Nowruz, the Persian New Year is one of the very ancient events with a long history background connected to the Persian Civilization. The event is named after the legendary Persian king, Jamshed, who is credited for creating the Persian or the Shahenshahi calendar. Based on the legend, Jamshed saved the world from an apocalypse that came in the form of winter and was destined to kill everyone. The event is celebrated throughout Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asian countries.
Many intellectuals, including Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi and Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, have mentioned this day in their works and have prized Jamshid as the founder of the event.
The festival is usually marked public holiday when families gather to prepare festive dishes and welcome the beginning of spring. This year, with respect to the political and regime changes, the day is neither celebrated officially nor it is marked as a public holiday. The event is deemed to be against the Taliban ideology. They have declared that they do not celebrate it officially but have ensured that there is no restriction for civilians to celebrate the event.
Since Taliban have regained the power by overthrowing the republic government, they have been trying to be against any values and history related to Persian civilization. Removal of Persian pre-fix from the public institutions’ sing boards, demolish and destruction of Buddha Statues in Bamiyan and their resistance against the Nowruz celebration are the clear examples of their narrow minded approach towards any values and historical events connected to Persian civilizations.
Taliban have forgotten that more than 80% of the country are Persian speaking and even native Pashto speakers speak Persian far better than their mother language (Pashto).
Nowruz is one the common values that is being celebrated throughout the country. The event could be used as a resolution gateway to strengthen empathy among the people and pave the way for building ties that lead to a united nation. The former government gave least attention to this matter during the past 20 years, but there were not any restrictions imposed too and the event was marked as public holiday for sack of respect and honour. But Taliban’s approach and ideology fits in no frame and they are against every move that helps the people to come around one table and define national values.
