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while offering tea . The tension of night before , when they suggested to stop because of gunfire between PKK and the military , seemed to vanish like the mountain ’ s dust on the road leading to Sirnak . We ’ d spend a full day riding a few dozen kilometres where we ’ d meet a family washing their rugs along a river , spending a whole day with them , drinking tea and smoking hand rolled tobacco .
We stayed almost one week in Sirnak with Amy , an American journalist who ’ s dedicated the last six years to the Kurdish cause and is now involved in helping Yazidi refugees , who have escaped from Iraq when Daesh came to destroy everything .
For us these were days of intense storytelling , of hope , teargas , and military tanks . We felt touched by the Kurdish people ’ s community helping those who own a land no more . In front of our eyes was a truth completely ignored by the entire world , a year had to pass before those outside of this land could understand who was good and who was bad .
A few kilometres were travelled crossing the Iraqi territory , a land that looked like another dimension or time . The rugged mountains covered by pastures , populated by shepherds that travelled by mule , smiling children , the many military checkpoints , that incongruous in what we perceived as a land of peace and sensibility .
I was forced to ask myself what was left of that route where goods , ideas , music , and religions once moved . What was still alive after centuries of conflict ? The answer , quick indeed , is of a people welcoming us on the road , in tea houses , or in taverns where we could take a rest from the hard-beating sun . You need just a small time to realise that this people ’ s proverbial hospitality is due to the social system built by Islam during centuries past . The real Islam , the one talking about
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