Yazidis and The Syrian Question

The next morning I walked along another section of the walls. This time I was called up to by young men swimming in pools directly beneath. Did one of them encourage me to jump? No idea, but it felt like a nice idea, even though I'd probably have killed myself, given the water's depth.

Ater walking through and getting lost in a labyrinth of old streets I was let into an old Chaldean Church by the local caretaker. Only 50 Christian families live in Diyarbakir and the ones descended from Babylonians worship here. I asked him if there were any Yazidis in town, but he said no - they are further south, in Mardin. The Yazidis' Peacock worshipping belief in the control of the world by seven archangels seems intriguingly gnostic to me, a sign of a refined sensibility to the complexity of the cosmos. Alas, such ancient subtlety provokes some to think them 'devil worshippers'; it was people drawn from this group who only two weeks ago suffered 572 murders at the hands of suicide bombers in the North Western Iraqi town of Qahtaniya in the biggest car bomb attack since the beginning of the insurgency.

The Armenian church being locked, I decided to call it a day for Diyarbakir and head to the ancient Assyrian-Christian town of Mardin. More multi-cultural than Diyarbakir it is set in a commanding position beneath a castle overlooking pale yellow fields of the Mesopotamian plain stretching south to Syria. Only 30 km from the border, it was hard to know, sipping a turkish cofee, stunned by the beauty of the view, if I could see Syria itself. Later, as I chatted with an aimiable customs officer who bought me a tea, the idea began to form that I might as well try to get a Syrian visa at the nearby border town of Nusaybin.

As I thought this I knew the chances would be low. By all accounts only people from countries that don't have Syrian embassies in their home countries can apply for visas at the border. I knew I'd probably get a visa if I tailed back to Antep or went all the way to Ankara but I didn't want to do this, perhaps because in truth I didn't want to go to Syria that badly. My default plan was still to explore the deep south east and then head up via Van, Ararat and Kars to Georgia and from there to Armenia. As I went to bed though I thought I'd give it a try. I knew I still definitely wanted to go to Hasankeyf, 100k to the north, so even if I could get the visa I'd leave my entry for a couple of days. So, tomorrow I'd leave my bag in Mardin and go 57km south and see if I could get one. If I couldn't, as I suspected I wouldn't, I'd still get to see the border and perhaps a picture of Bashar. I'd then go to Hasankeyf, from there east to Sirnak and Hakkari. If I could, however, I'd return to bag and Hasankeyf, from there returning south to Nusaybin and crossing over into into the adjoining Syrian town of Qamishle.

Plan in hand I wandered along the Yeni Yol, the street running to the south of Mardin, just after buying a copy of the English speaking paper, 'Today's Zaman'. An informative newspaper about Turkish affairs it had not been available in many cities, though I'd found one in Konya. Then, after my most expensive meal in awhile in a boutique restaurant (about 12 euros) I retired to my very dingy room in a hotel that didn't have a shower.