Activist Voices: Singing Spaces – Interview with Rana Sulaiman

Abstract

The 700,000 Yezidis in Iraq are Indigenous people of the “disputed area strip” stretching from Sinjar to Mahate in Ninewa and Dohuk governorates. Their targeting in a genocide committed by ISIS in 2014 has left deep wounds in the Yezidi community and their collective memory. Rana Sulaiman, the 19-year-old founder and leader of the Yezidi singing and musical group Ashti since 2019, views herself as a “Yezidi Memory guardian” as she uses traditional and religious music and singing as instruments for preserving her native culture. This memory activist group uses music to empower survivors of ISIS sexual enslavement with the preservation of Yezidi oral tradition, writing, and records from erasure. Rana Sulaiman is the 19-year-old founder of the Yezidi singing and musical group Ashti. She has been Ashti's music trainer and group leader since 2019. Sulaiman calls herself “Yezidi Memory guardian” as she uses traditional and religious music and singing as instruments for preserving her native culture. Moreover, she is the first female who has been able to play religious music and songs publicly with the blessing of the Yezidi Supreme Spiritual Council, something that until then has been preserved only for men. Her efforts in empowering women and girls successfully engaged survivors of ISIS sexual enslavement to join the music and singing group to escape and reconcile with the past. Moreover, with her commitment, the Yezidi writing and records have been preserved in Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Ashti performs locally in Northern Iraq as well as abroad, for Prince Charles in London in 2020 for example, and continues to preserve the traditional and religious music and songs while also improving its professional musical skills. Yezidis are a minority ethnoreligious group that lives mainly in the northern part of Iraq. The 700,000 Yezidis in Iraq are indigenous people of the “disputed area strip” stretching from Sinjar to Mahate in Ninewa and Dohuk governorates (Middle East Research Institute, 2017). The other most populous Yezidi communities can be found in Russia and Germany with about 100,000 people each. The Yezidis have been subjected to over 70 genocides and displacements but kept their religion. However, the 2014 genocide carried out by ISIS has been the most egregious of all and received the most attention due to the practices of ISIS and the amount of grievances that ISIS caused to the Yezidi population. In their raid, ISIS killed and beheaded many Yezidis, enslaved women, and sexually exploited them. Some of the men, women, and children are still in captivity with ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria. The ISIS invasion and massacre have left deep wounds to the Yezidi community and their collective memory. Scattered from their land to other parts of Iraq, the Yezidi community now resides mainly in camps in the Dohuk governorate or fled to Europe and elsewhere. Yezidi culture is unique and rich with religious and traditional folklore oral traditions, scripts, music, and songs. Generally, the oral heritage of Yezidi values is handed down from one generation to the next orally, although lately the oral traditions are in decline in opposition to written forms of the traditions. Any disruption to the older generation subsequently impacts the transference of the traditions to younger generations. The ISIS massacre and other egregious actions against the Yezidis have therefore also endangered the Yezidi social fabric and culture. The impact of the ISIS damage is clearly seen in the camps where the Yezidi community is reported to need continuous and extensive psychological support since many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Moreover, in early 2021, cases of suicide have been on the rise, especially among young Yezidis, particularly among those living in “temporary” camps for the past seven years. Furthermore, after the liberation of Mosul from ISIS, most of the donor community has relocated their resources to Mosul, neglecting about 70% of Yezidis living in the 18 camps scattered in the Dohuk governorate.