Vengê Ma

❄️🔥 GAXANÊ ŞIMA PÎROZ BO! (Happy Gaxan!)

Did you know that Gaxan is not just a "Kurdish Christmas" or a simple New Year’s celebration? It is actually one of the oldest surviving Winter Solstice festivals in the Middle East, preserving rituals that date back thousands of years to the worship of the Sun God (Mithra) and the ancient Zoroastrian feasts.

As we celebrate the "Victory of Light" over darkness this week, let’s take a deep dive into the real history behind the masks, the fasting, and the Zervet. 👇

1. THE ASTRONOMICAL ROOTS: RESCUING THE SUN ☀️ While we often celebrate Gaxan around the New Year (or "Old Christmas" on Jan 6), the festival’s heart is the Winter Solstice (Dec 21). In the ancient theology of Dersim and Varto, this was a time of crisis. The sun (Tije) was at its weakest, and the nights were long and dangerous. Gaxan isn't just a party; it's a ritual to help the "Old Year" die so the "New Sun" can be born. This mirrors the ancient Roman festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti—the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.

2. A NAME FROM ROME, A SOUL FROM IRAN 🏛️🔥 The word "Gaxan" actually comes from the Latin word Kalendae (the root of "Calendar"), which traveled through Armenian (Gağand) into Kirmancki / Zazaki. However, while the name is Roman, the rituals are deeply Iranian. Our research suggests Gaxan is a direct descendant of the Zoroastrian Maidyarem Gahanbar—a mid-winter feast where the community gathered to share food and support the poor during the freezing cold.

3. DECODING THE CHARACTERS: IT’S A COSMIC BATTLE 🎭 When the masked procession visits your house, you are watching a cosmic play about nature:

👴 Kalik / Khal Gaxan (The Old Man): He represents Time, the Old Year, and the dying winter sun. He is "fading" and needs the community's charity to survive.

👰 Fatik / The Bride: Usually played by a man in disguise, she represents the Earth, Fertility, and the Coming Spring. She is the "prize" that must be protected.

👹 The "Black" Character (Koçeg): Often misunderstood, this character—with his face blackened by soot—is not just a servant. Anthropologists link him to the Greek Kallikantzaros, an ancient Anatolian winter demon or goblin that rises from the underworld during the solstice to create chaos. The black soot represents the darkness of the long winter nights trying to steal the "Bride" (Spring).

4. THE "WINTER TRIDUUM": WE ARE NOT ALONE 🤝 Gaxan is part of a shared heritage across the Zagros and Taurus mountains. It connects specifically to:

The Yazidi Feast of Êzî: A festival for the Creator, held on the Friday before the solstice after a 3-day fast.

The Yarsan Qawltas: A mid-winter festival of "Three Nights" involving strict fasting and sacrifice. All three traditions (Raa Haq-Kirmanc, Yazidi, Yarsan) share this "Winter Triduum"—three days of preparation followed by a solar/creator feast.

5. THE SACRED FOOD: ZERVET 🍞 The food collected by the Old Man isn't just for fun—it's for survival. The communal dish, Zervet (or Babiko), represents the sun and unity. The person who finds the hidden coin or stick in the dough is named the Mîr (Prince) and is blessed with luck for the year. This is almost identical to the "King Cake" or Vasilopita traditions found across the Mediterranean!

🕊️ WHY THIS MATTERS TODAY Celebrating Gaxan is an act of cultural resilience. It reminds us that our ancestors didn't just survive the harsh winters of the highlands—they turned the darkness into a celebration of light, community, and sharing.

#Gaxan #KhalGaxan #KurdishHistory #Dersim #Varto #Alevi #Kurds #WinterSolstice #Mithraism #History #Culture #Gaxan

3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 181

Vengê Ma

The Wait Has Become a Curse. "Ti Çîn A" (Rock Version) is OUT NOW.

Spring passed... Summer came... Autumn came... but you never returned. 🍂

We have transformed "Ti Çîn A" from a quiet whisper into a Vital Folk-Rock Anthem. This is no longer just a song about missing someone; it is the screaming silence of a nation's mothers waiting for their disappeared children.

In this new arrangement, the passing seasons are not a gentle flow of time—they are a recurring agony. This is the sound of a heart breaking over and over again.

Listen now to the cry that reached the stars.

🎧 Listen Here: https://youtu.be/mzR0n8wa2Y4

#VengeMa #TiCinA #KurdishRock #Zazaki #NewMusic #VitalFolkRock #CollectiveMemory

5 days ago | [YT] | 77

Vengê Ma

⚔️ THE GATE IS OPEN / ÇEBER BÎ RA

We opened the gate... but they did not let us enter.

Our new cinematic epic "1071: Alliance & Betrayal" is finally here. This is not just a song; it is the untold story of the Kurdish Marwanid Cavalry. They turned the tide of the Battle of Manzikert, only to be erased from the history books by the empire they helped create.

Witness the history. Feel the betrayal.

👇 WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO / TEMAŞE BIKERÊ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuY91...

📽️ WATCH THE FULL DOCUMENTARY / BELGEFÎLM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvUrC...

#1071 #Manzikert #KurdishHistory #VengeMa #Kirmancki #Merwani

1 week ago | [YT] | 83

Vengê Ma

🌹 The Flower of Resistance Blooms Everywhere. 🏔️

From the rice fields of Italy to the cliffs of Kurdistan, the language of freedom is universal. We have reimagined the legendary anthem "Bella Ciao" with a new soul.

It is no longer just a song; it is the red flower that grows in the hardest rock. A tribute to those who left, and those who stay to protect the mountains.

