The Kurdish flag : short story

[Piling]

http://sohrawardi.blogspot.fr/2013/03/d ... re-du.html

[Anthea]

I enjoyed the pictures of all the different flags but did not understand a word

[Piling]

If I have time this afternoon, I will translate it, it is not much to do.

[Anthea]

If I have time this afternoon, I will translate it, it is not much to do.

Thank you

Many years ago someone told me that the points of the star in the middle of the Kurdish flag represent the 21 Kurdish tribes

[Piling]

So the first flag is the flag of Xoybûn, the movement for independence led by many Kurds from North and West, and especially Bedir Xan Brothers. This 11 th issue of the review Hawar was published on November 10th 1932 in Damascus (under the French Mandate).

In the nº 5 of Hawar, Kamiran Bedir Xan had already published a poem about this flag (under the name of Hereqol Azizan), which describes the main basis of the flag :

Improve the English translation, please :

Kurd's flag the Sun at middle
How beautiful and awesome !
Four-colored you are, and these colors
how they are nice and lovely !

A green strip and a red one
among white and at the middle yellow
Green and red with the Sun
this below and that above

Happiness of maids and boys
Honour of men and women
As so much are your enemies
You will overcome them.

How shines your Sun
Chasing away mist and smoke
Raise up high
Your day is coming.

During the same time, there was a revolt in Ararat (that Xoybûn did support) and they have quite the same flag with some differences (I don't know which of these both flags is the elder ) :



In 1946, the Republic of Mahabad choose the same flag with some adds. The pen represents Kurdish intellectuals, the wheat the farmers :



In 1949, Kamiran Bedir Xan published a monthly Bulletin du Centre d'Information du Kurdistan (sort of newsletters) and as we can see, the design of the flag was not absolutely definitive :



Mustafa Barzani, who was the General of Mahabad, took the Kurdish flag of Xoybûn for his upraising in S. Kurdistan and it is now the officiel flag of KRG :



Now the rays of the sun are 21 : some say it is a symbol of Newroz, others a Zoroastrian sacred number, others the 21 tribes of Kurdistan, but I doubt that there is one real explanation.

In any case, this flag never stopped to be raised by some Kurds in a Kurdish mountains or in a city, in North, South, East and West. So it has several lives, like a cat…

[freekurd2013]

xoyebon flag علم جمعية خويبون
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=10934

[Anthea]

The number 21 has nothing to do with the 21 Kurdish tribes, furthermore, there are more than 21 Kurdish tribes.

G.

Do you know where the number 21 comes from?

[Anthea]

Few years ago I had a conversation with the Kurd who worked on the flag in 1998 (Dr. Bijan Eliasi, a Kurd from Qasre-e-Shirin) about his work.

It was a long time ago so I cannot quote him exactly; however, I can paraphrase “...before starting my work on the flag there were may versions floating around...I saw sun disks with 7, 8, 12, 15... rays with no explanation as why... there were also different sun/rays, sun/flag...ratios...I did not want to choose an arbitrary number with no meaning behind it... so after careful research I decided to go with number 21 since in the ancient Kurdish religions (which predates even Judaism) the sacred angels are born from light after 21 days... so light --> sun and 21 days ---> 21 rays....” Form the horse's mouth.

You can see it here as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazdânism


Unfortunately there are a lot of misconceptions amongst Kurds (no offence intended) about many things; they repeat what they hear without doing any research/readings...Don't even start me on Newroz, Zahak...!

G.

I thought that the flag was much older than that

The official flag of Iraqi Kurdistan, & ethnic flag of Kurdish people worldwide

The Kurdish flag (also flag of Kurdistan, Kurdish: Alaya Kurdistanê [1]) first appeared during the Kurdish independence movement from the Ottoman Empire. It is said to have been created in the 1920s by the organisation of Xoybûn (Khoyboon) [2]. An earlier version of this flag was flown by the break-away Republic of Ararat in Turkey during the period 1927-1931. It was later the flag of the Soviet-backed Kurdish state known as the Republic of Mahabad in 1946. It is flown by the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraqi Kurdistan. The flag is banned in Syria and Iran. In Turkey, flying it was a criminal offence. [2][3]


The main Kurdish characteristic of the flag is the blazing golden sun emblem at the center, which is an ancient religious and cultural symbol among the Kurds. The sun disk of the emblem has 21 rays, equal in size and shape. The number 21 holds a primary importance in the Yazdani (Yazidi) religious tradition of the Kurds.[4]

