Newroz And The Attempts of Cultural Appropriation

Scherco R. Baban | Exclusive to iKurd.net

In my article of March 2003 “Newroz Iraq, Syria and Turkey“, I wrote about how the former mentioned states tried to culturally appropriate this very Kurdish festivity.

Meaning “New Day – Newroz” in Kurdish, Newroz is celebrated as the beginning of the new year by Kurds; it may be the most ancient new year celebration in human civilization.

As it marks the spring equinox, it also marks the day triumphs over the night, light over darkness, prosperity over austerity, to tell us that spring is coming; we are going to get the benefit of the sun. It is cultural heritage from the ancient sun-‐worshipping Kurdish Religion days.

Now let´s explain what ” Cultural Appropriation” is.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture whose nation or war machine has succeed to succumb. When elements of an invaded culture are used by members of the invaders or the cultural majority; this is seen as oppression of the invaded culture and stripping it of its people´s identity and intellectual “property rights”.

Cultural Appropriation differs from acculturation or cultural exchanges. It is more of a cultural theft than a mere borrowing or appreciation. Cultural borrowing and cross-‐fertilization is a natural, necessary and a positive thing for mankind and human civilization, and specially when something is usually done out of admiration of (and with no intent to harm) While “Cultural Appropriation” is the adoption of these cultural elements in a colonial and oppressing manner: elements are copied from a invaded culture by members of the invaders, and these elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even as tool of oppression against the invaded culture.

In what is called Turkey, Iraq and Syria today, Newroz has been celebrated only by the Kurds, and that has always been a big problem.

The Kurds have had the most difficulties on earth to celebrate their ancient festivity. This is mainly because occupation forces of above mentioned states, have always taken extraordinary reprisal measures over the occasion, and because the struggle for freedom was also an original essence of this new year festivity.

In Turkey and until the mid-‐1990s, this problem was none other than an official ban on Newroz celebrations. The Turkish state wanted to erase Kurdishness from the face of the earth, and Newroz was one of the manifestations of that forbidden identity. For years, therefore, Turkey’s Kurdistan became the stage of Newroz-‐celebrating people, and the police and gendarmerie trying to stop them.

In 1995 did the Turkish state begin to realize its failure, and set Newroz free. But this time, it tried to appropriate and Turkify it. It started to adopt the feast officially, as governors and officers began to dance around fires, practicing the very Newroz tradition that they had suppressed until the previous year. They called it Nevruz, highlighting the letter ‘V’ and a Turkish way of writing and because the Kurdish “W” was forbidden in Turkey.

In recent time and specially this year the authorities and their nationalist intellectuals and writers realized again how ridiculous it was these attempts of cultural appropriation of Newroz by false historical revision attempts, how ridiculous and fundament-‐less was the ” Ergenkon” thesis. Therefor they are trying to go back to the old habits of suppression!

Some Turkish writers who were wise enough to not assume the nonsense of The Turkish origin of Newroz, will just try to de-‐Kurdify Newroz by assume other origins of it, mainly the Iranic, ancient Egyptian or Jewish origin. For them, anything is fine as long as it is not Kurdish!

Unlike The Turks, The Arab Iraqi and Syrian governments of prior times realized they would never manage to wipe out this ancient celebration from the heart and minds of The Kurds, despite that their country had been occupied and divided for so long time.

These two Arab states were early with their intents of cultural appropriation and their hypocritical moves off claiming Newroz as an ancient Arab or Semitic festivity. When they realized how futile this was they tried to instate it as so called ” Brotherhood” festivity. Culture ministers and governors started to dance around the fires in official brotherhood ceremonies, while Kurdish people went to their own declared “unlawful” ceremonies.

Ideeton Moobarek, Norooz Mubarek or Newroz Pîroz?

Last year when I heard the president of The United States congratulating “Whoever celebrating Nowroz” I heard a salutation at the end that differed from the his speeches the last eight years. This time he said: Newroztan Pîroz, unlike the last eight years “Ideeton Moobarak or Norooz Moobarak”. At first I was glad to hear that and thought as most of Kurds that “Obama has finally acknowledged us and our sacrifices for The Free World.

But apparently the president was just given a paper to read from it and is unaware of this new salutation is actually Kurdish. By making this top world leader saying it is this. Iranian nationalists from diaspora hoped to making the majority of Iranians would get read of the more Arabic influenced words of salutation by using the Kurdish salutation, but claiming it as Farsi!

