Land, flock, water, women cause for feuds in Mardin
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Doğan News Agency
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Temmuz 09, 2009 00:00
ERZURUM - The "risk map" of the province of Mardin shows that blood feuds are mainly caused between relatives over land, animal flocks, irrigation water and women.
The map, prepared after the murder of 44 people on May 4 in the village of Bilge in Mardin, focused on 10 municipalities and 16 villages where blood feuds continued. A nine-person team headed by Associate Prof. Yıldız Akpolat from the Erzurum Atatürk University department of sociology interviewed 636 people between June 15 and 30. The study was launched by Mardin Gov. Hasan Duruer after the massacre.
Masked gunmen armed with assault rifles attacked an engagement party in Bilge on May 4, killing 44 people, including six children and 16 women, and injuring three others. Ten people from the same village, relatives of those killed, were later charged for the crimes. Soon after the massacre, the suspects’ families left the village. After the tragedy, some reports suggested the May 4 attack was due to a land disagreement. The risk map study did not include Bilge because "the natural population structure" of the village was altered, said Akpolat.
Akpolat said they asked the people what they thought of certain traditional proverbs in order to do a sociological study on the mentality of the region’s people.
"There is a society geared toward blood in the region," he said. He said 90 percent of the people in the region belonged to the very conservative Shafi sect of Islam.
"Religious rules are very strict in Shafism," he said, adding that if only people followed the rules of the religion the way they believed they should, such feuds would never occur. "God gives life and only he can take it away," is a very popular proverb in the region, he said, but added: "Still they continue to take each others’ lives."
The people of the region perform their religious rites but they are far from becoming a society unified by religion, said Akpolat. "One village elder I talked to in the Midyat region told me: ’My father was murdered. I went to hajj just to not start a blood feud.’"
He said blood feuds usually happened between close relatives and the fact that agriculture was the mainstay of the region resulted in clashes over means of farming. He also said one rule in the blood feud was that if a man was murdered, the man’s family had to murder someone one of the same social standing.
"If the one killed in response is not of the same social standing, the later murders are committed to seek a sort of balance," he said.
Masked gunmen armed with assault rifles attacked an engagement party in Bilge on May 4, killing 44 people, including six children and 16 women, and injuring three others. Ten people from the same village, relatives of those killed, were later charged for the crimes. Soon after the massacre, the suspects’ families left the village. After the tragedy, some reports suggested the May 4 attack was due to a land disagreement. The risk map study did not include Bilge because "the natural population structure" of the village was altered, said Akpolat.
Akpolat said they asked the people what they thought of certain traditional proverbs in order to do a sociological study on the mentality of the region’s people.
"There is a society geared toward blood in the region," he said. He said 90 percent of the people in the region belonged to the very conservative Shafi sect of Islam.
"Religious rules are very strict in Shafism," he said, adding that if only people followed the rules of the religion the way they believed they should, such feuds would never occur. "God gives life and only he can take it away," is a very popular proverb in the region, he said, but added: "Still they continue to take each others’ lives."
The people of the region perform their religious rites but they are far from becoming a society unified by religion, said Akpolat. "One village elder I talked to in the Midyat region told me: ’My father was murdered. I went to hajj just to not start a blood feud.’"
He said blood feuds usually happened between close relatives and the fact that agriculture was the mainstay of the region resulted in clashes over means of farming. He also said one rule in the blood feud was that if a man was murdered, the man’s family had to murder someone one of the same social standing.
"If the one killed in response is not of the same social standing, the later murders are committed to seek a sort of balance," he said.