The Flag without land
Have you ever thought about your country's flag and the feelings it evokes in you? What is your answer to this question? Read this post and then imagine that the people who have had a flag for a century but no land for it.
Here I am telling the story of my first encounter with people whose The ground danced beneath their feet.
We live in a region that in political terms called the countries of Nowruz, But you are familiar with it in the West as the Middle East. Nowruz is the name of the New Year celebration. Nowruz is called the first moment of spring; The moment that is calculated exactly every year and we celebrate it.
A celebration of color, taste, smell, poetry and music.
I am not talking about your Middle East, I am talking about the people of Nowruz countries; Countries that, with all their differences, have two things in common;
In celebration of Nowruz and the historical connection with Persian literature and poetry.
Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and minorities in Pakistan, Bahrain, Syria, Armenia and India. These are the countries of Nowruz. But in what you call the Middle East, there are people who own Nowruz but do not have a land of their own. Their land has been ignored by the West because of the irrational decisions of the two world wars, and their land is in the hands of the centralist governments of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.
They do not have a land to celebrate and be proud of. They have a mother tongue but no land to recognize that language
This is Marivan in western Iraq in the Kurdish province of Iran, Twenty minutes left to the first moment of spring.
Spring wind blowing in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, the sound of Kurdish music has excited the plain. Kurdish people with colorful clothes smiling but worried, girls talking about dreams, fathers worried about their daughters tomorrow, mothers watching their sons dance...
The boys are dancing but the security forces are everywhere looking for guns; Mothers cheer for their sons; I turn off my camera for fear and the boys protest to the security forces. Fathers threaten to use firearms....
The mothers shout at the troops, the girls are standing next to their brothers, and the commander of the forces decides to return to their barracks out of respect for the New Year and Nowruz.
And now these people, like you and me, are having a picnic and enjoying the party, and I turn on my camera.
And in a few minutes the fire party begins
And the fire arrives to end the cold winter nights.
Flames that are carried to the place of celebration by the youngest girls And this is the end of winter.
But this girl is still worried