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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (43814)	3/21/2003 5:24:41 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

Happy Naw Ruz Would like to wish everybody a happy Iranian New Year (Naw Ruz translates from Persian to "New Day"). Under the Iranian solar calendar, which dates back to Pre-Islamic Zoroastrian times, the year is divided by the seasons and begins on the vernal equinox, March 21st. It is the day when the spring season starts in the Northern Hemisphere and I always thought it fitting that the new year should coincide with the start of spring rather than on dreary January. At any rate Naw Ruz is the quintessential pan-Iranian festival with all the scattered offshoots of the Iranian stock celebrating it from nomadic Kazakhs in Mongolia* to the Kurds of northern Iraq and the Ossetians of the Caucasus. We may be citizens of different nations but Naw Ruz is the one time of the year when all within the Iranian cultural sphere realise their shared "civilisation" and distinct racial roots. Naw Ruz conforms to the Iranian traits of elegance, tradition and pedanticism since I just spent the last two hours meticulously arranging the decorations ("the haft seen") where I had to assemble goldfish, a mirror, an unique desert, dates, apples on one table since their Persian names all started with the Iranian alphabet of "se" (which I guess is the english s). I even managed to sneak in a pun during my artistic touches since I placed three apples by their side making it rhyme in Persian. At any rate the Iranian New Year seems to have brought some good news for the Americans who managed to capture the strategic port city of Umm Qasr and the markets are recovering. Perhaps the war will be over even before Easter so I better start completing my Islamic pieces, which I hope to unveil over the coming weeks. *My Mongolian friend in class, when querying about my New Year, breathlessly exclaimed that the Turkic Kazakhs in her nation also practised the festival. Naw Ruz is the national holiday of Iran, Central Asia and western Pakistan primarily because the dominant stock of the two region is Iranian despite the superficial linguistic dominance of Turkic languages in some localities. Further Notes: Naw Ruz may have arisen independently in Mesoptomia and the proto-Iranian tribes in Central Asia. Both societies would have keen students of the seasons and accordingly oriented their calenders to the summer & winter solstice. I'm do I believe that some westerly regions in Pakistan also celebrate Naw Ruz because of their Iranian affiliations but for those like myself there is an added significance since not only is my mother Iranian but my religious calendar also begins anew on Naw Ruz, a silent tribue to my religion's Persian origins. Zachary Latif 16:30