What Iranian New Year, end of Ramadan feel like as war rages
By coincidence, the Iranian New Year, Nowruz, and the end-of-Ramadan celebration, Eid-al-Fitr, arrived on the same day. See how Kurds celebrate near the Iranian border under the shadow of war.
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq —
Eid-al-Fitr and Nowruz. Iranian and Iraqi Kurds. One city.
The first day of Eid-al-Fitr is one of Islam’s biggest holidays because it marks the end of Ramadan.
But it’s often quiet until the evening, like Christmas morning might be in America.
Muslims spend time with their families at home and the streets are mostly empty. The quiet should mean that everyone is home, everyone is safe, everyone is together.
But this year, that quiet was also that of disconnected phones, fires that weren’t lit, tables that weren’t set.
Instead of dancing around bonfires in traditional Kurdish clothes and celebrating Kurdish legends of resistance to tyranny, Shiwa Hassanpour, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd and a human rights activist in Erbil, spent most of Nowruz, the traditional Iranian new year, watching the news.
The war between the United States and Iran is entering its fourth week, and two important holidays, Eid-al-Fitr and Nowruz, are falling on the same day for the first time in decades, or perhaps longer.
After the paywall:
- What we’re hearing about Iranian crackdowns on Kurds celebrating this year;
- How this year’s Nowruz had to evolve with the constraints of war;
- What celebrations looked like at the Citadel in Erbil!
It costs thousands and thousands of dollars – not to mention great personal risk and grit – to report from Iraqi Kurdistan as bombs are falling. That’s why we’re restricting this story to our paid subscribers. If you value Iran War Dispatches, upgrade today to get full access!
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