As Strong as the Mountains: A Kurdish Cultural Journey First Edition

The book is barely 150 pages but you finish the book fulfilled and with your eyes opened to the struggles, challenges, and history of the Kurds.Contrary to the other reviewer, the book is organized very well with good details with topics like : Kurdish identity, traditions, relationships, values, religious rituals, and culture.Decent read for my class. Probably more enjoyable as a leisure/curiosity read

Purchased as an add-on book for anthropology course I was taking. I was dreading having to write a book report on the subject however this book was extremely interesting and informative.

In the first look, for somebody who is ignorant of Kurdish people's existence, their culture and history this book looks very informative and even credible. There are certain customs and traditions he describes very well thus i cannot disagree with him. Spending 14 years or so in a certain place he had got hold of the culture and he does provide some sort of accurate information about the current culture, i will give him that. It is observatory to see and learn about another culture but that also makes the information very subjective.Now when it comes to this author's claim about cultural journey, from historical point as well as political, he does not deliver his promise. His research has been done very poorly. What was he researching? What was his aim to achieve from his research is not clear for an academician (he calls himself an ethnographer) intending to report a research of a certain ethnicity. Majority of information reported about history of Kurds is either inaccurate, incomplete, biased or obtained from bad sources.Where do i begin?He is not a historian but he takes a shot at that anyway and provides ridiculous information about pre-Islamic period- one must be ashamed to even consider writing such a discreditable information. All the prominent historians such as Neil Silberman & Israel Finkelstein & Eric H Cline etc. agree that Bible is far from being a credible source for history, that is for the books of Kings, For the Genesis it is not even consider anything close to history but a fairy tale, a myth but this author refers to bible as a history source. The information he provides for the Ottoman era is more likely taken from Turkey. He uses many Turkish writers as his source they are biased. He completely dismisses the Syrian and Iranian Kurds and touches upon Kurds from Turkey (They are not Turkish Kurds) his information mainly comes from nowadays, hearsay. He gives examples which he himself admits that are speculations. I heard this (are you kidding me?) The influence of main stream media on the information he provides is conspicuous. "this or that was on TV" so what kind of research did he conduct that he cannot give more objective picture than a media that is control by government which is completely anti-Kurd.His research in Kurdistan in Iraq seems to be in refugee camps another question arises were all the Kurds in Kurdistan-Iraq in refugee camps? He sure made it sound like that.He sort of explains how he did not do much research in Turkey but he sure had a lot to say about Kurds' situation in Turkey, most of which were inaccurate. The words he used (Kurdish words) mostly are spelled wrong. People he talked about their names are spelled wrong. Ehmede Xani is the correct spelling, an author wants to mention a prominent man in a culture that has made a huge impact he might want to spell his name right. Şivan Perwer also another person that the author misspelled. Newroz is the correct spelling (march 21) which is predates to Zoroastrianism. These are just couple examples that this author completely messed up and did not do a good research.Some of his interpretations of the culture were just straight out wrong. At times, it is confusing to the reader because author does not specifies who he is referring to, if he is referring to Turks, Laz, or Kurds. I am sorry but Many people might speak broken Turkish and even call themselves Turkish in reality very small minority is real Turks others are assimilated. People in the North are Laz, in west you have Rums, and other white people who have been assimilated. You have Cerkez, Suryani numerous Jews the list goes on and on. People with far Asian feathers are the once who are real Turks just as many Kurds have been assimilated and called themselves Turks so do other ethnic groups.Kurds color, Kurdish people predominately are fair skin and blond but as they get older their hair color darkens. There are big numbers of color eyes (green and hazel majority some blue then the rest brown). Mountain air makes people's skin tan. they look darker especially since they spent most of their times out sides but when they stay inside they get very much lighter. of course there are many esmers too but it is not any different than West of Turkey. In the west the air makes the skin paler unless you go to beach lie under the sun. Turks have taken America as an example with their strategy to assimilate other ethnic groups in to government's choice of language (Turkish). The similarities of torture and killings of the real Americans by European men is not a coincidence. Turkish language was invented and improved to the language, they have now, after 1923. It is ridiculous to say Kurdish is consists of Arabic, Farsi and Turkish. Kurdish is close to Farsi it even might be derived from it. I am not a linguist i do not know, but i know Turkish has more Farsi words and it is not even same language group. Tesekkur is in Farsi-Dari Tashakaar. Turks only spell it different to adapt it to their language. Numerous words are taken from Farsi, Arabic, French and lately English and used in Turkish. I do not know where to stop at the ignorance of this author.The main religion of Kurds was not Yezidism it was Zoroastrianism. Yezidism had derived from it and numerous Kurds still are not Muslims. Islam was brought upon them by sword. Majority of Kurds, even though very religious, did not know how to practice islam, many still do not. Islamic practice is very new except fasting. All that superstition is part of Zoroastrianism. Women ( mainly illiterate) practice without knowing it comes from Zoroastrianism. The author was foreign to all these information.In conclusion, the information he provides is subjective based on mainly his observation which does a good job to explain the current life and practices and this book can be read to learn some of the culture. However this book must not be used in classrooms to give information to prospective students as researched facts because of it is discreditable sources and poor research techniques. It is more of memoir about The author's experience with Turks and Kurds than a research book.Any instructor, professor or teacher who aims to teach in her/his class, using this book, is a lousy excuse for a teacher, which means he/she has no strive for the truth or for proper research.I am shock that this book might be used in classrooms. Shameful for Higher education.

This is an interesting, yet often overlooked book. Take the leap, and it will add to a part of the world many are unfamiliar with.

The book was required for school.

Bought it, read it, and enjoyed it. I would recommend students to read this book rather than **wink wink** read the summaries online

Excellent

When you see this book you think "Hey it's about the kurds" Then when you read it, you start to nice various things. The author tries to seem smart by using big words that belong or are even correct grammar for the book. Then you will also notice he talks more about himself more than anything. It has very little about the actual kurds.