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Turkey Allows a First New Year for a Tiny Minority

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  • Turkey Allows a First New Year for a Tiny Minority

    Turkey Allows a First New Year for a Tiny Minority
    By KATHERINE ZOEPF

    New York Times
    Published: April 4, 2005

    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."

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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