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Meanings of Nowruz between mythology and reality
Nowruz, known as a new year for more than 300 million people across the world, has been celebrated for nearly 3,000 years [ 2722 years according to the Kurdish calendar or 612 B.C.]. The festival of Nowruz is the traditional celebration of the new year that marks the beginning of spring for a diverse range of nations, ethnic and religious communities. However, Nowruz or the new day in Kurdish has been associated with the Kurdish national identity and freedom and has become a symbol of Kurdish national identity and symbolises the end of tyranny.
Arguably, Newroz has become the most important national, cultural festival and celebration of the Kurdish calendar in Kurdistan and diaspora as well which began on the twentieth and twenty-first of March. By going back to the Kurdish myths, Nowruz has not only marked the first of spring, but it was an embodiment of revolution against oppression and the end of tyranny. According to the legend and the Zoroastrian myth, the Kurds with the other ethnic groups that been oppressed by the Assyrian tyranny of Zuhak (Dehak) began to rebel against him with the leadership of the blacksmith Kawa. When the king became ill, two serpents grew on his shoulders and started to feed them by the brain of two Kurdish youths each day in purpose to prevent eating him until Kawa led a revolution against him. Simultaneously with the killing and defeating of king Zuhak, the fire in the hills and mountains announced the victory and the end of the Zuhak kingdom. 612 B.C. was the end of the Assyrian kingdom and the beginning rule of the Kurdish kingdom of Medes.
For Kurdish people, Nowruz is a symbol of freedom, revolution and identity and has always connected to the politics of the day in all parts of Kurdistan under the oppressive regimes of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. For example, in Syria and under Assad's regime, the celebration of the Kurdish new year was forbidden, and the Kurds were subject of arrest, killing and oppression by the Syrian security forces. In 1986 the Syrian intelligences and mukhabarat had opened fire against the Kurdish demonstration in Damascus to prevent people from celebrating Nowruz outdoors and banning the celebration. As a result, the first victim of the Syrian regime was Suleiman Addy who was killed by the Syrian police. Due to the political oppression of Kurds by Assad's regime and its discrimination policies, the Kurds led an uprising against the regime in March 2004 and they continued the struggles until today's day.
In 2019, just after two days of Nowruz, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces declared the defeat of the so-called ISIS in 23 of March, northeast Syria. Remembering the first Kurdish victory before 2722 years, were Kurds joint together under the rule of the Medes Kingdom and has successfully defeated the tyranny. Today, such example and experience of unity can be the only way for Kurds as the world's largest ethnic group without state and they an estimated 50 million who live in between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
BY: Zara Saleh
