Introduction

In this incredible true love story, bestselling author Jean Sasson shares Joanna al-Askari's personal journey of fear and fortitude through a Baghdad childhood and life as a Kurdish freedom fighter during the Iran-Iraq War. Inspiring and unforgettable, Love in a Torn Land shares Joanna's passionate and unflagging determination to survive and fight—for love, life, and the freedom of her beloved Kurdistan.

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Excerpt

Sprinkled by Stardust

In Suleimaniyah

When I woke up the following morning, the sapphire sky was sunny, and fluffy white clouds were forming. Songbirds were singing. The house was filled with the sounds of children playing.

When in Suleimaniyah, the carefree atmosphere always felt like festival time. Grandmother’s house overflowed with family. The adults would sleep on cotton mattresses laid out on the bedroom floors while children slept on the flat roof. The women of the household would rise early to cook a feast. All our favorite Kurdish dishes were prepared, such as Kuftay Suleimaniyah, which was ground rice pastry stuffed with mincemeat, and Doulma, vegetables stuffed with rice, or my personal favorite, a special sweet called Bourma, which was very thin puff pastry with pecan nuts, drenched in honey or syrup. Tea was available at all times, kept hot in enormous Samawars, special copper Turkish urns.

Children were allowed to play all day and into the late evening. Sometimes we went on a picnic. Our preferred place was Serchenar, a place of waterfalls. The sweetest watermelons would sit chilling in the cold spring water. While the adults chatted, the kids would play games. My personal favorite was a test of endurance to see who could stay in the cold waters the longest, although to my disappointment, I never won.

That first day of my holiday was no exception. There was more to do than one could possibly fit into the hours available.

After breakfast, my sister and I received permission to accompany two of our female cousins to the central market.

Ra’ad was practically an adult so he had better things to do than hanging around with children. I overheard Mother say he was going to visit with some Kurdish students activists who wrote and distributed pamphlets pressing for Kurdistan to be free from foreign Arab rule, for the Arabs forbade us speaking our language, learning our history, singing our songs or quoting our poetry.

Several years before, my brother had joined the Kurdish Democratic Party, and his champion was Mulla Mustafa Al-Barzani, the Kurdish hero and leader who fought the government in Baghdad at every opportunity.

Mother seemed pleased with Ra’ad’s political activities so I didn’t worry. I had no way of knowing that my brother had ventured into a risky arena that would very soon impact all our lives.

As we were leaving the house mother intercepted us at the front door to remind Muna to hold my hand during our excursion, just because five years earlier, when I was only five years old, my older sister, Alia, had returned home without me after taking me to the market.

When questioned, Alia would say only, “The gypsies got Joanna.”

Mother and grandmother and Auntie Aisha launched a frantic search, but I was nowhere to be found. They soon feared that, indeed, someone had kidnapped their little Joanna and she might never be seen again.

It was a family crisis.

How happy they were when later in the day a friendly policeman brought me to grandmother’s door, explaining that I had been found wandering the main streets of Suleimaniyah, accosting grown-ups to buy me a lamb kebab and a cold soda.

I was always a precocious child.

Even though I was ten years old that summer, mother demanded careful supervision anytime I left her side.

Muna clung to me as though I was a treasure. Finally I peeled her hand from mine, promising not to tell mother we had disobeyed, and pledging not to leave her sight.

Soon we came into sight of the market place. To me, it was the most interesting place in the world. The combined scents of aromatic foods, exotic spices, sweet-smelling perfumes and freshly cut flowers were deliciously fragrant.

Everything one could possibly need was on sale in this square. Fruits and vegetables were laid neatly on rickety tables or spread upon colorful fabric on the ground. Fresh yogurt was sold from huge bronze pots. To keep the yogurt from spoiling, the pot top was shielded by white cotton fabric, and the fabric was covered with wet loofah. After the yogurt was sold, the seller would then sell these Kurdish loofahs, reportedly the finest loofahs in the world.

We browsed a side section of the plaza devoted to beautiful jewelry, handcrafted by local artisans. At one stand I spotted three young women, who, judging by their striking physical similarities, were clearly sisters. All three smiled brightly as they hovered proudly over the colorful stones set into necklaces and bracelets and earrings. Those three girls were so pretty that everyone walking past paused to stare openly at them. One had braided her dark brown hair into thick braids that fell to her waist, while the other two were sporting matching red scarves threaded with golden ropes, dangling with shiny coins.

