Yazidis: A Tale of a Lost, Found, and Misunderstood Legacy in the Light of Mimetic Theory

INTRODUCTION

A faint smell of rosemary permeates the room; it is a soft and soothing smell. Weaving into it is another, not as sweet but an amiable one, and a few more sniffs will reveal that it is the comforting smell of a sweating body after a long, tiring walk. Small drops of sweat sit on the broad forehead of a young male figure sitting on a bedstead, quiet except for an occasional deep and very prolonged breath that inhales decades of struggle and exhales uncountable moments of grief, tiredness, and regret. The man on the bedstead, wearing old jeans soaked in his sweat, is holding a black pen. His bare feet are neatly crossed in front of him; with a leaning hand, he unwillingly and reluctantly, but carefully, takes a note pad that lies neatly on the table.

On the top corner of the page, he writes in capitals "LIFE, LOVE, LUST" and he goes over this many times (as he does not want to write anything more about it) until these words are thick and dark. Then next to these words in less visible letters, he writes, "have at least one thing in common, DESIRE"; desire to excel in life, desire to have someone to share and desire to dominate your adversaries. It plays a role of a catalyst in making or breaking someone's life. It all started when this teenage boy was supposed to be playing with his mates without worrying about anything in life and what is happening around him, but for him it was a different story altogether. Pain in his eyes and agony on his face were the signs that he had just heard about a group of people, called Yazidis, living in the mountains of northern Iraq. The group had once dominated the entire region with their military might, but now its members were facing severe persecution at the hands of the Iraqi dictatorial regime, mainly because they were labeled as "devil worshipers." He, as a desperate teenager, tried to access the college library in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan, to know more about them, but could not find any literature on them. Upon inquiring from different people around him, he realized that they either did not know anything about Yazidis, or knew very little about them. These people were of the view that Yazidis are devil worshipers and deserve to be hanged till death.

I could not come to terms with this discriminatory and persecutory treatment of Yazidis. It was back then that I decided that I would investigate this issue in depth. In this article, I discuss their origin, the history of their faith, and the related misinformation which was propagated by their adversaries, especially Muslims. This article explains the matter in a very simple way so that the reader can better grasp their alleged connections with Islam, Sufism, and Zoroastrians and some crucial facts about their so-called sacred books.

Further, the article provides an insight into the historical background of their origin, their mimetic evolution as a community, their belief system, their social structure, and their differences from their Muslim and Christian counterparts. Using the theoretical underpinnings of Mimetic Theory, introduced by René Girard, this research digs more deeply into the reasons why Yazidis are so much hated, targeted, and persecuted in the Middle East, and suggests to the activists and researchers critical points that need to be worked on. Hopefully, a safe environment can be provided to the followers of Yazidism with a harmonious atmosphere for everyone in the region. As Roberto Farneti argues in "A Mimetic Perspective on Conflict Resolution," having an idea of perfect and satisfactory solution of a conflict is asking for too much.¹ Keeping in mind the same concept, this article, without hoping for an absolute solution, attempts to develop a deeper understanding of this conflict by using a different lens, as well as analyzing a sustainable peace-building and conflict-transformation process that can help to create a workable environment for all parties involved in Kurdistan.

The notion...