El Camino Kurdish

Perhaps the most radical divergence of the El Camino Kurdish from its Spanish counterpart is the role of women. On the traditional Camino de Santiago, women walked as followers, nuns, or wives. On the Kurdish camino, women lead the way.

The YJA-Star (Free Women’s Troops) and the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units) in Rojava (northern Syria) changed the global narrative of women in combat. For these fighters, the camino is not just about national liberation but about psychological and patriarchal liberation. The ideology of Jineolojî (the science of women), developed by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, posits that the Kurdish road to freedom is impossible without the destruction of male supremacy.

Walking the El Camino Kurdish means seeing 19-year-old women—carrying Kalashnikovs heavier than their own body weight—trekking through the snow to break the siege of Kobanî in 2014. Their journey is not one of passive suffering. It is one of active, furious agency. They have redefined what it means to be a pilgrim: not someone seeking a shrine, but someone becoming a shrine themselves.

Today, the most traveled "Camino Kurdish" is the migrant route to Europe. From the refugee camps of Domiz (Iraq) to the squats of Berlin’s Neukölln district, the modern Kurdish pilgrim walks in sneakers, paying smugglers to cross the Aegean Sea. Their Way of St. James is the Balkan Route; their cathedral is a residency permit.

Kurdish regions have long been crossroads of civilizations, with diverse communities including Muslims, Yazidis, Christians, and Syriac Orthodox. Pilgrimage in Kurdish lands often blends religious devotion with cultural heritage, reflecting the area’s syncretic traditions. Unlike the single, well-defined Camino routes in Spain, Kurdish pilgrimage paths are fragmented yet profound, shaped by localized legends, ancestral ties, and the veneration of saints, mystics, and natural sites. el camino kurdish

In the annals of automotive history, the Chevrolet El Camino is remembered as a quirky American experiment—a "coupe utility" vehicle that tried to be both a muscle car and a pickup truck. Produced between 1959 and 1987, it was a staple of Southern California streets and rural American highways.

But if you search for "El Camino" on social media today, you might be surprised to find yourself not in an American garage, but in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.

Welcome to the world of the "Kurdish El Camino."

Today, the El Camino Kurdish has largely moved off the mountains and onto the autobahns of Europe. Since the 2015-2016 migrant crisis and the recent seismic shocks in Rojava, hundreds of thousands of Kurds have walked the Balkan Route: from Turkey to Greece, across North Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, and finally to Germany or Sweden. Perhaps the most radical divergence of the El

This is the 21st-century Kurdish camino. It involves WhatsApp smuggling networks, rubber boats deflating in the Aegean, and the scent of tear gas at border fences. In 2022, I interviewed a young woman from Qamishli in a Berlin hostel. She had walked 2,500 kilometers over six months. She had no scallop shell (the symbol of the Spanish camino), but she wore a yellow-red-green bracelet.

"What is your shell?" I asked. She touched her temple. "Memory," she said. "The map is in my head. The road is my home."

Several locations in Kurdish regions are pilgrimage sites, each with distinct narratives:

  • Sinjar Mountains, Nineveh, Iraq

  • Mevlanê Zerzî (Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi) connections

  • Chaldean and Syriac Christian Pilgrimages

  • Hikayetê Lalehzêr (The Story of Layla and Majnun)