Tifaq: We Are Kinder to Strangers Than to Each Other

I keep hearing the sentence: “I am proud to be Yazidi.”

Good. But what does that pride cost you?

Whose burden have you carried? Whom have you defended when they were not in the room? Whose success have you celebrated without immediately looking for dirt beneath it? Who can call you at two in the morning and say, without shame, “I am not well”?

Pride is easy when it is a sentence. Tifaq begins when pride becomes responsibility.

What Tifaq actually means

Tifaq is commonly used for agreement, unity and standing together. It is related to the Arabic word ittifāq, meaning agreement or accord. But the word is bigger than everyone having the same opinion. Tifaq is not obedience. It is not silence. It does not mean protecting wrongdoing because the wrongdoer is “one of us.”

It means that disagreement does not automatically become destruction. It means that I can criticise you without humiliating you, compete with you without wishing for your failure, and dislike your choices without denying your dignity. It means that when danger comes, we do not first ask which clan, village, caste or political camp you belong to.

That kind of unity is precious in every society. For Yazidis, it is not merely desirable. It is a condition of survival.

Other communities are divided too

We sometimes look at larger religious communities and imagine that they possess a unity denied to us. They do not.

Muslims speak of the Ummah, yet Muslim communities argue bitterly across Sunni and Shia lines, between nationalities, mosque associations, political movements and families. Muslims themselves repeatedly ask: Where is the unity of the Ummah? The ideal is repeated so often precisely because reality falls short of it.

Christians preach brotherly love and pray for the unity of the Church, while congregations split over leadership, money, politics, doctrine and personal grudges. Members complain that Christian love can disappear the moment the church door closes behind them.

Jewish communities are often seen from outside as exceptionally cohesive. Inside, there are fierce conflicts over religious tradition, secular life, Israel, diaspora identity and politics. Jewish writers and community leaders openly worry about polarisation and the weakening of communal responsibility.

Hindu communities carry divisions of caste, language, region, class and temple politics. Diaspora organisations compete for influence, and Hindus themselves debate what unity means when a vast tradition contains so many different histories and interests.

These examples are not accusations against entire religions. They are reminders that no community is naturally united. Outsiders often see the festival, the institution and the public statement. They rarely hear what members say to one another behind closed doors.

The difference is not that Muslims, Christians, Jews or Hindus have no internal conflict. The difference is that many of them possess institutions strong enough to keep working despite it: states, universities, charities, welfare organisations, religious authorities, schools, foundations, counselling services and political networks. Their people can fight with one another while something larger still catches those who fall.

Who catches us?

We are kinder to strangers than to each other

Yazidis are proud of their hospitality. A stranger may receive our best food, our warmest room and more patience than a member of our own family. We know how to be generous to outsiders. We even know how to invent explanations for people who have harmed us.

But when another Yazidi makes a mistake, we can become prosecutors, judges and executioners in a single afternoon.

We say worse things about one another than we say about some of our enemies. We forgive outsiders for not understanding us, but punish our own for failing to be perfect. A rumour is enough. One photograph is enough. One marriage, one business decision, one political opinion or one moment of weakness can become a life sentence.

And when someone succeeds, the first response is not always joy. It is suspicion.

“Who knows how he got there?”

“Something about it cannot be right.”

We investigate success faster than suffering. We want to know what another person earns, owns and displays. But do we want to know what it cost them? Do we ask who stood beside them when they were afraid, depressed, exhausted or close to giving up?

Proud together, fighting alone

I have heard “I am proud to be Yazidi” countless times. Yet I have also watched Yazidis fight their most difficult battles alone.

Lonely? To whom are you supposed to say that?

Many older people survived poverty, persecution, displacement and the constant fear of losing everything. Their strength deserves respect. But survival can also narrow the definition of suffering. If a young person has a roof, food and physical health, what could possibly be wrong?

“You have everything.”

“Be grateful.”

“The rest is in God’s hands.”

