My First Kurdish New Year
Posted by Kuang on Thu, 23 Mar 2006.
There were around 150 people who turned out to see in the year 2706 on Wednesday 22nd at the YMCA, East Street, Leicester and I was one of them. This was of course the Kurdish New Year or Newroz.
For the Kurds, this is not just celebrating another date in the calendar nor is it a religious occasion. It is a political act. The event has until recently been an illegal festival. The memory of the massacre of 102 Kurds, by Turkish forces in 1992 is still raw in everyone’s mind and it is only recently that the holiday was de-criminalised in Turkey.
Newroz celebrates the victory of Kawa the Blacksmith who avenged the death of thousands of young Kurds at the hands of an evil king named Zohak. The tyrant drank their blood after making a Faustian pact with the devil to immortalize his wicked reign.
Karim, 26, explained a little about the night. “Today I feel happy. Today is my new year. Everywhere Kurdish people are going somewhere together to celebrate. I am happy cause different nationalities have come here to our party”
I was told the most important thing to do at Newroz was to light a fire. Being inside the Y theatre bar venue, this wasn’t practical. It appears you really can’t smoke anywhere nowadays.
The traditional Kurdish pop music was provided by a band from Germany. Evidence of their heritage was seen in the keyboard player’s mullet. They made a good sound in the 300 seat theatre and although not to my tastes, I did find myself wondering what the songs were about.
Awara Hidaid, 18, from Iraq, explained the lyrics to me. “They are always about love. Not like rap or rock. Only about girls. Only about love.”
The first thing I noticed when I entered was the distinct lack of females. Upon pointing this out to Awara, he mournfully informed me that the room was largely made up of refugees and that families send their sons to seek asylum so naturally there were to be few girls. However, I did notice that this disentangled the awkwardness so often found in school discos.
There were four or five different dances but the most popular were the Sorane dance and the Badini. The first is a sort of wavy line, like a hokey-cokey-conga, where the Sargshbi, (first in line) waves a wound cloth in their own chosen rhythm that seems to whip up people from the walls till the last in the link, the Garany, has to wave their hand whilst they learn the steps. The Badini was a sort of shoulder jig with some fancy footsteps, again in a line.
The nights’ festivities were provided for by the prize-winning Dreamers Project, from Mountfields Lodge, Loughborough. “Tonight is a unique celebration of an emerging, new community festival of Newroz.” stated Andrew Lake, manager at Mountfields, “which is Persian for New Year. It’s all about dancing, having fun, being together. We’ve achieved that tonight. It’s been a really good turn out, really good music. The party will go on all night.”
Of course no festival is complete with a feast and Newroz didn’t disappoint. It was a buffet meal of chapattis, ritja, piquant chick pea, spicy rice and samosas. The perfect way to start any year.
- Article by Rhys Heywood
