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After answering the call to Jihad and massacring the indigenous non-Muslim Assyrian, Armenian, and Greek populations in Anatolia; the Kurds, who largely benefited from this genocide, found themselves gradually on the menu as Turkey now moved on to emphasizing its Turkishness.
A struggle has since ensued in Turkey unlike the struggle Kurds face in the fledgling Syrian/Iraqi states. Turkey was a wounded and fallen power, but one with a national identity & established institutions, meaning the pressure to conform to something was more acutely felt here.
Kurds in Turkey, not immune to the changing winds re: how people were starting to identify & organize themselves, began differentiating themselves from their neighbours intellectually/culturally in order to legitimize land claims and plot history; to take their place as equals.
According to Kurdish writer Cengiz Gunes, Newroz was identified early in the 20th C as a point of differentiation and then politicized in the 1970’s by other Kurdish nationalists in the form of Kawa the Blacksmith defeating the evil Assyrian king Dehak and freeing the Medes.pic.twitter.com/5KfFeI7uXT
If you understand transitions, you understand history. The myth of Kawa (Persian Kaveh) is derived from Ferdowsi’s 11th C epic Shahnameh. The defeated King named Zahak was Arab and in Jerusalem, not Assyrian in Assyria, and the victorious hero was named Feraidoun, not Kawa.pic.twitter.com/ztqi690eVU
This politicization of Newroz serves three purposes: 1. To designate a day of cross-border national unity 2. To annually renew calls for revolt/liberation 3. To anchor the Kurdish struggle and identity in the historical conflict (and geography) between Assyrians & Medes in 612 BC
This is elaborated further by Kurdish writer Ozlem Belcim Galip’s, where she outlines the intentions of PKK nationalists in attaching Kawa to “golden age” Median history to inspire Kurds to revolt against the modern states occupying Kurdistan (as well emphasizing non-Turkishness)pic.twitter.com/DxW9FhAf4F
Disclaimer: I view these writers as good sources in understanding the history of the PKK; I’m not so keen on their uncritical grasp of other history flavoured by their own biases, e.g: Gunes “the Medes – the ancestors of Kurds” Galip “Kurdistan, historically known as Mesopotamia”
This modern Kawa myth not only idiosyncratically isolates & vilifies ancient Assyrians in an effort to build a national story out of prolonged victimhood and struggle among Kurds, but inspires hatred of today's beleaguered Assyrians whom Kurds imagine as the old vanquished enemy.
Reading the myth, I found it strange that the entire story of a people could be placed precisely at the fall of the Assyrian Empire by 20th C Kurdish nationalists. How much of it can I attribute to the innate hatred and racism from Kurds towards Assyrians today? Only Kawa knows.
I understand there's been a vicious cycle of banning/politicizing but there's no need to politicize festivals which are millennia old in this way to emphasize some kind of moral and political legitimacy. Everyone deserves dignity, but not at the expense of others. Happy #Newroz
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