Other people in West and Central Asia are also celebrating Newroz for the same or another reasons in same or different manners and ways of celebration. But when the United Nations adopted this day of March 21st -‐ first as World Cultural Heritage Day in 2009 and “World Nowruz Day” later. This time some Iranians from both the current regime and in diaspora tried to adopt it as a narrowly Persian day, They even started to try what the others didn´t succeed, Cultural Appropriation!

By alluding to the legend of Kawa, The Smith revolting against the tyrant Dehak -‐ as evidence to show Newroz’s mere Persian nature -‐ as is described in by Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh, they made the great mistake of the millennia.

Namely Ferdowsi himself portrayed the people and their leader as the ones “who escaped to the mountains of the North and who came down later when this Dahak were killed by The Smith. These revisionists missed this particular detail, that those people who escaped from alleged tyrant and who later finished him off are known popularly in West and Central Asia (Region where Newroz is celebrated) as The Kurds!

Historically the legend of Kawa the Smith coincide with the Kurds revolts against the Assyrian Empire, a Semitic Kingdom from Southern Mesopotamia that tried to advance northward against the lands of ancient Kurds.

The Kurds suffered great loses until their Kingdoms, and tribes together with remnants of The Scythian tribes and others merged in what was called the Median Confederation. This confederation managed to defeat the Assyrians, burn their capital Nineveh and establish what was called The Median Empire who they even called Gutium or Corduene later on!

Today´s Kurds are believed to be the product of that amalgam of Paleo-‐Caucasian peoples and Indo-European tribes.

When the Iranian Chauvinists both in Iran and the diaspora started to recognize the impossible task of Persifying this event as they tried to Persify the Non Persian peoples of Iran. They started the Pan-Iranist campaign, hardly different from the Kurdo-‐Turkish, Kurdo-‐Arab brotherhood campaigns or the Islamic Unity mantras.

Kurdish New Year Newroz celebrations in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, March 21, 2014. Photo: KRG

The salute change into “Newroztan Pîroz” (or Noroozetoon Pirooz the Iranian way of pronunciation) in my opinion, was of two reasons, as a part of attempts of extract as much Arabic words from Farsi as possible (The heavy influence of Arabic language over Farsi is a motive of national shame for Iranian nationalists) But since this task is difficult without the help from other language, they started to accommodate words from the more pure Kurdish language without admitting that. The second reason is to use the similarities as tool for their Pan-‐Iranism!

It is often argued that Iranian philological nationalism was born as a state ideology in the Reza Shah era, however, what was hard to neglect was the Arabic language’s domination over Farsi. So in order to shape an expansionist discourse for constructing a greater territorial entity, a ‘pure Iran’ or an Aryan Iran doctrine had to be presented.

They started with the language purification. Consequently, over time there emerged among the country’s intelligentsia a political racial supremacy doctrine which contributed to the formation of Iranian chauvinism, later known as Pan-‐Iranism.

Beside treating Kurdish Language as a word pool, they considered the motley fairer skinned Paleo-‐Caucasian Kurds (even the Talysh, Ossetians, Georgians and other fair skinned Iranian citizens) as their Aryan Gene pool (The real Aryans) as Hitler did by regarding the Nordic people as the German Nations Gene pool or reserve Germans.

That’s why one often see photos of fair skinned Kurdish women on Iranian Nationalist pages and social tool sites presented as ” Pure Aryan Iranian people”

Under the banner of Pan-‐Iranism and the Iranian Nations Brotherhood, the Newroz (Norooz in Farsi) event became another mean of assimilation against the people of Kurdistan, This cultural day turned into of political tool for dominance and imperialism.

As before, I would say a feasible solution to the most problems in The Middle East will come to an end to when these stupid dreams of Greatness of Al Umma Al Arabia, Al Umma Al Islamiya, Great Turania ( Pan-‐Turkism) or Great Iran will disappear from the minds and hearts of the Persian, Arabs and Turkish people! Greatness by territorial expansion is a very outdated idea and belongs to the dustbin of history!

No, it is not the same! The Kurdish Independence movement by no mean is comparable to these aforementioned chauvinistic and fascist movements! The Kurdish Independence Movement is a liberation movement of an oppressed people by all current political and ideological standards. It is a freedom fight!

Newroz Pîroz to everyone who celebrate it for the sake of celebration!

Scherco R. Baban, an independent researcher and analyst specializing in Kurdish Question and The Middle Eastern security, economical and cultural dynamics.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.