[ bollettini ]

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.

With this letter I am presenting my resignations to you. It has been a painful decision, but there are no longer the conditions for me to continue working at UK-H.

I arrived here almost two years ago thinking that I could contribute to the formation of a generation that would play a significant role in shaping democracy in Kurdistan. I have dedicated great effort in transmitting principles of legality, freedom and respect to others’ ideas and positions. I believed that our institution would provide a safe haven to cultivate academic freedom and critical thinking in a context that is still negotiating spaces of open expression. I thought this was the message that western educated academics could transmit to our students.

Things seem to have changed. Our institution is now fostering obedience rather than dialogue, silence and fear rather than healthy discussions and exchange.

As one of the spokespersons of the association of Academics for Academic Freedom, I subscribed to two principles: academics have the “unrestricted liberty to question and test received wisdom and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions” and academic institutions have no right to restrain this freedom. None of the above is currently happening at UK-H. Continuing to work for this institution would implicitly mean to subscribe to its attitudes and values, I fear I cannot do this any longer without seriously compromising my moral integrity and academic credibility.

This is what I wrote and this is what I still think, but I have decided differently. I decided to stay till the end of classes (unless the whole department would resign en masse) so that the students will not pay a higher price than they are already paying. This school promised them a different model of education from the traditional one, but the new administration is creating a situation whereby only those who keep quiet and obey have an easy life and access to opportunities. To stay would mean to be able to continue expressing dissent and showing that there really is a different way of doing things. There is something I read somewhere that keeps on coming back to mind, I can’t remember who the author is but it goes (more or less) like this: the moment you decide to resist you will begin to win. I have made of this the mantra that will support me in the coming twelve weeks.

Gulit in Kurdish means “you are a flower” and it is an expression that is used to show affection to people who are dear to you. This bulletin today is a way for me to reconcile with this country in one of the hardest times I have ever had in my life.

Overwhelmingly present in these days are the burden of a system that promises a lot and does not keep its word; of the real chance to resign within the next week leaving unaccomplished, for the first time in my life, a project I embraced with passion and dedication; the fear of the consequences I could pay if I speak my mind,

But, luckily, there is always a but. This is something I always tell my students and I always forget when it comes to my life.

This is the reason the bulletin tonight is dedicated to Kurdistan and to the fact that, for good or bad, it never ceases to surprise me.

It is dedicated to the year 2710 of the Kurdish calendar that started two days ago, on the first day of spring and that I celebrated in Akre, in the north of the country, where a procession of fire torches runs on top on the mountain to light the bonfire that commemorates Kawa, the blacksmith who killed the tyrant who used to eat children to satisfy his greed.

It is dedicated to the wonderful friends with whom I began spring and the New Year; and to the family that hosted and fed us without knowing who we were, without asking questions and without a language in common.

It is dedicated to the beauty of the mountains that always reconcile me with the world and never cease to remind me of my priorities.

It is dedicated to all the things that the harshness of this place have taught me: the importance of kindness, unconditioned hospitality and friendship.

It is dedicated to those who support me disguising their worries, in silence, so as I would not forget the privilege of my freedom.

The 16th of March 1988 at 11 am the city of Halabja in the south of Iraqi Kurdistan was attacked with chemical weapon by the Iraqi army. The operation was conceived by Saddam Hussein and conducted by Ali Hassan Al-Majid, better known since that day as Chemical Ali.

Today we have commemorated that event in Erbil. The city stopped for five minutes, the time that 22 years ago was necessary to kill almost five thousand people. With the students, the guards, the teachers, we went out on the street for five minutes of a silence that was only broken by the syrens and the mournful lamentation of the muezzin.

Saddam Hussein has been prosecuted and condemned for the execution of 48 dissidents in a village in the south of Iraq, he has been executed before the trial for genocide could be completed.