Ishtartv.com – rudaw.net
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The fifth Syriac Heritage Festival commenced
on Monday in Erbil’s Christian-majority district of Ankawa, attracting
Assyrians and Chaldeans from Iraq and abroad as the community showcased its
culture.
The festival, which was organized by local authorities and organizations in
Ankawa, was also held to commemorate Akitu, the Assyrian-Babylonian New Year
and the world’s oldest holiday.
Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christians celebrate Akitu by wearing
traditional clothes, marching through the streets, and holding parties with
food, music, and dance.
Barbara Solaqa, an elderly housewife, said that she has been participating in
Akitu celebrations for more than 50 years.
“Everyone is the same. Everyone makes these things. This food is made by
Muslims, Christians, and Yazidis. What I am making is tandoor bread,” Solaqa
told Rudaw's Ranja Jamal at the festival.
Besides local folk groups, several groups from abroad are also present at the
festival this year.
“We have groups from outside the Kurdistan Region, and we have groups who came
from abroad – from Syria, Russia, and Armenia – who are also participating,”
Kaldo Ramzi, general director of Syriac culture and arts, told Rudaw.
The festival also promotes reading and writing in Syriac – the historic
language of the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac community.
Many Christians in the Middle East speak Syriac as their mother tongue, with
speakers mostly concentrated in the community’s indigenous homeland spanning
across parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. It is also spoken in Jordan,
Israel, Armenia, Georgia, and Lebanon by smaller pockets of the
community.
Large parts of the community in the diaspora also speak Syriac.
“We first started Syriac education [curriculum] in 1993. Now there are 48
schools, 33 teach entirely in the Syriac language, and the others teach Syriac
as well as the religion of Christianity,” Sabah Anton, director of Syriac
education at the Kurdistan Region’s education ministry, told Rudaw.
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