Hosheng Broka is a Syrian sociologist and poet who has been living in Germany since the 1990s. His works in Arabic include Studies in the Mythology of Yazidi Religion (1995), Dumuzian Rituals in Yazidism (co-authored with Dr. Khalil Jindy, 2004), and The Mystery of Tawsi Melek: The Origin of Good and Evil in Yazidism (2014). He has also authored poetic works in Kurdish and a study on Zoroastrianism in German.
Saad Salloum: How do you evaluate the traumatic impact of the genocide on the Yazidi community? Did it promulgate awareness of the community on an international level after its plight was isolated for years between Mount Sinjar and the Shekhan Valley?
Hosheng Broka: Before the genocide, the Yazidis were relatively unknown, living on the margins of the world–both in time and place–as well as in culture and society. They were a people outside of history or a forgotten people, in the memory of the world. Despite the immense horror perpetrated by ISIS, which embodies boundless terrorism, this tragedy ironically served to remind the world of a people on the brink of extinction, rooted in a distant past and relegated to the edges of existence.
The trauma the Yazidis experienced at the hands of ISIS brought them to the forefront of global attention as a persecuted people who deserve a place in the world’s human atlas. Following the horrific genocide, the Yazidis, as a group, shifted in the global historical imagination from a forgotten people to being in the spotlight of international current events. In the political imagination of the world, the Yazidi issue transformed from an internal, self-contained issue on the outskirts of Iraq to an international matter discussed in parliaments, governments, and international institutions. Culturally, the Yazidis went from being viewed as the “people of the devil” to the “Nobel people.” In doctrinal belief, they shifted from being seen as “infidels” to “believers.” Theological perspectives changed from viewing them as a “people against God” to a “people with God.”
The Yazidi genocide is regarded as one of the fastest atrocities to gain global awareness and one of the most deeply ingrained in the world’s conscience. Therefore, Yazidi elites must seize this moment to ensure that the Yazidis gain a foothold on the world stage. In other words, they should focus on “harvesting the gains from ISIS” with a “half-full glass” philosophy, rather than wasting time on the sophistry or “half-empty glass” philosophy.
Saad Salloum: How has the trauma of genocide affected Yazidi identity and Yazidis’ self-perception in a world they were forcibly thrust into, under glaring lights?
Hosheng Broka: Yazidi identity, after the profound trauma, has undergone a significant transformation that exceeds expectations. The most important question for Yazidis today, driven by the immense pain of the genocide, is a question of identity: Who are we? What are we, and where are we going? The brutality of ISIS’ actions deepens the question of identity. In fact, one could argue the extremist group awakened the Yazidis from their “identity slumber”. In fact, the “ISIS trauma” struck at the very core of Yazidi identity. The profound impact of this trauma lies in the transformation it brought about—a shift in the questions surrounding identity and existence. It represents a transition from certainty to doubt, moving from a confident understanding of identity to a state of uncertainty, and from assurance in existence to a sense of existential questioning.
Saad Salloum: Although the question of identity has become a central issue for the Yazidis, it is now being shaped from within the community rather than being externally imposed as it was in the past when people were expected to follow the religion of their rulers. This new dynamic may explain the deep divisions surrounding how the Yazidi identity is defined today. Is it religious or ethnic? Is a Yazidi person Kurdish or Arab? Are they Zoroastrian or are they part of an older, distinct Mesopotamian identity? These and other narratives compete to define what it means to be Yazidi today.
Hosheng Broka: The Yazidi identity, like many repressed identities, has experienced and continues to undergo dramatic transformations. Yazidism, like many ancient naturalistic religions of the ancient Near East, is based on the veneration of nature. It is a religion of elements such as water, fire, earth, and air, as well as celestial bodies like the sun, moon, planets, and stars, along with natural phenomena like wind, clouds, and rain. Yazidis worship nature within God, and God within nature.
Ethnically, the Yazidis have historically been the original inhabitants of Kurdistan; Kurdistan has been and remains their final homeland. However, the ongoing history of genocide has driven the Yazidis, who are referred to as a “cursed” people, to break away from their collective identity–coextensive with the borders of Kurdistan–in search of a different identity, or perhaps multiple identities, defined by the extent of their blood. The transition of the Yazidis’ homogeneous identity in Kurdistan to a differentiated one is primarily due to the persecution of the original inhabitants who became a minority under the official religion of Ottoman Kurdistan–that is the crux of the matter.
