Between ISIS and the state: Religious minorities in Iraq

The rise of ISIS since 2013 has heavily impacted religious minorities across Iraq and Syria. ISIS’s rapid spread across Northern Iraq in the summer of 2014 resulted in the displacement of over 800,000 people, of which a majority identified as members of religious minorities. ISIS also kidnapped over 6,000 Yazidi women, amongst others, during their violent campaign on the Ninewa Plains.

To further discuss these atrocities and the complexity of these issues the Council on Middle East Studies (CMES) at the MacMillan Center hosted a panel on November 13 titled, “Between ISIS and the State: Religious Minorities in Iraq.” The panel was convened by Professor Naysan Adlparvar, a Rice Faculty Fellow at CMES. Panelists included Professor Orit Bashkin, a historian in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department at the University of Chicago and Associate Professor Sebastian Maisel, a Middle East Studies scholar at Grand Valley State University. The panel delved into the contemporary challenges facing religious minorities by discussing political representation, corruption, legal responses, land disputes, and historical migratory patterns.

Providing introductory comments, Professor Adlparvar noted that the goal of the panel was to unpack the current situation and to “move beyond only a focus on ISIS.” While acknowledging the atrocities experienced by Yazidis, he urged the audience to, “look at other factors, particularly in this case, government policies, which have contributed to the marginalization of religious communities.” Moreover, Professor Adlparvar promoted analysis incorporating “the long history of marginalization in Iraq.”

To further this point, Professor Adlparvar went into detail about the makeup of different religious minority groups in Iraq and the different forms of discrimination they face. While Professor Bashkin and Professor Maisel’s research focused mainly on Jews and Yazidis, Professor Adlparvar noted the presence of other minority groups such as, Christians, Kaka’i, Sabian Mandaeans, and Baha’i. He highlighted, for example, that members of the Baha’i Faith have been discriminated against in legislation. Law 105/1970, which was enacted under the Saddam Hussein regime, still prohibits Baha’i religious activities today.

Transitioning to the historical migration of Iraqi Jews to Israel and their relations with Arab neighbors, Professor Bashkin discussed notions of Iraqi nationalism and Jewish identity. She began by discussing the stereotypes and racialization of Jewish populations in 1942, where Yemenites complained that the Jews were “thieves and murderers” and “were terrorizing them.” Professor Bashkin made the distinction that “the Kurdish Jews were not considered as Jewish. They were referred to as Kurds.” She continued to develop her analysis stating, “the word ‘Kurd’ denoted ‘Muslim’ and it is infused with racial stereotypes,” showing the development of anti-Jewish sentiment and Kurdish disavowal.

Later in her presentation, Professor Bashkin shifted to focus on Iraqi nationalism and the development of these sentiments in the public arena: “Iraq, at least in the first part of the 20th century, emerged as a state in which some minorities felt that the national project could somehow protect them in some ways and was tolerable, if not ideal.” She emphasized the importance of the rise of migration to Baghdad since it led to the eruption of print culture and urban schools that “cemented the relationship between these communities.” She cited examples such as, “Shi’a intellectuals were writing about topics that were very relevant to Sunni intellectuals,” and that “Jews were quoting Muslim writers and poets,” illustrating the collaboration and intellectual exchange between these different groups, in contrast to present day relations. After further discussing historical migratory patterns and political relations between Jews and other religious groups, Professor Bashkin concluded her presentation with a question pondering, “whether the threat of ISIS can actually generate some shared front, or as we have seen, would it actually encourage more and more splits until the structure of the state becomes irrelevant?”

Professor Maisel began his talk by starting with important background information on the Yazidi community. He noted that the Yazidis “have always been ostracized by other groups” and that the they “are simply outside of the existing legal framework.” This situation illuminates how Yazidis form insular communities that reside in geographically remote areas, and typically, isolate themselves from society by, for example, not partaking in the public-school system. Professor Maisel implied that this is a coping strategy that has emerged from a history of oppression and mistrust.

He also noted that Yazidis are socially stigmatized due to stereotypes surrounding their faith and general misunderstandings of their practices, with the most popular misconception being that Yazidis are “devil worshippers or infidels.” Professor Maisel went on to share the Yazidi belief that they “have suffered 72 massacres” in their history, not including the most recent genocide that occurred in the Sinjar Mountains at the hands of ISIS in 2014. Building on this, Professor Maisel went on to note that the withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga forces from their posts in the Sinjar Mountains, in the summer of 2014 during the rise of ISIS, left Yazidis with no protection. He explained that this has been perceived as abandonment by the Yazidi community and had severely impacted their worldview. Their self-identification as ethnic Kurds is now being contested from within their own community.

In the Q&A section, most discussion centered on the situation of the Yazidi community, and more generally how the community is perceived. Referencing Professor Maisel’s comment that the Yazidi community partakes in “a self-inflicted isolation” and have “always lived segregated from other groups,” a member of the audience asked, “who does this approach benefit?” To which Professor Maisel replied that the Yazidi “community at large” benefited: “If they were not isolated they would probably have assimilated and been forcefully integrated into mainstream Muslim society.” He expanded saying, “we saw this happen in Syria, where over the past 200 years the Islamization of traditional Yazidi communities has occurred.” Professor Bashkin reflected on this point, suggesting that their isolation might have led to further challenges for the community. She added that, “Yazidis might have missed out on potential avenues that could have allowed them to improve their image. This kind of isolation in some ways may have helped cement negative stereotypes.”

As part of the Q&A discussion, Professor Maisel added, “Ninety percent of Yazidis are layman and ten percent are clerics. This is a very strict system of separation along caste lines. For example, a layman cannot marry into the cleric caste”. He added, “within the cleric caste there are two subgroups” of which members must marry within the subgroup into which they are born. He noted that this main tenant of Yazidism “helps to cement authority and legitimacy.” Professor Adlparvar noted that this social structure is being tested due to the “recent decimation faced by the Yazidi community from ISIS, and by rising numbers of young Yazidis seeking education.”

Overall, the panel indicates there has been a notable shift in religious tolerance in Iraq since the 1920s due, amongst other reasons, to the rise of Arab nationalism and the growing Islamization of Iraqi state and society. This is best exemplified in the mass exodus of the Jewish community in the 1950s. Sadly, it was noted that despite the progressive nature of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution, current government policies are mostly ineffective and fail to fully protect religious minorities, such as the Yazidis. Notwithstanding the violence of ISIS, Iraqi religious minorities face serious challenges with regard to preserving their identity, experiencing stability, and fully participating in government service provision and political processes.

Written by Amanda Taheri, Branford College, Class of 2019.