Newroz: “Our Message is Peace!”

Around five kilometres from the city centre in Diyarbakir, the Kurdish majority-city in the southeast of Turkey, an area has been prepared for the celebration of Newroz.

We spoke to people in Diyarbakir about their messages for Newroz. While some said they would not join celebrations out of fear of troubles, others said that “we have to go for peace.”

Around 2,000 officials from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) will be on duty at the celebration site. In front of the party building, people have long begun to dance folk dances.

The official programme foresees that there will be opening speeches by DTP MP Ahmet Türk and by Leyla Zana, former MP for the Democracy Party (DEP).

There will be buses taking people to the site.

Hakime Imre, a “peace mother”, said, “Newroz will show Hatay, Adana, Kastamonu, Edirne, Istanbul and Mugla, as well as the whole world and the Turkish people that Kurds exist. Peace cannot be one-sided. Prime Minister Erdogan needs to put himself in the place of mothers of soldiers and guerillas before he says ‘Have more children.’ If he had come to Diyarbakir, he could not have kidded us with a sack of noodles and coal. Really, enough is enough! Even when Newroz was forbidden, and there was violence, I used to join. Now it’s much better than five years ago.”

Vedat Alar, a kiosk owner aged 43, said, “I have been going to the celebrations as long as I can remember. I have to go because I demand peace. Compared to the past, Newroz is calmer now. We don’t want trouble either. The state has to face the problems and come to agreements. Soldiers and guerillas are all ours. No one should die.”

Mehmet Kosar, a street water seller aged 30, said, “I have been coming to Diyarbakir at Newroz for the last five years. Tonight I will sleep at the site. I both celebrate Newroz and sell water. My message is peace. There should be peace just like in the west, I mean, there should be investment.”

An eighty-year-old man who preferred to remain anonymous, said, “I have seen Newroz celebrated for the last thirty years and the young going. It did not exist in my youth. I don’t take part, I am unemployed and ill, I cannot go. I don’t know anything else about Newroz.”

Ahmet, Muhammed and Belfin, high school students aged between 15 and 17, said, “We won’t be joining the celebrations, because if the police catches you, you get a record. Our parents don’t want us to go anyway, they say that it will be a PKK rally, not a Newroz celebration. We also have religious families, and men and women will be close together at the celebrations, so that is another reason for not going.”

Fatma Öztürk, aged 25, said, “Diyarbakir is always associated with terrorism, but there is real oppression. Women have their children taken away from them and pushed into the mountains or the army. Should they shoot each other? I have never joined the celebrations because of the troubles, and I will not join this year either.” (EZÖ/GG/AG)