Every year on the 21st March the Kurdish people celebrate Newroz. This is a Spring festival of ancient Persian origin, today a Middle Eastern tradition, that has become the symbol of liberation and ethnic pride for the Kurdish minority. It is also an opportunity for millions of people to shout out for peace, democracy, human rights and freedom. Newroz is a time to exhibit traditional costumes, music and dances, and of course to hold deep and meaningful political speeches. Newroz was severely repressed in the past and is still strongly opposed. Thus, not surprisingly, each year Western observers have to travel to the towns and villages where Newroz is held.
| Although in Turkey the Kurds represent almost a third of the population, the Turkish Constitution still does not recognize the existence of cultures, languages and peoples other than those of the Turkish majority. For many years, the Newroz celebration was bloodily repressed and to this day its celebration is strongly opposed by Ankara. After the 2009 elections, the great success of the Democratic Party (DTP, then banned 11th December of that same year) was met with sever Turkish repression. Today thousands of political prisoners are held in Turkish prisons - it is estimated that at least two thousand intellectuals, human rights defenders, trade unionists, activists, administrators and democratically elected mayors, are imprisoned and on trial with charges that violate the right to freedom of speech and expression. Trials take place in different cities across Turkey, amongst which Diyarbakir, where last October a trial against 151 representatives of the civil resistance (elected local administrators, human rights defenders, activists) began. Considering that the political leader Abdullah Ocalan has been detained for nearly 12 years on the island-prison Imrali, it is clear that a political, non-military, solution is unlikely in the near future. Just as unlikely as an increase in freedom of expression or freedom of thought. An end to the persecution and the recognition of the Kurdish identity seems even further away. Nevertheless, many observers believe 2011 will prove to be a very important year, a year of dialogue and opportunity. The next general elections, set for June 12, 2011, will be a very important moment. Kurds ask that these take place without fraud or intimidation towards their political parties, already deprived of a huge number of leaders and activists which find themselves locked up in prison. The result of these elections will play a crucial part in the formulation of Turkish policy towards the solution of the Kurdish question, hopefully this will involve more than just a military solution. Every year on the 21st March the Kurdish people celebrate Newroz. This is a Spring festival of ancient Persian origin, today a Middle Eastern tradition, that has become the symbol of liberation and ethnic pride for the Kurdish minority. It is also an opportunity for millions of people to shout out for peace, democracy, human rights and freedom. Newroz is a time to exhibit traditional costumes, music and dances, and of course to hold deep and meaningful political speeches. Newroz was severely repressed in the past and is still strongly opposed. Thus, not surprisingly, each year several Western observers travel to the towns and villages where Newroz is held, starting, obviously, with Diyarbakır, the "capital" of Kurdistan. The Newroz of 2009 we are presenting here, was one of the most important, it took place in a period full of high hopes, just after the March elections, which had been held a few days earlier. My journey started in Hasankeyf - a village of Hittite origins situated by the River Tigris, which will be submerged due to the construction of the Ilisu Dam. It is today inhabited by Kurdish people that clearly tie the defence of their homeland to that of their ethnic identity. My journey ended at the border villages of Cizre, Idil, Dargeçit, which I visited during Newroz (20-21 March). Here the presence of the Democratic Party’s flag, the only flag legally authorized to represent the Kurds in parliament, was impressive. The "politicization" of young Kurds is another thing that really springs to the eye, this goes from young children who raise the yellow flag and show-off the nearly over-used gesture of victory as if it were a game, to youngsters, especially in Diyarbakır, who incessantly ask you what Europe’s position is regarding the Kurdish people.
| The "Kurdish question" is something that nobody talks about publicly, nevertheless in these areas it really is on everyone's lips: from the travel guide who will quite simply explain how cultural discrimination makes her work more difficult, to the young Kurdish banker in Midyat, who, whilst he smilingly resolves my credit-card issues, makes it very clear that those who have a good job and better living standards are less inclined to defend their ethnical identity at all costs. The situation is very different in Dargeçit, one of Kurdistan’s poorest villages, where you can literally breath people’s hostility. These people have been denied schooling, infrastructure and jobs, in short: their future. There are no observers here in this village, but rather a large impressive military presence in the form of a security belt that surrounds the entire square and nearby rooftops. Here the political aspect of Newroz is very strong, more so than in Idil, a much richer town where half the population speaks German – a clear example of what can be considered a highly Europeanized generation. In a moment of collective joy the Mayor himself, who is 40 years max, invites me to join them in the celebrations that go on throughout the night. Most people here are migrants, now resident in Germany or Switzerland, who have returned to celebrate Newroz. However, many are also former migrants who have decided to return home in order to build a better place. Despite its chaotic urban planning – it resembles a sort of large construction site made of dusty roads and the skeletons of unfinished buildings, indication of the rapid growth experienced in recent times thanks to remittance money coming from those in Europe – this town is rich in cultural identity and much more European than many other places in Turkey. The Kurds who have lived in Europe seem to have a more secular way of looking at things, and, whilst they happily exhibit their customs, traditions, songs and dances, they seem to have given up on the political protests that you can sense so clearly in the other villages of Kurdistan. Many riots take place in Diyarbakir, the “capital”, but every year is different, sometimes the hottest places are found right by the borders, where observers don’t always go, and so often these events aren’t covered by the papers. Besides the Kurdish population, of whom everyone has heard in one way or another, this territory is also the home of many other minorities who remain almost unknown, such as the Aramaic Christians, whose communities have been all but destroyed and today are just about surviving in what can only be considered hostile territory – between armed Kurdish militia and military garrisons that struggle for control, a hard to reach community living in an area as large as a province that has been completely isolated from the rest of the country. A further example is that of Turkey’s Armenians – massacred during the last century but practically ignored by most history books. Sadly these are stories that we cannot tell here, but they help us understand the importance of linking the answers to the Kurdish question to the re-discovery of the many forgotten identities present in this huge country, a country that tends to centralize and nationalize everything despite its historic origins being everything but that! |
©2009 Marco Palladino – All rights reserved
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