It’s time to accept that religious conservatism is a major problem in Kurdistan
The Hall of Shame
If you live in Kurdistan, you have probably seen this news headline countless times:
“A woman, [insert age], killed by [insert family member] in [insert village or town name] after [insert reason never worth taking a life for].”
Sadly, so-called “honor” killings are still commonplace in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a region considered by many to be a buffering beacon of liberalism between the Islamic Republic of Iran, the de-facto neo-Ottoman Islamic republic of Turkey, Iran-controlled federal Iraq, war-torn Syria and at one point, the Islamic State (ISIL). Four cases of honor killing were reported in April 2021 alone, but the real number is probably higher. And every single time, the same excuses were given for the crime, the most common of which is a euphemistic term used mainly by the police: “social issues”.
Feminists in the region have pointed to patriarchal norms as the main source of the problem, while others point to the lack of institutional support for women and the presence of a system that favors men. Of course, this includes the education system, which is already flawed in so many other aspects. These are all legitimate reasons, but what is the main source? Activism has amped up in recent years through government initiatives, NGOs and other institutions, but none of them have directly addressed the crux of the matter. Are we really not going to address the elephant in the room? How long until it is no longer controversial to mention it? The answer is both the reason why we continue seeing honor-based crimes and why we cannot have an open discussion about what drives them: religion.
Why is it that cases of “honor” killings and violence against women happen mostly in Muslim-dominated countries or within Muslim communities in Western countries? In the United States, over 20 cases of honor-based femicides occur each year. Almost all of them have been committed by members of a Muslim family. Say what you will, but you cannot say there is no Islamic influence involved.
Sure, Kurdish society is highly patriarchal and has believed in large parts that women should be subservient to men, but this is a direct result of religious teachings that emphasize on the superiority of men and have even permitted polygamy for men up to four wives — teachings that have been ingrained into our societies generation after generation for over 1,400 years. Why are we surprised then that women are treated as a plaything that could be discarded at will, and as the burden holders of this thing called “honor”?
I am still waiting to hear from proponents of religion as to why women in Muslim-majority countries continue to suffer much more compared to their Western counterparts. If the answer is not related to strong religious influence (either on law or social values), then I will be interested in hearing how they explain it away.
Dancing with the Devil
Public outrage is normally an incident worth paying attention to, and one would expect them to be on legitimate grounds, because if so many people are angry about something, then surely they have good reason to be? Alas, when you live in the Middle East, the nature of outrage is so laughable that I almost feel embarrassed to mention a recent example.
Friday, the 23rd of April 2021, a day that will live in infamy…at least for the conservative constituents of Kurdish society. A couple hanging out on the crowded Salim street decided on the spot to dance beside a coffee stand, with dozens watching on — some even applauding the display. The video was uploaded on social media, and local news channels, for the obvious reason of sparking debates and engagements on their platforms, picked up the story and shared the video as well. And then, lo and behold, up flared the dumpster fire that is the comment section.
If there were any doubts that Kurdish society is still highly conservative, the comment sections related to this dance video may have just crushed them. The shaming, the insults, the disgust expressed toward what was meant to be a harmless act were so palpable that the comments may as well have been a cacophony of screeching audio messages. For the more “liberal” sides of the argument, it wasn’t so much the dance itself that offended the people as the timing of it — it took place during the month of Ramadan. This argument may be self-defeating, because once again this implies that dancing, especially between people of opposite sexes, is still a wrongful act, but may be tolerated in normal times.
The primary source of rage, however, came from a religious standpoint, which was merely exacerbated by the timing of the dance. This act was offensive to the majority Muslim population of Kurdistan, and is said to be prohibited in Islam. In fact, any public act of affection or mixing between the two sexes (especially if unmarried) is regarded to be immoral and “corrupting” to society. At the very best, it is dismissed as negative influence from the west. Yes, this is what the majority of people want. A strict set of rules that everyone must abide by to repress the very things that bring joy. According to this society, our individual desires are not important because what you want will corrupt society and traditional values. This is where we are still at. Unsurprisingly, the voices of freedom in the comment section were drowned out by the purity culture mob trying to hold on to that one thing that they believe to be their upper hand in their imagined struggle against Western civilization: their religious values.
This fiasco reveals a dichotomy in this society. Many people who fast here are not necessarily “pure” and devout in their beliefs, and spend 11 months out of the year living what religion may label as a “sinful” life — drinking alcohol, interacting with the opposite sex (sometimes intimately), listening to music, not praying five times a day, and many other joys of life. But when Ramadan arrives, all of that is seemingly thrown out of the window for a 30-day period of “spiritual cleansing”. People stop drinking alcohol, fasting suddenly becomes “cool”, prayers are back on the schedule, and countless women put on head scarves (or hijabs). And all that is left is a fascinating sight of hypocrisy on a staggering scale. I wish we had polls that reveal how far this level of hypocrisy reaches, but for now an ample supply of news reports and anecdotal evidence should do.
But the peace I feel when the streets empty around 7 pm (the time when adherents break their fast) does not compensate for the suppression of personal liberties in the name of respect for religion. Nobody, Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist or otherwise, should tolerate being told what to do or not to do because of others’ religious beliefs (or indeed, lack of them). I may never want to dance in public, but I should not get in trouble should I attempt a moonwalk on Salim Street or a salsa with an unimpressed woman. Indeed, some, including civil servants and parliament members, have called for severe punishment of the dancing couple because they have “ insulted religion and morals”. To round off the pettiness of the outraged mob, on the very next day, a group of Islamic Studies students prayed on the spot where the couple had danced. To me, this act of protest against individual expression and what it is to be human was a chilling reminder that even the authoritarian duopoly of the two main political parties have not diminished religious hegemony on social values.
What now?
I do not claim to have a concrete solution to this sinister state of affairs, but I can confidently point at the source of the problem without deflecting my finger. I will be blunt about it: society will not progress as long as religious influence on education, law and social norms remains as it is now. Both conservatives and liberals in Kurdistan have perpetuated this situation, as both sides have deemed religion to be above scrutiny, choosing instead to blame “bad humans” rather than bad ideas. How about we ensure bad ideas do not breed bad humans in the first place?
