Celebration of NuRoj, a Time for Hope, a Time for Change

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Year to year and from season to season, Spring marches into Summer, Summer leaps to Fall and Fall quietly turns to Winter and then the renewal of Spring is on us once again. Like birth and death, and rebirth, change is inevitable, and continually ticking, it is at the core of mother nature’s heartbeat.

Nature has its own course of cosmic change, its own ebbs and flows, and so too, we humans, through our divine gifts of human will and reason decide the courses of our lives, directing actions that fall within the realm of our consciousness and the powers of our ability to make choices.

The perpetual and rhythmic revolutions of Moon around Earth and both of those heavenly bodies around our Sun, along with the constant flux of all pulsating matter within the universe is at its heart, the reason we celebrate the infinite coming of Spring, Summer Fall Winter then back to Spring again. In the Kurdish language, we have called this eternal renewal, NuRoj, literally, a New Day. This celebration of a New Day is soon approaching and is just around the orbital ‘corner’ of Earth, revolving around the Sun, and arriving this year on a Monday, March 20, 2023, specifically at the hour 21:25 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

Let us celebrate this year’s NuRoj as described by KAES in the following two articles here:

1. Spiritual Revival of the Forgotten Traditions of NuRoj

2. A Brief History of NuRoj, Kurdish New Year — Newroz

NuRoj Essential Elements, Los Angeles, U.S.. Photo: Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur/handout via iKurd.net

While this past year has brought sad and devastating news of an earthquake along with general aggressions towards Kurdistan, its land and ways of life, they have in no way been able to shake the core confidence and determination of the Kurdish people from marching forward to bring permanent and monumental good news of change to the future life of our people over all of Kurdistan.

The life of Jina Amini, the Kurdish embodiment of the rallying cry of Woman, Life, Freedom, who was herself a veritable paragon of both virtue and freedom, through her tragic death, raised the defiant shout of millions around the world, breaking the very foundations of the longstanding dictatorial regime in Iran.

Social change is often the result of systematized forward thinking and social progress is most often forward moving, however, in the case of certain countries, and in the case of Iran in particular, to theocratic and dictatorial groups, change can also mean a regression and backwards thinking, a nostalgic return enacted to return to and restore a defunct system of corruption, the outgrowth of which is a pompous culture of pretentiousness inherent to the old regime.

So with the coming of NuRoj 2023, let us all be firm in our beliefs, resolved in our determination, and committed to freedom with hope and optimism to embrace a New Day, a new life, and a new thinking which separates us from the old regimes and its pretentious culture of pompousness, arrogance, conceit and corruption, that has absolutely no place in the heart of Kurdish culture.

I wish everyone a most happy NuRoj to all reading this, and may the Kurdish New Year 2751 bring you and your family, both vibrant health and immense prosperity, and many auspicious changes quickly coming to you and to the people of Kurdistan in the new year ahead.

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.

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