in the whole of ancient Armenia, which present such advantages for missionary labour among the Armenians, as Moush, Bitlis, and Van. The effect of such a mission upon the Kurds would be slower and later. If they are to be reached immediately and effectually, it must be by a more simple, indeed, but a more self-denying kind of labour. They must be visited as heathen men were visited in the times of the Apostles, by devoted soldiers of the Cross throwing themselves among them at such hazards as only a primitive faith can endure to contemplate ... However this may be, we know that the grand scope of the commission given to the ministry of the Church must, if the Church itself is unchanged, of necessity, embrace now the same design which it embraced at first--'all the world and every creature.' We know too that the first ministers of Christ, whose example, in this respect, must be regarded as a practical avowal of the understanding which they put upon the commission under which they acted, we know, I say, that they carried the tidings of salvation through Christ, to men as barbarous as now inhabit the fastnesses of Kurdistan, and at the cost of as great sufferings as the bearers of the same tidings to the Kurds would be called to endure. (1)

"The Kurds have no literature, nor is their language a written tongue. It is, I believe, cognate with the Persian ... A few books of poetry in their own tongue, but written in the Arabic character, compose all their literature of which I have any knowledge. As a people, however, I believe them to be superior to any other in the East. Living between the Turks and the Persians, they are neither sullen and heavy, like the former, nor soft and guileful, like the latter. The ferocious and degraded race who wander from place to place among the mountains, the settled Kurds do not acknowledge as belonging to themselves. The latter are generally of a different stamp. Their openness, manly independence, frank and generous feelings, and their liveliness and quickness of mind, will present nothing hostile to the reception of Christianity, and indicate, moreover, that when subdued by it, they must become, indeed, a noble and peculiar people. (2)

"The character of the mountain Kurds, according to all the information which I could gather concerning them, was agreeable with my own impressions. Their life is simple and pastoral. In the towns they profess themselves Mussulmans, but in the mountains they live without religion. Feuds and quarrels are frequent among them, and often end in bloodshed. Mutual confidence is almost unknown, and they always wear their arms for fear of each other. It is from them alone that the danger of travelling in these parts arises. Yet they are not a brave people, nor have they any of the high and manly qualities I have observed in other Kurds. Their robberies are dastardly affairs. They seldom attack armed travellers, except in very superior numbers. They assault, more commonly, peaceful caravans, or defenceless villages. All the villages from Erzroum to Bitlis, and from Van to Salmas, are more or less exposed to them. They are generally looked upon by the inhabitants of the cities with great aversion." (3)