Comments

  3. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I’m completely unapologetic about my eyes getting a bit watery after seeing this photo.

  5. tbtabby says

    A jeepload of Kurds has done more with one photo to inspire people than the Shrub Administration could with ten years of blundering into the region and blowing everything up.

  7. Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia says

    Fuck, something got in my eye…
    That’s an absolutely beautiful picture :)

  10. says

    I wouldn’t call the picture inspiring. I’m sure the woman is happy to be leaving the clutches of a fanatical Sunni religious group, but if she is indeed a Kurd then she was born into the clutches of a slightly less fanatic Sunni religious group.

    Full disclosure – part of me loves the Kurds. I lived among them for 9 months, ate with them, laughed with them, celebrated Nowruz with them. But with respect to their treatment of women, the Kurds of northern Kirkuk province were only slightly less horrific than what I’ve read of ISIS.

    Quick story. I was visiting a local police chief one day and during the course of our conversation I asked him if anything had happened in his area since I last saw him. He said yes, as a matter of fact, they had found a dead body in a shed on a farm nearby. He then explained to me that he thought it was an honour killing – the deceased was a woman who had recently tried, and failed, to divorce her husband. The police chief told me that he thought the woman’s father and uncle had driven her to the farmhouse – with her children, there were still kids toys on the ground around her lifeless body, I saw the pictures – and riddled her with bullets. A dozen, more or less.

    Shocked, I asked if he had talked to the father, and he said that he hadn’t but he could do so right away. He then summoned the father from a holding cell nearby – he hadn’t mentioned that he had the father in custody – and proceeded to interrogate him in front of me. The father denied shooting his daughter, but the police chief wasn’t convinced.

    I asked my linguist after this exchange what would have happened if the father had admitting to shooting his daughter. “Nothing,” he replied, “that’s not against the law.”

    On my first visit to a different Kurdish village I asked the police chief to explain to me, in general terms, what kind of criminal cases he normally deals with. He responded by producing a three ring binder with dozens of pictures of murder victims – 80% of them were women. None of the cases were solved.

    The Kurds have a genuine love for Americans – I knew I was never in any danger when I was in Kurdish territory. And some larger cities like Erbil and Sulaymanea are more westernised than their rural counterparts.

    But make no mistake, the difference between Kurds and ISIS is one of degree, not of kind. The woman in the picture may be free to wear that brightly coloured dress, but many of her sisters in Kurdish lands aren’t. I have no doubt that her shackles are almost as onerous as the ones on her sisters in lands controlled by ISIS.

  12. says

    Tom Weiss:

    The Kurds have a genuine love for Americans

    Which is utterly fucking irrelevant.

    The woman in the picture may be free to wear that brightly coloured dress, but many of her sisters in Kurdish lands aren’t.

    Let’s hear it for this version of Dear Muslima, that one woman might be joyously happy, and she might be incredibly inspiring, and why, she might even be helping many other people, but we must piss all over this, because it isn’t applicable to all women.

    I wouldn’t call the picture inspiring.

    Perhaps you should contain your moronic trolling attempts to your so far unsuccessful “I don’t know what this is about, but I’m sure you’re wrong, can someone fill me in” forays.

  14. Saad says

    Tom Weiss, #10

    It’s a single photograph with powerful imagery and people are appreciating that. Nobody is saying misogyny has ended.

    You wouldn’t look at an old black and white photo of a civil rights activist leaving prison and say, “Not inspiring. I bet her life isn’t going to be much better.”

    Good things can occur in overall bad situations.

  15. David Marjanović says

    a slightly less fanatic Sunni religious group

    Not “slightly”. There’s a lot of space between the IS and still being fanatic.

    Consider, for example, the attitudes to the Yezidi religion and its adherents. The IS is like “LOCATION – EARTH – DEVIL WORSHIPPERS DETECTED – EXTERMINATE – EXTERMINATE – EXTERMINATE – EXTERMINATE!!!!”; Sunni Kurds have instead defended them in battle and rescued many.

    But with respect to their treatment of women, the Kurds of northern Kirkuk province were only slightly less horrific than what I’ve read of ISIS.

    I think attitudes have begun to change, what with all those women who successfully fight the IS with machine guns.

    moronic trolling attempts

    I really don’t think that’s trolling.

  16. says

    I’m going to be honest. I’m in tears. That doesn’t happen often for me (except for music sometimes). Makes it easier to be a useless white guy in a moderately free country, where only nuns have to wear that kind of garb…

  17. says

    @12 “she might even be helping many other people, but we must piss all over this, because it isn’t applicable to all women.”

    Pardon me for not understanding your rudeness. Is there something about my experiences with which you disagree? Have you had experiences with Kurds which contradict the points I’m making?

    My point is that the picture may look joyful, but that woman is going from the frying pan into a slightly less hot frying pan. I suppose that’s some cause for joy, but it is not anything to write home about.

    And also forgive me for assuming that my experiences living among the people depicted in the picture would be relevant to a blog post about that picture. I am new and haven’t quite learned the protocol here.

  18. rq says

    Tom Weiss @10
    Sure, misogyny isn’t dead yet, but *gasp* the Kurds are letting women fight alongside men, and they seem rather proud of this fact! (There’s also this VICE article which work computer for some odd reason lists as ‘Entertainment’ and thus won’t load for me.) Even Al-Jazeera also has a very informative point of view. So yeah, Kurds in some places are still misogynistic, patriarchal, and mired in generations of all kinds of horrible traditions. But you know what? They also offer other options to women, ones that cannot, in any sense, be matched by ISIS or similar.
    So fuck you and your joykilling, this woman has every right to be joyful, and we have every right to be joyful on her behalf, and to call the picture inspiring. Will she necessarily have a better future? No, but she has a much better chance at one. And she is showing others that it can happen and that it can be done. Joyfully.
    She represents far more than just the Kurds. And may her future be bright and free of abuse and follow only the paths that she chooses for herself.

