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Kurdish New Year


New Roz ( Kurdish New Year ) Celebration, Sulaymaniy 1977


This circular folk dance is one of Kurdish traditional dance. Men also can perform the same dance. In wedding parties, women, mostly unmarried girls, dress attractively in variety of colors as a way of showoff to attract males for future marriage arrangement. Most of the times when a ready-to-get married male attracted by a girl, the mother and a female relative of the male establish a contact with the girl's mother to discuss arrangements and agreements about potential marriage.

Adult males, or unmarried men do also perform the similar dance in such parties or occasions like this Newroz ( Kurdish New Year ) celebration outdoors shown in the Postcard above. Males in well-dressed Kurdish clothes perform their dance in a faster motion with more body movement and sometimes with thrilled verbal expressions.

Another similar dance is a combination between females and males circular dance. Alternatively males and females hold each other's hands and dance in a semi-fast mode with more smiles and shoulder movements. Most participants are married couples though. When female or male singles join, they might get a chance to strike some conversations.

Sometimes if a female attracted by a male and she happened to be dancing, a relative of the male might hold the female's hand and dance next to her in hope of opening a conversation and to know more about her and might tell her about the male who is attracted.
In more private dances, children also want do imitate adults by dancing with them either by holding their hands at the end of the dance line or in front of adult performers. During the four years of autonomy from 1970-1974, Kurds in Iraq had a chance to practice some freedom, such as celebrating New Roz freely.

Another freedom during the autonomy was using Kurdish language. Starting from the first to the twelfth grade, most of the text books at schools were taught in Kurdish language. A few magazines and a newspapers were published in Kurdish, writers, poets, intellectuals started publishing Kurdish literature, books and translating foreign books into Kurdish language. There was a Television channal in Kurdish, and a radio station for Kurds. With all these reliefs, there were still strong censorship , all were controlled and authorized by the Iraqi governments decisions.

Besides studying in Kurdish language at schools for the first time in Kurdish history, New Roz also became an official holiday and Kurds celebrated it freely every year. But, when Iraqi government recanted its promise to fulfill and complete the Kurdish demands for the full autonomy after four-year frame time. Iraqi government had attempted several times to assassinate the Kurdish leader (Mustafa Barzani ) and high ranking Kurdish officials.

Iraqi regime did not come to full agreement on major Kurdish issues such as including oil rich city of Kirkuk, Khanaqin, and allowing Kurds to administer themselves without having Iraqi officials and securities in Kurdistan. Kurds had realized they were betrayed again and Iraqi government took advantage of those four peaceful years to establish itself and strengthen its military power after it came to power in July 17, 1968.

As a result of Iraq's false promises and uncertainty, Kurds started their armed revolt against Iraqi regime. The fighting between Kurds and Iraqi military lasted one year from 1974-1975 with full support from Shah of Iran and indirect support from USA.

Shah of Iran came with an agreement with Saddam to stop supporting Kurds in exchange for regaining the land and waterway in the south along Iraq and Iran border. Iraqi government agreed with that and Iran stopped supporting Kurds which caused to collapse the revolt. After collapsing that revolt with Iran's interference, Iraqi government started to carry out genocide campaign against Kurds.
When Saddam officially became Iraqi president in 1979, he reversed all the educational and cultural rights for Kurds including New Roz ( Kurdish New Year ) .


Kurdish men, adults and boys alike celebrating New Roz in their village


The first freely celebrated New Roz ( Kurdish New Year ) in Kurdistan-Sulaymaniy March 21,1993.
Newroz means ( Nation of sun ) . In this picture you can see how people are freely participating
and enjoying the New Roz celebration without any fear of Iraqi regime's or authority's existence.
Kurds had never in their life celebrated their real national new year in open
and they could have never expressed their natural feelings in this national  event.

A Little Kurdish Girl
A traditional Kurdish Women's Cloth

This little girl dressed up in a traditional grown-up Kurdish women's clothes. Usually, when women's age reach over forty, they prefer to dress up by adding a head set ornamented with valued colored stones, some beads and gold jewelry.

More jewelry are worn for more appearance in special occasions such as wedding parties and some private meetings. In general, women are more accepted by other women when they wear more jewelry. This tradition starts before marriage. But when they marry they demand more and it is one of the agreement in arranged marriages between the bride and the groom's families.


Two young Kurdish girls dressed elegantly for participating
in New Roz ( Kurdish New Year ) at their school


New Roz Celebration In Sulaymaiy Students celebratting
Kurdish New Year at their school Kurdo - March 21, 1994