As I gawked, one of our cousins pulled Muna and me to the side and whispered excitedly. She said, “I must tell you a saga about those sisters. A thrilling saga!

“Everyone in Kurdistan is whispering about them,” she declared. “It’s a sad story with a happy ending.”

“Go on,” I told her eagerly.

“Well, I will,” she said with a touch of importance, “Those three sisters are betrothed to three of Kurdistan’s most revered Peshmergas. Their parents and siblings were burned alive during Qasim’s military assault in 1961when orders were given to wipe out Kurdish villages. When the village was torched, the Peshmergas went to that area to avenge the deaths. They arrived too late to retaliate against the Arabs, but while there a handsome Peshmerga caught sight of the eldest sister, who was only twelve years old at the time,” and my cousin helpfully pointed her out, “that one with the braids. She was carrying water from a well. He was instantly smitten, struck by a great longing. He asked around to be told that this beautiful girl had two equally beautiful sisters. The area was in chaos, and her parents were dead, and of course, he couldn’t approach such a young girl about romantic love, so with some reluctance, he left. But it is said that he could not erase the image of her beautiful face from his mind. After many restless months of long nights he convinced two Peshmerga friends to return to the area with him.

“But by this time the sisters had moved away to live with relatives.”

I involuntarily turned to glance at the woman. Her perfectly formed face was framed like a picture by those long braids of shiny, chestnut colored hair.

My cousin pinched my arm, “Listen, Joanna, there is more to the story. Do you want to hear it or not?”

I nodded, “Yes! Yes! I am listening.”

“All right. The brave Peshmerga was in love and he would not be discouraged. So he and his friends searched until they found the village where the sisters now lived. It didn’t take much effort to locate the house of the relatives because everyone in that village knew about these three beauties. This Peshmerga was bolder than most, so he approached the eldest male in the family and asked outright for the eldest girl’s hand in marriage, offering to wait a few years until she matured.

“The family called a conference. Although they respected those brave fighters, they did not want the girl to live the difficult life of a fighter’s wife. She had suffered enough, they claimed. Also, the girls were so beautiful and promised to grow more beautiful still, the family was counting on substantial dowries. So, they said no.”

“Did she run away?” I asked, thinking that is exactly what I would have done if a handsome Peshmerga wanted me for his bride and my parents refused.

“No! The fighters are too honorable for that!” she snapped, irritated at my ignorance concerning such matters. “Anyhow, when the heartbroken Peshmerga was leaving the house, the girl he loved was curious about this fighter who had followed her from one village to another, so she slipped from the garden and walked past him as he was leaving the house, just to have a look for herself.

“He was too handsome to ignore. When their eyes met, she, too, was infatuated.

“The rest is history. In the face of young love, the family relented when the braided one said she was going to jump into the well if she could not marry her brave hero. The two have been betrothed since that day and the wedding is to be soon.”

I turned and gazed at the beautiful sisters once more. “What about her two sisters?”

“The fiancé’s Peshmerga friends accompanied him and they met the two younger sisters, and they too, caught the love fever. As time passed, the other two became engaged, as well. They will all marry Peshmerga fighters,” she said with such a satisfied air that one would think she had personally negotiated the marriage contracts.

“When are the weddings?” Muna asked in her girlish voice.

I stared at Muna with pride. Muna looked especially lovely that day with her luminous skin and big eyes, the color of deep caramel. In my eyes, she was as pretty as those three sisters.

Truthfully, I was desperate to be as lovely as Muna, but I was not, and probably would never be.

My cousin’s replied, “Soon, I have heard. And, once they marry, they will live with their husbands in the mountains. They are heroines, too. For the rest of their lives they will live for Kurdish freedoms.”

I stared at the young women. They were living my dream. Since I was very young, I had carried a feeling that I would not live an ordinary life, that I would not be the usual bride, the girl who married the safe and respectful government clerk while draped in wedding white.

