Nadia Murad : The Last Girl - her fight against ISIS ..

Nadia Murad, image coutesy Nobel Committee

The first time I heard about Nadia Murad  was when she was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for 2018 by the Nobel Committee in Stockholm. Last year, 2018, on the 10th of December she was awarded the very prestigious Nobel Peace prize for her contributions and efforts to bring peace in the world. More than bringing peace she is credited with the efforts to bring the terrorists and criminals of the Islamic State of Iraq and North Syria(ISIS) to justice.

The story of Nadia Murad, a member of the Kurdish speaking Yazidi tribe in North Iraq, (click here for a wikipedia report  on the Yazidis)  now 26 years goes this way. She was barely 21 when she was torn away from her home, her school, friends and family. Her six brothers were brutally murdered, she was separated from her mother and sexually molested by different members of the terrorist group ISIS at different parts of North Iraq. Her escape (illustrated in her biography, The Last Girl, Virago Press, 2017) from the clutches of ISIS around 2015 after three months of cruel torture as a sabaya (sex slave) is hailed as one of the most daring by any woman in recent years from the religious fundamentalists of the world.

Yazidis follow a monotheistic religion (believing in one God) unlike the polytheistic religions of Hinduism, Budhism, Taoism, Shintoism etc.. Yazidism is on par with the Mesopotamian religions and has traces of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam but are not part of Zoroastrianism which also has its traces around the same region. The vastly successful Tata family of India are originally Zoroastrians from Northern Iran who migrated to Gujarat around the 1830s. 

A 1920 pic showing Yazidis in Iraq

During the time of religious cleansing (Arabisation as called by Saddam Hussein) upto 2003 and followed by others who wanted to categorise them as Kurds led to the group getting scattered across North Iraq and Syria.

Yazidis are an endogamous (marrying only within the tribe) group in total about a million around the world. Iraq holds about 300,000 to 500,000 Yazidis while the rest of the world hold the other half million. Germany holds 300,000, the other 200,000 members are  scattered across Syria, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, France, Sweden etc. striving for their cultural and religious identity. The migration to parts of Europe has been of late.

Continuing the Kurdisation process of the Yazidis in North Iraq, ISIS too started meddling in the lives of the Yazidis. ISIS by 2014 had started to control different parts of Iraq, after Saddam was killed by the US forces and Sunnis had started to regain control over different parts of Iraq.

The present day fine stock of the Yazidi tribe

The Yazidis, who claim to be following the Supreme God through his messenger Tawuse Melek, staying in the foothills of the Sinjar valley were given the option to convert themselves to Islam. When she and her tribe members refused to convert to Islam, in her hometown in Kacho in the Sinjar valley in North Iraq, they were subjected to this torture by the members of ISIS. As a young girl of just 21 years she was mentally traumatised very much and was determined to bring her tormentors and molestors to justice.

Her life for the past four years has been dedicated to traveling around the world to different cities and gatherings and speaking to them about the horrors of the ISIS regime. She is aware that she has been lucky enough to escape from the cruel clutches of ISIS, unlike the thousands of girls like her who are still in the control of ISIS, even though ISIS has been disbanded in Iraq.

Listen (click here) to the Nobel Prize acceptance speech by Nadia Murad, 26, winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. In this acceptance speech, she explains how a religious minority of Yazidis in North Iraq was enslaved by the terrorists from ISIS, the menfolk brutally murdered and the womenfolk sexually enslaved as sabayas, sex slaves to the ISIS fighters.. She lost six brothers, mother, many nephews and nieces to this mindless genocide, not to mention the dignity of the thousands of women like her to ISIS. 😪😪

Her aim in life is to bring ISIS to justice in Iraq and Syria, to look straight at her many molestor's eyes and ensure they pay for their misdeeds.  An ongoing struggle . Wishing her all success in her endeavours. 🙏🙏🙏

Click here to listen to her Nobel Prize acceptance speech .. (with English subtitles) ..

Her biography The Last Girl (click here to order from Amazon India) is a glowing tribute to her spirit to continue life in spite of all hardships, personal losses of loved ones, sexual molestation and negative events in her life inflicted by Islamic fundamentalism, more specifically, the ISIS.

George..