Rayhan

I am a Kurdish woman. Dominated and oppressed for more than two thousand years, my culture has nurtured the world’s largest stateless nation, members of which survive in occupied parts of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and in the diaspora. During this time, my people have fought wars from their Kandil Mountain bases in South Kurdistan (former northern Iraq) to retrieve their territories lost in successive conquests. My tribe, the Feili Lurs of Iran, was the first to defend the Zagros Mountain passes against the Persians and the Greeks. Successive waves of would-be conquerors met my ancestors in that fastness, but all failed.