My only wish at that moment was to be grownup, to be so beautiful that, I, too, would catch the eye of a brave Peshmerga. After one glance at my face, my hero would fall in love instantly and implore that I marry him. If my parents refused, I would run away to live with my warrior in the mountains where I would fight by his side.

My legs trembled and I did not even follow my cousins and Muna who had walked on until my frightened sister noticed I was missing. She retraced her steps, her white face turning red, demanding, “Joanna! You promised!”

But I could think of nothing but the three beautiful sisters, waiting to be married to join their romantic, courageous husbands in the Kurdish mountains, and I worried to myself that I was not considered beautiful. Although I had been told I was so pretty a baby that I had to be protected from the evil eye that was no longer the case. In fact, lately I had been teased for being skinny and gangly.

There were other problems. For convenience, mother kept my hair cut close to my head. I had rather large ears that stuck out on the sides of my head. And it was true that I was a bony girl with legs too long for my body. My skin was dark, and turned darker with each passing summer.

In contrast, my mother and my sisters were extremely fair. Even Grandmother Ameena, an old woman, had very beautiful white skin. Other women were always complimenting their white complexions. I was a dark-skinned person living in a country where lily-white skin was greatly prized.

In that instant I resolved to grow out my short hair. I would also start protecting my skin from the darkening rays of the sun. I would carry an umbrella! Even so, I knew that it would be years before there was the slightest chance that I would catch the eye of a brave Peshmerga.

I leadenly followed my sister back to grandmother’s house.

That evening should have been fun for me, with women and girls wearing their most colorful dresses and the men and boys in wide pantaloons, called Sharwual in Kurdistan, with broad sashes wrapped around their waists.

As soon as the sunset dipped to the bottom of the sky with its display of reds and pinks, everyone gathered in the courtyard. The garden was as colorful as the sunset, with borders of red poppies and white Narcissuses. Our mothers had prepared a feast, and we began the meal nibbling at figs, apples, pears, and almonds and walnuts. Steaming bowls of hot rice caught my eye and soon the family was being served several main courses, including Kubba stuffed with meat, and Dolma made from stuffed vine leaves, and barbeque chickens and Kebab.

I ate more than I wanted, trying to fatten up. I was tired of being the skinny cousin. It did not improve my mood that my teenage female cousins appeared to have grown stunningly beautiful in only one short year. For the first time I noticed that most of them had fair skin. With the wildest jealousy, I watched three of the prettiest girls swinging their heads as they spoke, purposefully showing off their shimmering black hair that hung to their waists.

Or so I thought.

It didn’t help my mood that no one seemed to notice or even care that I was not my usual self. I was but a gawky ten-year-old, I realized, no longer tiny or cute, yet not old enough to be assessed for female beauty.

The rejection stung.

There was a nervous knot in my throat and my eyes began to water, but I refused to let anyone see me cry, so when asked my problem, I pretended to have a foreign object in my eye.

After everyone had eaten, there was a call for music. Ra’ad found some tapes of Kurdish dancing music and soon the back yard came alive with the sound we all loved. Before long most of the teenagers and young adults were on their feet.

There is a saying: “One who cannot dance is not a Kurd.”

And that is so true.

Soon a circle was formed, with everyone holding hands, men and women together. The music grew loud, and my brother Ra’ad was a leader because he was known for his talented dance moves. Despite encouragement from their cousins, Muna and Sa’ad refused to in, for Muna was too shy and Sa’ad was too serious for such frivolity.

No one invited me to join the circle that was forming, but that was fine with me because I was newly ashamed of my short hair and long legs. I was content to sit next to Mother and merely observe.

The music was loud and the dancers held hands, starting swaying, pulling close together and pressing their shoulders against one another. The leading and trailing dancers began to wave colorful kerchiefs in impressive intricate gestures. Changing direction, all the dancers managed to complete the complicated moves without breaking their original hand hold.

When the dancers were exhausted, the evening finally broke up and I quietly followed my cousins to the flat roof where we would sleep. Normally my favorite treat was to join my cousins on the roof, but on that night I was too disheartened to take pleasure from anything.

The oldest boys and girls hauled up our bedding of light-weight cotton mattresses and pillows and thin blankets. After everyone settled down, the older cousins talked quietly while we younger kids listened to the sounds of night, making a game of guessing whether it was frogs or crickets creating the interesting noises.

