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Turkey Allows a
First Assyrian New Year Celebrations
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
Published: April 4, 2005
NY TIMES
MIDYAT, Turkey, April 1 - A windswept
hilltop here in southeastern Anatolia has become the site for
a reunion that once would have been unthinkable, as thousands
of Assyrians from across the region have converged to openly
celebrate their New Year in Turkey for the first time.
Like many other expressions of minority
ethnic identity, the Assyrian New Year, or Akito, had been seen
by Turkey as a threat. But this year, the government, with an
eye toward helping its bid to join the European Union, has officially
allowed the celebration by the Assyrians, members of a Christian
ethnic group that traces its roots back to ancient Mesopotamia.
Yusuf Begtas, one of the celebration's
organizers, said that because most of Turkey's tiny Assyrian
population - about 6,000 people in all - lives in a heavily Kurdish
region that has seen frequent clashes between the Turkish government
and Kurdish militias, strong assertions of Assyrian ethnicity
have long been politically impossible. But Turkey's political
culture has been changing rapidly.
"Turkey is showing itself to the
E.U.," Mr. Begtas said. "When we asked the authorities
for permission to celebrate this year, we knew it wouldn't be
possible for them to deny us now. Turkey has to show the E.U.
that it is making democratic changes."
The festivities here on Friday were
the culmination of a celebration that started on March 21, the
first day of the Assyrian New Year. Behind Mr. Begtas, on a raised
stage near the wall of the Mar Aphrem monastery, a balding baritone
sang in Syriac, the Assyrians' language, a Semitic tongue similar
to Aramaic.
He was followed by a group of girls
wearing mauve satin folk costumes, dancing in lines with their
arms linked. They were cheered on by an audience of about 5,000,
including large groups of visiting ethnic Assyrians from Europe,
Syria and Iraq.
Iraq, where Akito is celebrated openly,
has the world's largest population of Assyrians, about a million.
Most of Turkey's Assyrians were killed or driven away during
the Armenian massacres early in the last century, and the bullet
scars on some of Midyat's almost medieval-looking sandstone buildings
still bear witness to those times.
In recent years, Assyrians have suffered
quieter forms of persecution and discrimination. Since the 1980's,
under those pressures, thousands of Assyrians have emigrated
abroad. Kurds, with whom Assyrians have long had a tense relationship,
are now a majority in Midyat, which until just a generation ago
was 75 percent Assyrian.
Haluk Akinci, the regional governor
of Nusaybin, a district next to Midyat, suggested that the Turkish
government might see allowing the New Year celebration as a partial
atonement for past persecutions.
"In the past, freedoms for minorities
were not as great as they are now," he said, though he noted
that in years past, private Assyrian New Year celebrations had
generally been ignored by the authorities. "The Turkish
government now repents that they let so many of these people
leave the country."
After years of intense political and
population pressure, the Turkish Assyrians say, public celebrations
like Akito have huge emotional significance, and the participation
of Assyrians from abroad has become particularly meaningful.
Terros Lazar Owrah, 60, an Assyrian
shopkeeper from Dohor, in northern Iraq, said he had driven 14
hours for the opportunity to attend the celebration. "So
many of us are leaving the region," he said. "It's
very important for Assyrians from everywhere to get together
in one place."
Thanks in large part to greater political
freedoms granted recently in Iraq and Turkey, the Assyrians say,
a sense of pan-regional Assyrian identity seems to be gathering
strength. And though Turkey does not have any legal Assyrian
political parties, there are those who would like to turn this
rapidly developing sense of solidarity into a political voice,
even into a discussion of nationhood.
Representatives from several overseas
Assyrian political parties were present at the celebration.
Emanuel Khoshaba, an Iraqi Assyrian
who represents the Assyrian Democratic Movement in Damascus,
pointed out that Midyat lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates,
the Mesopotamia that the Assyrians believe to be their rightful
homeland.
"Protecting our national days is
as important to us as preserving the soil of our nation,"
Mr. Khoshaba said. "Whether they live in Iraq or Syria or
Turkey, our goal is to bring Assyrians together as a nation."
That is unlikely to happen. With countries
in the region increasingly wary of the flowering of Kurdish nationalism
in northern Iraq, smaller nationalist movements seem to have
even less of a chance of finding political support in the region.
Still, the relaxation of Turkish antagonism
toward the New Year's celebration was a significant enough start
for many who attended.
"It's about coming together in
spite of our rulers," said Fahmi Soumi, an Assyrian businessman
who had traveled from Damascus to attend the Akito festivities.
"When we unite like this, there is no Turkey, no Syria and
no Iran. We are one people."
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