  19. rq says

    Tom Weiss @17
    You did not live among all the Kurds. You lived among one particular group of Kurds. And you have no idea with which group she is posing in the back of that truck. Your anecdote is barely even a data point on the graph.

  21. says

    @15 David – valid point about the Yezidi. I suspect that is a cultural phenomenon more than a religious one. The Kurds have such a deep suspicion – if not hatred – of Arabs, both Sunni and Shia, that I suspect they feel a kinship with other persecuted minority groups like the Yezidi. Kurds in Kirkuk had a similar relationship with ethnic Turks in the city. Those two groups were able to work together but bringing Arabs into the mix was problematic.

    The other point I wanted to make but didn’t was this: what divides Kurds and ISIS is not religion but ethnicity. Kurds may not agree with the methods ISIS uses, but they’re sympathetic to the religious doctrine ISIS employs (minus the bit about not smoking, the Kurds I know would have none of that). Commenter #4 here used the word “freedom” – something that for that woman is decidedly not true.

  22. says

    @19 rq – you’re right. I lived and worked only with the Kurds in Kirkuk province in northern Iraq. I’m pretty sure I pointed that out in my initial comment. Where in Kurdistan have you lived, btw?

    I am only one data point, barely a blip!, and you can accept or reject my anecdotal evidence, that is your prerogative. I am simply reporting a small portion of what I witnessed during my time there.

  23. rq says

    Tom Weiss
    Yes, but you’re acting like it’s the only valid opinion in interpreting that photo in the OP, simply because you’ve lived with some Kurds, and you have no idea whether the Kurds in the picture (or even the Kurds with whom the woman claims affiliation) are the same. That’s all.

    I am simply reporting a small portion of what I witnessed during my time there.

    That’s great. Why should your one experience invalidate all the other possible experiences out there, esp. since we don’t even know where that woman will end up and what will happen to her? Should we not be happy for her, in this one moment of – yes! – freedom?

  25. Marc Abian says

    I am simultaneously cheered by the very striking picture and educated by Tom’s comments.

  26. David Marjanović says

    @15 David – valid point about the Yezidi. I suspect that is a cultural phenomenon more than a religious one. The Kurds have such a deep suspicion – if not hatred – of Arabs, both Sunni and Shia, that I suspect they feel a kinship with other persecuted minority groups like the Yezidi. Kurds in Kirkuk had a similar relationship with ethnic Turks in the city. Those two groups were able to work together but bringing Arabs into the mix was problematic.

    Well, yes; doesn’t that rather trounce most of your point?

    The other point I wanted to make but didn’t was this: what divides Kurds and ISIS is not religion but ethnicity. Kurds may not agree with the methods ISIS uses, but they’re sympathetic to the religious doctrine ISIS employs (minus the bit about not smoking, the Kurds I know would have none of that).

    Sure, they’re all Sunni Muslims. But that’s a wide span, like the one between the average conservative-voting Spaniard and Mel Gibson (all Catholic).

    You remind me of the people who keep saying there’s no real difference between Democrats and Republicans…

  27. David Marjanović says

    Oops. Italics unintentional; habit carried over from another blog.

  28. says

    David – that the Kurds and ISIS treat Yezidi differently doesn’t “trounce my point”. My point is not that ISIS and the Kurds are twins or even siblings, but that they are cousins. The woman in the picture is escaping one horrific place and trading it for another. Aside from hand-waving about a wide span in the Sunni Muslim religion, you’ve offered nothing to suggest Kurds are on the far side of that span from ISIS. I’m telling you, from my personal experience, that they’re closer to ISIS than many want to believe. The link Terska posted hits the nail on the head and confirms that what I experienced hasn’t stopped occurring in the years since I left (I can’t quantitatively say if it’s gotten better or worse).

    You may be falling into the trap of thinking that ISIS is grotesquely perverting the Sunni religion. Read Graeme Wood’s piece in The Atlantic from a month or so ago. If they’re perverting the religion, it’s not by a whole lot. Here’s the key sentence: “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid,” Bernard Haykel says.”

    RQ – the woman in the picture, even after escaping ISIS, is not “free” in any western sense of the word. She is the slave of a different, slightly more benevolent, master.

  29. Saad says

    Tom Weiss, #28

    You’re most likely correct about the out of the fire, into the frying pan part.

    But nobody was really saying she’s now in control of her own person and her own life. Even PZ’s original post makes no such claims or even hints at such an idea. It was just about a spontaneous photo of a woman removing the full body veil. That you decided to make a long post telling us that her life is still fucked (I bet you many of us already know that) is what I find a little annoying and derailing.

  32. David Marjanović says

    I’m telling you, from my personal experience, that they’re closer to ISIS than many want to believe.

    I know that. I agree that that’s the case. Still, the IS is so much worse that escaping it is a big net plus.

    You may be falling into the trap of thinking that ISIS is grotesquely perverting the Sunni religion.

    Neither do I think so, nor is that at all relevant to my argument.

    Read Graeme Wood’s piece in The Atlantic from a month or so ago.

    I have :-)