Slowly the night grew peaceful and the youngest children fell asleep. I bedded myself down without words, pulling the flimsy blanket up to my chin to stare up to see a sliver of the moon in the star-scattered sky that cast a faint light.

Already in low spirits, I felt even more depressed and even insignificant under that infinite Kurdistan sky.

Just as I started hearing the heavy breathing of sound sleeping from some of the older cousins, there was a terrifying burst of noise that brought me to my feet. I knew from our experience with the road-side bandits that I was hearing gunfire! Before I could dash down the stairs to get off the roof, I was tackled and brought heavily to the floor.

The breath was knocked out of me as I tumbled backwards.

My brother Ra’ad was protecting my body with his own. He had me in such a tight grip that I could not wiggle.

He said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Stay down,” then to me, “Shush, Joanna. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

Several of the younger cousins began to whimper and call for their mothers, but I heard an older cousin hiss a word of warning that it was too dangerous for anyone to stand upright.

Ra’ad instructed, “He is right. Do not stand up. You are in no danger if you stay down. It is our fighters who are being tracked, and attacked. No one knows that we are even here.”

I overheard a multitude of shouts coming from the thick of the tree line, as though orders were being given, but I could not clearly understand anything being said.

I stared into my brother’s face as he whispered, “Joanna. Listen but do not be afraid. Something has happened. Some of our fighters have appeared in the city. Obviously their presence has been discovered by the army. But they will never find the Peshmerga. No one who lives here will give them up. Besides, these city streets are unfamiliar to the Arabs.”

Just then a lone bullet whizzed over our heads.

I quivered with suppressed excitement.

This was war!

Everyone hugged the floor with intense urgency.

There was further volleying of shots and shouts in the darkness, mixed together in what sounded like the wildest confusion.

We didn’t move for the longest time, until the sounds of gunfire grew faint as the soldiers moved away from our area. Then there was silence.

There were sighs of relief, my younger cousins leapt to their feet and fled down the steps and into the house to be with their mothers.

I remained on the roof even though Ra’ad suggested that I should go down.

I did not respond, wanting him to forget I was there.

The incident aroused the ire of older male cousins, several of whom claimed they were going to join the Peshmergas as soon as they graduated.

They believed they would be the generation to finally lead the Kurds to victory. “By God we will soon be tapping on Baghdad’s gate,” one of them boasted.

“Me, too,” I whispered to myself, smiling faintly, “Me, too.”

That day was a turning point in my life. As surely as I recognized my own my name, I knew that I, Joanna Al-Askari, would one day live the life of a Peshmerga. It had been decided.

Ra’ad, who had recently become active in Kurdish causes, congratulated the expectant Peshmergas, and the talk naturally veered to the injustices perpetrated against the Kurds.

As I looked intently at the starlit sky, I listened carefully to all that was said. I wanted to know everything about my country, and the Kurdish people I so loved.

The first significant Kurdish revolt of the 19th century occurred in 1806 when

armies from the Ottoman Empire gained control of our lands, followed by repeated waves of fighting against the Turks. Rebellions and wars were so frequent that they began to merge into one another.

In 1918, a mere ten years before my mother was born, the British occupied our land. When we resisted, they attacked us with their modern weapons. On the order of Winston Churchill, who labeled the Kurds “primitive tribes,” the Royal Air Force dropped poison gas on the Kurds, the first time our people were massacred by chemical weapons.

In 1923, my Kurdish family supported Sheik Mahmud Barzinji when he led a rebellion against both the British and the new Iraqi king, King Faisal. Barzinji defiantly declared himself King of Kurdistan, but in 1924, Suleimaniyah fell during battle to the British soldiers.

Kurdistan was occupied yet again.

Mother was born in 1928, and she once told me that she had no memory of a time

when her world was not dominated by war. She had only the dimmest memory of the 1932 uprising, but well recalled the 1943 uprising, when Kurdish forces won control of large areas of land.

In 1946 there was a serious rebellion, when the Kurdish leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani was forced by the Iraqi government to flee into exile, into the Soviet Union.

Kurdish calls for freedom grew weaker after his loss.

But in 1951, a new generation of Kurdish nationalists revived the movement, and Mulla Barzani was elected president, even though he was far away, still in exile.

