Newroz and Iraq, Syria and Turkey

Scherco R. Baban | iKurd.net

Newroz is the celebration of spring Equinox, March 21, which is considered as the beginning of the New Year, is a widely celebrated by the Indo-Iranian peoples such as Kurds, Tajiks, Afghans, Persian, Ossetians, and Balushs etc… With characteristics deeply rooted in the traditions of Zoroastrianism and even before this aforementioned religion.

Yet for my kinsmen the Kurds we think we have celebrated Newroz as long as we have been considered as Kurds.

We celebrated it as we were Ezidis, as we were Zoroastrians and when we became Muslims too! We celebrated Newroz long before the Arianzation of our nation as recent discoveries have shown. The followers of the autochthon Kurdish religion, Ezidism date their “çarşemmeya Sûr” the Wednesday after Newroz back to 6,762 years ago.

Newroz has always had the greatest place in the heart of every Kurd as its arrival meant the end of suffering from harsh winters, great enemies or natural disasters.

When the new emergent states of Iraq, Turkey and Syria after World War I, started their assimilation campaigns against the Kurdish population, motives of Kurdish identity was the first thing to be targeted, among them were Newroz.

The two Arab majority states of Iraq and Syria, perused their infamous Arabization policy against this divided ancient nation, including continues efforts of renaming cities, streets, ancient places, mountains, rivers, historical personalities, they even tried to Arabize this totally UN-SEMITIC tradition and so called university professors aired their unfunded theories of “Nairuz” Arab or Semitic origin, even giving it names as the “ Eid Al Shajara” The Feast Of The Tree” or “Eid Al Rabee” The Feast Of Spring.

Time passed and both states realized how silly their argumentation was and they ceased this practice. Well, actually both states ceased to exist practically nowadays…

In what would become Turkish Republic after World War I, Kurds were no more allowed to be Kurds anymore! They were to be called Mountain Turks.

The Turkish state wanted to wipe out Kurdish identity from the face of the earth. Newroz was one of the manifestations of that forbidden identity. Albeit Kurds continued to celebrate their Newroz as they did for thousands of years, despite the efforts of Turkish police and gendarmerie trying to stop them.

Trying to suppress Newroz festivities of the Kurds by force, The Turks applied other methods, like sermons (religious speeches) in mosques, books of primary, elementary and high schools, conferences of universities, were all used to portray Newroz as un-Islamic or pagan festivity and Kurds should not celebrate it!

In what became The Turkish Republic, Newroz has been celebrated only by Kurds, and therefore it was known among the Turks as a Kurdish Feast.

Some “moderate” Turkish writers argued about the “Persian” origin of Newroz. We don´t deny that! Newroz is equally an Ossetians, Tajik, Afghan and Persian as it is Kurdish. These people are our brother nations and we share many common traditions with them so what is strange about that?! Anyway, as I said before, in what became Turkey it has never been celebrated by Turks and only by Kurds and that is why it is a Kurdish Feast.

In mid-nineties of last century, the Turkish state began to realize its unsuccessful attempts to ban Newroz , therefore they lifted the ban on Newroz. For more, they made an astonishingly hypocritical move and announced it as an ancient Turkish new year.

They readopt it as “Nevruz”, highlighting a more Turkish way of spelling! They developed the ideological policy of “Nevruz” (the Turkified version of Newroz) as a Turkish Ergenekon Festival and Newroz was presented as an element of Turkishness.

Government officers and ministers began to start fires to jump over them in official ceremonies, practicing the very Newroz tradition that they had banned, suppressed labeled as anti-Turkish and un-Islamic until just a year before!

Nowadays everyone in Turkey hope for a feasible solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey.

I would just say, well, start by reverse all the assimilation policies you had done for the last 90 years, and rename everything back to its original names. Be mature! Stop all lunacies about Newroz, and treat it as it is! As the Kurdish New year! And respect it as such!

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.