A night of full moon

A sky of stars and airy thoughts

A friend who turns thirty

A deep valley that has witnessed too many wars

The roof of a field hospital

The remote image of guerrillas fighting for freedom

Three journalists dream of war

A photographer hopes to explore the world

A seitar plays Persian melancholies

A feast of friendship and simplicity

The scent of grilled meat

The aroma of Arak that accompanies it

A blanket and a rug as a bed

Stars draw unexpected constellations

While the moon crossed the sky

Today is international academic freedom day. Three weeks ago I ask the permission to organise in university a debate on freedom of expression. Many of my friends here are journalists and some of them work for NGOs that support and train local press – I thus thought to set up a public debate where academic freedom could have been discussed in the broader framework of freedom of expression. I did not receive any response to my request. I then wrote a longer and more detailed request, clarifying themes and practicalities of the organisation. To this request I received a one-line, annoyed answer: the permission is not granted. I wasn’t expecting a warm support from the administration, but the bitterness of the response made me think. I felt that this was yet another lost battle of this crazy year of confrontations and tensions – the thought disheartened me and made me feel powerless.

Two days after the permission for my seminar was denied – a young Kurdish journalist was kidnapped and found dead a few days later. Nobody knows why, but everybody knows that he has written more than one word too many criticising the main ruling family.

Understood in this perspective, it seems that my little seminar went to touch an open wound. It is strange how we always need evidence to understand what we already know – the problem is obviously larger and academic freedom in our university is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg.

Hmm, bad vibe; I don’t like this sort of feeling.

I then started thinking of what I could do and a conversation I had with K. a few days before came to mind: he asked me to promise that I would watch again soon the Richard Attenborough movie on Gandhi.

And there I found the answer! Maybe I can’t discuss freedom of expression, but peaceful resistance may take different shapes and there are many ways not to feel disempowered and not to keep your mouth shut. So I organised a screening of the movie on Gandhi with my students, who know that I have been denied the permission to organise the seminar. Yesterday morning, before the screening, I saw them grinning as they became aware that you perhaps lose open confrontations, but Gandhi teaches us that there is always a way not to bend to oppressive systems of power (however big they are!)

Travelling in the back of a pick-up truck fills hair with dust and thoughts with wind. A.K. plays the tar (a little Persian guitar) while we travel and people in the cars that pass us smile and wave. A musician and a foreigner in the back of a pick-up truck are not too common a combination around here.

And off we go, south east, along the Iranian border, to Barzinja. It looks like a cluster of anonymous houses rather than a village: a football pitch, a big mosque, empty fields and nothing more. This is our destination. We are here for the yearly festival of the Kasnazani Order of the Sufi Qadiya sect founded in the 11^th century. The members of the sect belong to the Barzinji tribe and live between Iraq and Iran and all gather in this occasion.

It is long since I have been fascinated with dervishes and Sufi spirituality. My first direct experience of their celebrations has been a night of many years ago in Lahore, when the exotic image of the swirling dervish in a white dress and a halo of purity and sanctity has been substituted in my mind with a more material form of mysticism: of sweat and earth rather than incense and Spirit. The encounter with Kurdish dervishes has been similar and also as intense.

Celebrations take place in the football pitch. There is a shade to protect the Sheikh and the elders from the sun. At the centre of the pitch there are the drum players, the participants to the ritual and the spectators. I am with my friends of the Metrography photo-agency; they tell me to cover my head and follow them. Every head turns to look at me – I am the only woman on the celebration ground. I look up: women and children are outside; they stand on the hill by the pitch – I get out and join them. The drum beat gets faster; the dervishes follow the rhythm with their bodies: they frantically bob their busts, heads and long hair until they reach a kind of trance. Two women, a young and an old one, sit cross-legged at the side of the road and follow the music shaking their bodies – they seem lost in a parallel world; other women come to assist them to make sure that their head doesn’t get uncovered.

The Kasnazani order is one of those that practices self-flagellation as a way to achieve mystical ecstasy. The music grows faster, the dervishes who tool part to the ritual stand in a circle, the circle grows larger and a young red haired man reaches the centre. It is Khalid Konapowsi, a 25 year old dervish from Iran. He is the core of the whole ritual. Once at the centre of the circle, one of the elders hands him a sword, the other dervishes step back to give him space. Following the sound of the drums, Khalid starts hitting his back more and more violently as the music gets faster. The crowd is mesmerised and I am with them – nobody manages to take their eyes away from Khalid’s back. There is no blood. Khalid goes back to join the other men, his body moving in harmony with the others. One of the elders calls him again to the centre. This time he holds a skewer in his hand. Khalid kneels down to allow the old man to pierce his tongue with the skewer. People hold their breath. There is no noise but the wind and the drums. There is no blood.

And so the ritual ends and the crowd moves away to join their families for the picnic.

I am speechless, the sound of the drums is still in my ears. In the mosque nearby there is the tomb of the founder of the order, here I get to meet Khalid face to face – he looks like a boy and has an ecstatic smile, there is no trace of pain on his face.