MONTREAL, Canada—Several hundred Kurds from across the French province of Quebec braved the unexpected snowstorm on Friday and gathered in a large ballroom outside Montreal to celebrate Newroz.
“It is a celebration of spring, joy and happiness,” said Sinan Solak who has been in Canada since he was six. “Newroz ten years ago was not like today’s Newroz. We are getting better every year.”
Young and old Kurds gathered under one roof to celebrate the New Year, something that was until recently banned in their home country of Kurdistan.
“Newroz stands for new day, democracy and freedom,” said an eight-year-old Kurdish girl to the crowd in Kurdish, English and French.
The happy occasion started off with a one-minute silence to prisoners and martyrs fallen while fighting for their rights in Turkey.
“We wish freedom for all Kurdish prisoners,” said the young girl in her colorful Kurdish dress. “We can’t wait till the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan is free.”
Most of the people in the hall were from Kurdish towns and villages of south-eastern Turkey, or what is known as North Kurdistan (Bakur).
Soon after wishing everyone a happy New Year through the sound system, men and women lined up to dance under a ceiling adorned with pictures of Ocalan, the Kurdistan flag and that of his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
They danced to Hozan Dino, a Kurdish singer who had traveled from Europe to make the evening more festive with his music.
Sinan told Rudaw that the 600 people who gathered on that cold day didn’t represent the true number of Kurds in Quebec.
“We might be 3,500 Kurds in Montreal, which is not much. We don’t know exactly how many of us are here,” he said.
“When we fill in government papers and have to fill-in the nationality box, Kurdish is not listed. We have to check other nationalities, Turkish, Iranian, Syrian or Iraqi,’’ he lamented.
Hussein Solak, one of the organizers of the evening, said that he celebrated his first Newroz in Canada 23 years ago, shortly after he arrived from Turkey.
He said that he and many other Kurds had come to Canada to escape “repression and the denial of their rights” in Turkey.
As a leading member of the Kurdish community, Solak said that every year they invite local politicians and dignitaries to Newroz parties to introduce them to the Kurdish people and culture.
This year, representatives of the Armenian Church attended the celebrations for the first time.
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