The way we came to Hasankeyf was from the southwest, winding up the long Tigris River valley from Mardin in southern Turkey. We were stopping for lunch in the small, picturesque town on the ancient river – heart of an ancient civilization – after spending a couple of days perched in Mardin, drinking afternoon beers on the edge of Mesopotamia (it felt), or on the edge of the world – the Syrian war a distant but tangible thing on the long, hazy plains beneath us.
Arriving in Hasankeyf and wandering its main little lane, lined with shops and a few cafes that dangle precipitously over the river, it’s easy to get lost in its charm. Enthusiastic carpet sellers and rug makers, blanket weavers and others selling a hundred unnecessary souvenirs linger in front of their stalls, while behind them, a cliff dotted with the remains of an ancient city reminds you that despite its village charm, Hasankeyf was once the heart of something much, much bigger.
Which is why it’s a serious bummer that in less than six months, the whole place will be gone, flooded by the dammed Tigris to create a large reservoir in the heart of southern Anatolia.
The worst part about this is that the loss of a gem like Hasankeyf is only the tip of the iceberg.
The systematic damming of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers across southern Turkey has been happening for a century, leading to the disappearance of, I’m sure, a number of lovely and archeologically interesting towns and river valleys. But of equal concern (though perhaps an archaeologist would argue with me here), it has been subsequently decreasing the annual inflow of fresh water to Iraq.
A few weeks ago I attended the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani’s second Sulaimani Forum. The Forum is designed to address a wide range of topics facing Iraq and particularly Kurdistan. Panelists were members of government, local and foreign academics, NGO representatives, and journalists. I attended panels on Iraq oil policy and its ramifications on regional stability, on the future of ethno-sectarian conflicts in the Middle East, and, especially, on water as an instrument for cooperation across the region.
The conference was well organized and moderated, and the panel on water was particularly illuminating because it shed light on two specific facts that I had never heard, and was subsequently horrified by, care of Andrea Cattarossi of MED Ingegneria.
The first was that in seven to ten years, Iraq is going to run out of fresh water.
The second was that Iraq is losing two per cent of agricultural land to desertification every year.
Think about both of these for a moment.
Seven to ten years of water and then… what? It’s seems incredible that in a country where oil, gas, and water all cost about the same, the one we take most for granted is the one that is going to go first. It also makes me feel incredibly guilty about the fact that my toilet’s been running for days and I have yet to fix it.
The water crisis doesn’t just mean an end to drinkable, useable water. It means a steep decline in agriculture, in food security, in village health. There is already a water scarcity at the village level, and this is only going to get sharply worse in the next few years. This is clear when I visit the bazaar – the majority of the produce I buy there has been imported from Turkey or Iran. In fact, Kurdistan already imports most of the things it needs. Oil is obviously the one glaring exception in this – and the most profitable export to the region – but oil production also requires water for the refinement process.
It just seems incredible that the place where agriculture arguably was born is, with the loss of its water, about to lose all ability to produce much of anything.
Obviously Turkey’s stance on water isn’t the only thing contributing to this; decades of war and violent conflict and precarious governments and shady corporations and the Oil for Food program have all contributed to the decline of agriculture throughout the region. But all of those issues can, through time, be navigated. As a natural resource, the loss of water will be as devastating as any of these, and the impact will have equally great, or larger consequences.
All of the panelists discussing this issue at the Suli Forum called for immediate attention to the loss of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers across Iraq, but no one seemed to have a plan for where to begin. Turkey, clearly, is completing the Ilisu Dam without much discussion about how this will impact Kurdistan – or at least not in anything I’ve read. It doesn’t appear to be an alarming or pressing issue to anyone except those running the #hasankeyfmatters campaign.
But it’s clear that something has to be done: because the loss of this little town on the edge of the Tigris in southern Turkey is actually about the loss of something much greater. Its ancient history will have something in common with our current history – both disappearing because of the arrogance of humans who have put their present before a longer, richer future, and who will then wonder when we fail nature how we’ve lost.
DISPATCHES FROM A FRONTIER 