In 1958, after the overthrow of the Iraqi royal family, there was yet another revival of calls for Kurdish rights and our hero Barzani returned from exile, bringing renewed cries for freedom.

Kurdistan was attacked once again, but the Peshmerga were masters of guerrilla tactics and they won battle after battle, stunning the Iraqi government when they occupied and controlled the main road into Baghdad from Khanaqin, only 140 kilometers from the capital of Baghdad, something that had never before happened.

Within a few years of these victories; however, we had to endure yet more hated defeat.

And on that night, in 1972, the tension was increasing once again.

I overheard a male cousin, who was near to Ra’ad’s age, when he whispered, “You know the truth don’t you? The crime is to be born a Kurd.”

Ra’ad made a small noise in his throat that seemed to signify agreement.

So, I had committed a crime merely by being born!

I had no doubt that when I was finally old enough to hold a weapon, that there would be plenty of battles left for me to fight. Our battles were eternal, the only change being the face of our enemy.

Just then Ra’ad discovered that I was awake.

He leaned in toward me, and as I admired his handsome face with its high, broad forehead hooded over sensitive brown eyes, I was reminded that my older brother has always met the censure of being part Kurd behind a mask of serenity. He was imbued with bravery unknown by most, and even then, was fighting the occupation in his own clever way.

Gently, Ra’ad reminded me, “You must sleep, little Joanna. Tomorrow we are going to the mountains, to picnic and swim under the waterfalls.”

A happy image of plunging into the transparent waters of mountain waterfalls flashed through my mind.

He encouraged me again, “Joanna. Go to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy,” I replied.

“Joanna,” he told me, “Look up at the starry sky.”

“I am.”

“Do you see the star lights?”

“I do.”

“Joanna, would you like to know a secret about the stars?”

I shivered in anticipation. I’ve always loved secrets. “What?”

“I will tell you a scientific secret that few people know. Joanna, anytime the stars shine this bright, there is a reason. And the reason is: the brightest stars are showering stardust. As you sleep, you’ll be sprinkled with stardust.”

Smiling, he gently stroked my face.

“Stardust, Joanna. Stardust. Just imagine it. Stardust all over your pretty little face.”

I was still young enough to believe him. Besides, for me, Kurdistan had always been a land of dreams.

So I turned to my side and closed my eyes to sleep peacefully through the night, my dreams shimmering with sprinkles of stardust.

The following day we were awakened to news about the truth of the previous night’s attack. The battle we had heard waged between the Iraqi army and the Peshmerga revolved around the three beautiful sisters we had seen selling jewelry at the market. A nest of Arab spies in the city had notified the Iraqi security about their romance with Peshmergas. At the end of the day, as the three sisters were riding in a donkey-cart back to their village, there was an ambush and they were arrested by Iraqi soldiers.

The beautiful brides-to-be were used as bait to draw in their three handsome Peshmerga fiancée’s.

The moment the fighters heard that their betrothed had been detained, they slipped into the city to rescue the women they loved, but the three sisters had already been taken to a prison in Baghdad.

Entering the trap, two of the three fiancée warriors were killed during the fighting while the third escaped.

The ultimate fate of the sisters was predictable. They would be tortured, then executed.

I grieved for the young lovers.

As so many Kurds murdered over the years, their dreams of love and marriage would never come true.

I felt tremendous hate for the men who had destroyed their dreams of love.

My anger hummed like slow, angry bees inside my head.

I prodded steadily onward toward my fate.

Perhaps a sprinkling of stardust would light my way. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the Author:

1) Do you think that Joanna’s decision to join the freedom fighters in their struggle against Saddam Hussein benefited the Kurd’s fight for freedom? If so, why?

2) Why do you think the Iranian government allowed Iraqi freedom fighters, such as Joanna and her husband and their comrades, exile at the same time Iran was embroiled in a bitter 8-year war with Saddam?

3) Why do you think that the Kurds in Northern Iraq are now prospering and living in peace when so much of Iraq is embroiled in so much turmoil?

4) Do you feel differently about the Kurds after reading Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan?

5) How do such stories of far-away places and people benefit readers in the west?

Weblinks

»	Author Jean Sasson's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info

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