Let us look to the Emir of Rawanduz for a simple example of the difficult history of ongoing genocide in present-day Kurdistan. Between 1832 and 1835, the Emir, also known as Miri Kura (the One-Eyed Emir) killed and exterminated approximately 80 to 100,000 Yazidis under the banner of “Islam of the Sublime Porte”. Despite this, a memorial was erected for him in the heart of Kurdistan, recognising him as a national symbol of the Kurdish people. How can the “Emir of Kurdistan,” residing in the heart of Kurdistan, be simultaneously a symbol of the slaughter of a people and a symbol of the “life of a people”? Here, we face two opposing histories of “one symbol” in one place: Miri Kura in Yazidi memory stands in stark contrast to his portrayal in Kurdish memory. This phenomenon, where the same historical figure or event is perceived in fundamentally different ways, is not unique to Mira Kura. Many events and “heroes” in Kurdish history are similarly viewed through conflicting lenses, resulting in a “discordant history” or a dark history from the Yazidi perspective.
Saad Salloum: You spoke about the ongoing history of genocide against the Yazidis and defended the idea of historical inevitability or acyclical interpretation regarding the status of religious minorities in the Middle East: Given this perspective, where do the Yazidis stand within this historical context?
Hosheng Broka: The East was once teeming with Yazidis, Shamsanis, Mithraists, Magi, Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, Sabians, Kakaiis, and other followers of the sun, stars, planets, and nature. Where have most of these diverse peoples and groups gone? Today, Yazidis are scattered across continents, borders, countries, cultures, and societies due to their status as a persecuted minority in conflict with neighbouring majorities. Why have the Yazids been forced to flee? What accounts for this continuous displacement? Historical sources indicate that the severe oppression of minorities by majorities began with the intensification of the historical conflict between the Safavid and Ottoman empires in the early 16th century. The result for the Yazidis was inevitable fragmentation.
The first instance of forced displacement for the Yazidis occurred in the early 19th century, specifically from the Ottoman Empire’s “Sarhad” provinces (including Van, Batman, Sibani Khalati, Ağrı, Kucakri, Ararat, Kabağ, Iğdır, Kars, etc.) to neighbouring regions–former Soviet Union countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and other countries in the Caucasus. The second flight, according to the history of Yazidi dispersion in the world, took place at the beginning of and during World War I, following the Armenian and Yazidi massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman armies from 1915 to 1923.
Saad Salloum: I understand that flight here is equivalent to the term ethnic cleansing, but it is possible that migration was also driven by other factors such as the desire to improve economic conditions or the search for opportunities to enhance the lives of new generations. Do you agree?
The history of the Yazidis, from their initial forced migration to their most recent displacement, represents a history of seeking to live in safety. There is no doubt that the Yazidis have successfully seized historical opportunities in search of safety and freedom, even when such chances may not recur. For example, the third flight of the Yazidis began in the 1960s with the implementation of the “Guest Worker Agreement” signed between West Germany and Turkey. This opportunity for Yazidis coming from Turkey to move to West Germany as “guest workers” provided an additional chance for a better life. This “happy opportunity” opened the door for Yazidis from Turkey in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to migrate en masse to Germany as an “oppressed ethnic group” or a people living under the threat of extinction, leading to the fourth Yazidi flight. As a result, fewer than five hundred Yazidis remain in their original communities across Turkey today.
Saad Salloum: How do you evaluate the cross-border connections between Yazidis in Turkey and Syria, both in terms of the impact of ethnic cleansing and the migration to new geographies, and the creation of a global dispersion map of the Yazidis?
Hosheng Broka: The Yazidis, like other peoples in the region such as Kurds, Christians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Armenians, Turkmen, and Circassians, are distributed on both sides of the border between Turkey and Syria. They are like a single family divided into two halves, or a single people split into two halves.
