By Sham Jaff
NUREMBERG, Germany – As Kurdish immigrant communities in Europe welcome the new year, some say that Newoz is the time of year they most hope all Kurds could celebrate together.
In diaspora, where they have none of the physical borders that separate them in their ancestral lands into Iraqis, Turks, Syrians and Iranians, the Kurdish immigrants still struggle to break the political and language barriers that divide them as strongly as frontiers.
Many, like Polla Garmiany who lives in the city of Mainz in Germany, say they are reluctant to attend public Newroz gatherings because, instead of a celebration of new year, they often turn into political events.
"This is the one day of the year that I like to put politics aside and enjoy the celebrations," said Garmiyani, who is himself politically minded.
In Germany – whose immigrant Kurdish population of 650,000 is the largest in Europe – Newroz in the city of Bonn was celebrated Saturday like every year: each community sticking to itself. The three largest gatherings were celebrations organized by with the Kurdistan Workers‘ Party (PKK) or the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the two traditionally rival groups that dominate Kurdish politics.
Sedat Budak, a 29-year-old originally from the majority Kurdish town of Cizre in southeastern Turkey, attended the biggest celebration in Germany, which was organized by the pro-PKK Democratic Society Center, or NAV-DEM.
“At one point, Abdullah Ocalan flags were handed out to everybody and Newroz quickly turned political,” she said, referring to the PKK leader whose freedom from prison in Turkey remains a key goal of the group that has activists around the world.
“The heads of these organizations have made an active effort to maintain a politically segregated Newroz. This is not a majority choice,” Budak said, observing that the main hurdle to mutual Newroz celebrations are ideological and party rivalries among Kurdish organizations in Germany.
Ozan Basibuyuk is so fed up with segregated Newroz celebrations that he appealed to the Kurdish think-tank Nishtiman to help organize next year's gathering: a celebration free of all political affiliations. “We all celebrate Newroz, so why not together?"
But this is not the first time that a non-partisan Newroz event has been proposed.
Azad Efrin, who has roots in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) and lives in Berlin, is skeptical that such unity can be achieved so easily among Germany’s Kurds.
"Last year a few organizations tried to collaborate to put together a Newroz celebration,“ he recalled. “But due to differences in political opinion over which flags and logos to use, the organizing committee disbanded and the event was cancelled,“ Azad told Rudaw.
In other European countries with large immigrant communities such as Sweden, Denmark, France and Britain, Kurds have similar complaints about divisions, especially at Newroz.
“Here in Stockholm, there is one Newroz party every year and one political party organizes it. This is a dividing force, as the celebrations are exploited solely for partisan purposes,” says Aso, a 35-year old PhD student in Sweden. “A lot of Kurds, therefore, either don’t show up at all or only partake due to a lack of alternatives,” added Aso, whose parents immigrated from Sina in Iran.
Though they may struggle to celebrate Newroz together, immigrant Kurds still shatter the barriers and unite as a nation on life-or-death issues – on the battlefield and the streets.
Most obviously, that was on display in the Syrian-Kurdish town of Kobane, where the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces fought alongside the PKK’s Syrian military wing (YPG) to break a months’ long ISIS siege in January.
Meanwhile, diaspora communities in Europe and elsewhere staged massive protests to raise awareness and international support. In the end, US airstrikes in support of the Peshmerga on the ground forced ISIS to beat a retreat. Since then, Kobane has become an icon of Kurdish resistance and unity.
In mass protests in several European cities, people of all political views rallied together in solidarity with the PKK, YPG and Peshmerga alike.
But without such battles to unite them, Kurds in Europe battle with divisions.
Some Kurdish communities say political divisions keep their culture increasingly polarized in the diaspora. During Newroz, each political party appeals and advertises to its own audience with banners that echo party politics.
Traditionally, Newoz is a time for families, friends and neighbors to gather, a time of forgiveness and rejuvenation.
“This is one of the few ways of bringing people into a room to celebrate our heritage and culture, to sing and dance together," said Ranja Faraj, a 22-year-old marketing consultant from Sulaimani who lives in London.
But as Kurds in Germany and the rest of Europe share Newoz together, they struggle with celebrating together.
Some explain that intermingling in Europe should be easier, because the hurdles of linguistic dialects that sometimes divide them in their lands of origin break down with the common languages of their adopted homelands.
“Here in Europe, we do not have the physical borders that separate us,“ laments 26-year-old Sana Kocar, an architect with roots in Erbil and now based in Dortmund in Germany. “Our political divisions become most apparent in Newroz.“