Faith can comfort a person. But sometimes that sentence is used to close a conversation that nobody knows how to have. The person remains alone, now with the added shame of seeming ungrateful.

In most places, there is no clearly recognisable Yazidi point of contact for someone facing depression, domestic conflict, addiction, isolation, pressure over marriage, or a crisis of identity. There may be committed individuals and associations doing valuable work, but there is no dependable network that every Yazidi knows they can turn to. Families are expected to absorb everything. And when the family itself is the source of the pressure, there is often nowhere left to go.

A community is not strong because nobody speaks about weakness. A community is strong when weakness does not lead to abandonment.

The clan can protect, and the clan can divide

This problem did not begin in Europe. The diaspora intensified it, but did not invent it.

For generations, clan, village and extended family structures gave Yazidis protection in a world where no state reliably protected them. Those structures created loyalty and belonging. They also preserved rivalries, old insults and inherited suspicion. Sometimes a younger person inherits a side in a conflict without even knowing what originally happened.

We do not inherit only names. We inherit enemies.

Integration into foreign cultures certainly changes us. But it is too convenient to blame Germany, migration or modern individualism for every fracture. Some wounds travelled with us. In the diaspora they acquired WhatsApp groups, association boards, political pages and social media accounts.

This fragmentation has made it easier for outside parties and movements to use us for their own aims. When there is no trusted common structure, anyone can select a convenient “representative,” reward one faction, isolate another and present private interests as the Yazidi position. Division is not only emotionally painful. It is politically useful to other people.

The caste system cannot replace solidarity

The Yazidi caste system has religious, social and ritual functions. It has carried obligations, relationships and continuity across generations. But it cannot compensate for a lack of Tifaq.

In fact, caste can become another instrument of unequal judgment.

I have often observed that when a Mirîd makes a mistake, people may eventually describe it as human weakness. When a Şêx or Pîr makes the same mistake, the act is treated as proof that the person, the family and sometimes the entire lineage have failed. A Şêx or Pîr is expected to be calm, knowledgeable, dignified, available and nearly flawless at all times.

We demand holiness from people to whom we offer no mercy.

Religious responsibility should involve accountability. But accountability is not the same as collective humiliation. A title does not remove a person’s mental health, fear, loneliness or right to make mistakes. If our religious structure produces expectations but no support, then we are not preserving it. We are exhausting the people inside it.

Tifaq is not a photograph

Unity is often performed when there is a funeral, a commemoration, a political visit or a public threat. We stand together, take the photograph and speak about Yazidi pride. Then everyone returns to the same rivalries.

Real Tifaq is less impressive and more demanding.

It is calling someone before they break. It is recommending another Yazidi for an opportunity without fearing that their success will make you smaller. It is refusing to spread a rumour you cannot prove. It is disagreeing in public without turning private information into a weapon. It is building professional counselling, youth work, family support, scholarships, legal assistance and institutions that do not belong to one clan or political camp.

It is also learning to say: “I was wrong.” No community can unite if every apology is treated as surrender and every compromise as weakness.

We cannot afford the luxury of permanent division

Germany also longs for social cohesion. Christians long for it. Muslims invoke it. Jews debate it. Hindus organise around it. Every community knows that belonging can fracture.

But Yazidis pay a higher price for every fracture because there is no Yazidi state waiting behind us. No government exists whose first responsibility is our survival. No army exists to protect our sacred places. No broad system of universities, hospitals, welfare agencies or cultural institutions is designed around our needs. When we fail one another, there may be nobody else whose duty it is to step in.

This does not mean pretending that every Yazidi is good, or that criticism is betrayal. It means understanding the difference between correction and destruction. It means refusing the childish idea that unity requires sameness.

Do not tell me only that you are proud to be Yazidi.

Tell me whose burden you carried.

Tell me whom you defended when they were not in the room.

Tell me whose success you celebrated without asking how they “really” achieved it.

Tell me whom you called before they broke.

That is Tifaq.

Everything else is a slogan.