The recent “happy coincidence” that facilitated the last Yazidi migration from Turkey to Germany and other Western European countries has also impacted the Yazidi migration from the other side of the border: Syria. This represents the fifth wave of Yazidi migration. The relatively easy asylum and residence process for Yazidis coming from Turkey to Germany over the past three decades has paved the way for the “other half” of the Yazidi community on the opposite side of the border in Syria to migrate more easily to Germany and other Western European countries.
Saad Salloum: Given that the Yazidi population in Syria has dramatically decreased from around 150,000 to only a few thousand due to the rise of jihadist and takfiri groups, including ISIS, how do you evaluate the long-term impacts of this mass migration on the Yazidis’ social structures and cross-border connections?
Hosheng Broka: The Yazidi community is interwoven due to familial ties. A single Yazidi clan often has extensions in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and even the Caucasus. We must also remember that Yazidis are a small population, numbering around one and a half million worldwide. Furthermore, they are a people who have suffered and continue to suffer from a “persecution complex” throughout time and space. This makes the Yazidi cause a unifying project rather than one of division. The sense of persecution, both past and present, has been and continues to be the common ground under which all Yazidis unite. It is the shared experience of persecution that serves as the great equaliser within the Yazidi community.
The reality of ISIS’s transnational terrorism, following August 3, 2014, revealed a Yazidi reality that transcends borders: Yazidis are one people bound by a shared pain. Yazidis in Iraq, like their brethren beyond the borders, experience the same suffering and persecution. Despite changes in the political system in Iraq since 2003, the fundamental face of Iraq has not changed much, and Yazidi suffering persists. In 2007, in Sheikhhan in Iraqi Kurdistan, Yazidis were targeted by their Kurdish Muslim neighbours for the alleged kidnapping of a Yazidi girl by a Muslim boy, which was later proven to be fabricated. This triggered the Yazidis’ “sixth flight” and included organised terrorist attacks targeting Yazidis. For example, 23 Yazidi workers were killed in Mosul and Bahzani on April 22, 2007 and on August 14, 2007 in Siba Sheikh Khadri and Tel Azer, Yazidi communities were bombed. Not to mention the atrocities of ISIS on August 3, 2014 which aimed to eradicate the Yazidi presence entirely.
After ISIS, Yazidi flight became an existential issue par excellence, marking the seventh migration in the series of “Yazidi flights” over two centuries. The hate speech directed at Yazidis following a statement by a leader of an armed Yazidi faction in the tenth anniversary of the genocide in August 2024, which was perceived as an insult to the Prophet of Islam, is a troubling indicator that the migration is likely to continue.
Saad Salloum: The Yazidis have endured 74 massacres and genocides throughout their history. In your opinion, how can we break free from this cyclical history so that we no longer anticipate a new decree or the seventy-fifth decree? Is it possible for the era of the “seven flights” to come to an end?
Hosheng Broka: The reality of the Yazidi geography which is surrounded by multiple historical and current dictatorial contexts, obstructs us from imagining the Yazidi community outside of its difficult cyclical history. It is very difficult to envision an end to the “Yazidi flight” given the reality dictated by the facts on the ground. This reality imposes an identity on them which is not their own, an existence in which they have no impact, a history in which they play no role, a destiny that is not theirs, as well as a will with no freedom.
When discussing genocides, such as the Yazidi genocide, previous examples of genocidal campaigns and ethnic cleansing offer important insights into why denial claims or the resurgence of violence can occur even after official recognition and condemnation. For instance, despite the undeniable horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust, anti-Semitic discourse and genocide denial campaigns persist and have even recently resurged in Europe and other regions. As with the Holocaust and the Yazidi genocide, it is crucial to address the underlying racist ideologies and combat the ongoing discriminatory narratives. As long as we continue to witness hateful rhetoric that portrays Yazidis as ‘undesirable beings in their original homeland,’ the threat of another genocidal campaign remains dangerously real. The world will witness the “dissolution” of the Yazidis in their original place due to fear, as they merge with their Islamic surroundings. Conversely, the “dissolution” of the Yazidis in new Western societies (Europe, America, Canada, Australia) and their integration into these new cultures, societies, and democracies will be driven by the pursuit of freedom.