OR

Name Alaya Rengîn ("The Colorful Flag")
Adopted December 17, 1945
Design Red, Yellow, Green and white with sun disk having 21 rays, equal in size and shape. The number 21 holds importance in the ancient Ezidi religious traditions of the Kurds

OR

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

The National Flag was first introduced by the leaders of the Khoyboun, ("independence") movement to represent the Kurds in their struggle for independence from the moribund toman Empire. It was subsequently presented to the members of the international delegation at the Paris Peace Conference that devised a plan for Kurdish independence as a part of the Treaty of Sèrves with Ottoman Turkey in 1920. Under the same flag the Khoyboun announced the formation of the first "Kurdish Government in Exile" in 1927 and fought a drawn-out war until 1932, in order to revive the Kurdish national independence, lost since 1848.

In 1946 and the creation of the Republcof Kurdistan at Mehabad, the old "sunny flag" was adopted by its parliament as the official Flag of the Republic. Following these historic background, the National Flag is widely adopted in Kurdistan and has been set aloft by various Kurdish movements and entities in all sectors of the land.

The "sunny flag" has thus been consecrated by the blood of all Kurdish patriots of this century, from tens of thousands who fell in defending the independence movement under the Khoyon, to the President of the Republic of Kurdistan and his elected cabinet who were hanged in sight of this flag by the foe. The flag was aloft when Dersim was immolated in 1938; it was aloft when wounded Kurds on stretchers were placed before the firing squads in 1980; it was aloft when Kurdish civilians were gassed in their thousands in cities and towns in 1988; it was aloft when millions were driven from their villages and towns that have been set alight since 1989; and, it remains aloft everywhere today-10 years after the loss of Kurdish independence--when Kurds are redoubling their perennial struggle to regain their dignity and equality with other nations by reviving their right to choose the course of their own future.

[Anthea]

http://www.institutkurde.org/en/kurdora ... distan.php
G.

I think that I have heard of the institutkurde in Paris. Full of lazy people who smoke too much

[Anthea]

http://www.institutkurde.org/en/kurdora ... distan.php
G.

I think that I have heard of the institutkurde in Paris. Full of lazy people who smoke too much

I do not know them but I know that they did not write that article, they got it from KRG.

G.

It was a joke

A lovely lady who works for the Institute is a moderator on this site

[Anthea]

Upside down Kurdish flag in Diyarbakir! Cannot understand why they do not know how to hoist it.

http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/03/21/nowruz-in-diyarbakir-ocalan-calls-on-pkk-fighters-to-leave-turkey/

G.

They have no interest in being Kurds, they are going to be Turks so why should they care about the Kurdish flag

[Piling]

I think that I have heard of the institutkurde in Paris. Full of lazy people who smoke too much

Ha ha ! I did not mean that I smoke cigarettes ! In my Frenglish it means that I was boiling (we say 'to smoke' by anger as a volcano spit smoke when it is going to burst).

Concerning the history of flag, there is also Mehmûd Lewendî 's writing :

http://chandakurdi.blogspot.fr/2011/10/ ... wendi.html

And that is true : the current sun with 21 rays is quite recent. As we could see on Xoybûn publishing, sometimes it had 18 rays, sometimes less or more. But with KRG this flag got an 'official status' with strict rules. I think that 21 is a good number to symbolize the sun of Newroz

[Piling]

A pro-PKK posted an angry comment this morning, because in my post I dare to call Ala Rengîn 'The Kurdish Flag', and he called me 'Barzanist'

http://sohrawardi.blogspot.fr/2013/03/d ... re-du.html

Probably they would prefer soon the Turkish flag that Öcalan will order them to kiss.

[Anthea]

A pro-PKK posted an angry comment this morning, because in my post I dare to call Ala Rengîn 'The Kurdish Flag', and he called me 'Barzanist'

http://sohrawardi.blogspot.fr/2013/03/d ... re-du.html

Probably they would prefer soon the Turkish flag that Öcalan will order them to kiss.

This is the Kurdish Flag



Far better to be called a Barzanist than an Ocalanist

What other flag were they suggesting people use

As you pointed out this is Ocalan's flag



These are just some of the flags of the PKK















This is the flag of Western Kurdistan

I think I have seen it somewhere before

[Bahdinan]

The Kurdish flag is the Aryan flag. this is the Aryan flag