[ZAZAKI] Na, lawika partîzananê cîhanî, nika bi vengê Kirmanckî (Kirdkî) bena berz. "Gula Xoverdayîşî" her tim koyanê ma de kena ra. Goş bide nê vengî re.

[KURMANJI] Ev strana partîzanên cîhanê, niha bi dengê Kurdî olan dide. "Gula Berxwedanê" her tim li çiyayên me vedike.

👇 WATCH THE PREMIERE 👇 https://youtu.be/Lo3qZiuMJH0

1 week ago | [YT] | 90

Vengê Ma

They say time heals all wounds, but what if love is a fire that never goes out?

Our new song, 'Eşqê To' (Your Love), tells the story of a memory so strong it feels like an eagle visiting every day to tear a piece from your heart. It’s about the velvet voice you can’t forget and the silence that follows.

Read the full story in the description. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/McndhtP6kp8

#VengeMa #EsqeTo #KurdishMusic #Zazaki #kirmancki #kurdish

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 99

Vengê Ma

They thought our tears would drown us. instead, we became rivers. They thought our pain would crush us. Instead, we became mountains.

Our new anthem, 'Hêvî' (Hope), is a tribute to the spirit that refuses to disappear. From the ancient Medes to today, we are the children of the sun, and our hope is immortal.

Watch the full cinematic story here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3UHi...

3 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 93

Vengê Ma

They tried to disrupt the signal, but the message remains clear.

Our new instrumental, 'Nêşikîyaye | Neşkên' (Unbreakable), is not just music—it is a battle cry against erasure. We imagined what it looks like when an ancient culture meets the chaos of the modern, digital world. The image glitches, the data corrupts... but the spirit stands firm.

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 36

Vengê Ma

Have you ever waited for someone, watching the seasons change, knowing they are not coming back?

Our new song, "Ti çîn a" (You Are Not Here), is the sound of that wait. A story of spring passing to summer, summer to autumn, and the final, cold realization:

"Winter is near... You are not here..."

This is for all the lonely souls ("bêkesîye"). Our new short film is now live.

► Watch the full, heartbreaking video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FBN2...

#Tiçîna #KurdishLament #Dersim #VengeMa #SadSong

1 month ago | [YT] | 83

Vengê Ma

To exist is not merely to breathe. It is to stand like a mountain when the storm tries to erase you.

Our new instrumental release, "ESTBÎYENE | HEBÛN | EXISTENCE," is out now. It is a cinematic journey through history, a story of a Kurdish wanderer who walks through time, surviving the cold, the dark, and the erasing winds of history.

They tried to bury us in the darkness. They did not know we were seeds waiting for the rain.

Experience the journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp3TA...

#VengeMa #Estbiyene #Hebun #CinematicMusic #Kurdish

1 month ago | [YT] | 107

Vengê Ma

ASSIMILATION

The Oppressor's Playbook: How States Erase a Culture 📜

Ever wonder how a powerful state can try to make an entire minority culture... disappear?

It's not a single law, but a "whole-of-society" playbook of mutually reinforcing tactics designed to break the chain of identity from one generation to the next. This is "forced assimilation".

Here are the key tactics from the playbook:

🗣️ Linguistic Suppression (Linguicide) 🚫 This is the most common first step. It's not just declaring an "official language." It involves: 

➡️ Banning the minority language in all official spheres: schools, courts, and government. 

➡️ Fining people for speaking their own language in public, even in their own shops. 

➡️ This creates what sociologists call "linguistic terrorism," where a minority group internalizes the belief that their language is "poor" or "illegitimate," leading to shame and self-censorship.  

🏫 Educational Control & Indoctrination Education is the primary battlefield for national identity. 

➡️ States centralize education to enforce a single curriculum, a single (often false) history, and a single language of instruction. 

➡️ The most aggressive tactic: Forcible removal of children. By placing children in state-run boarding schools far from their families, the state physically severs the primary vector of cultural transmission: the family.

🗺️ Demographic & Administrative Engineering ✏️ If you can't erase the culture in people's minds, erase it from the map. 

➡️ Forced Relocation: States enact "Resettlement Laws" to forcibly disperse minority populations from their concentrated homelands, scattering them into areas where they become the new minority. 

➡️ Administrative Erasure: The state systematically changes the names of towns, villages, rivers, and mountains, replacing their indigenous names with new ones in the dominant language. 

➡️ Identity Denial: This tactic extends to individuals. States will ban or refuse to legally register newborns with culturally specific names, forcing parents to choose from an "approved" list.  

🧠 Ideological Warfare (Denying Existence) The final, most insidious step is to systematically deny that the minority group exists at all. 

➡️ The state invents and promotes pseudo-scientific or pseudo-historical theories. 

➡️ A prime example is the Turkish "Mountain Turks" theory, a state-sponsored falsehood propagated for decades. This theory claimed that the Kurds were not a distinct ethnic group but were, in fact, ethnically Turks who had simply "forgotten their language" after migrating to the mountains. 

➡️ This ideology provides the "justification" for all other tactics. If Kurds are just "Mountain Turks," the state isn't erasing a culture; it's simply re-teaching lost Turks their "true" (Turkish) language

A Language Saved: The Basque Comeback Story 💚❤️

Can a language on the brink of extinction, suppressed by a brutal dictatorship, actually be saved?

Yes. Let's talk about the Basques.

The Basque people, indigenous to the western Pyrenees in Spain and France , have an ancient and unique language: Euskara. It's a "language isolate," meaning it's unrelated to any other language family on Earth.  

The Identity: "Language as Homeland" 🗣️ = 🏡 For the Basques, identity is built on their language. Their name for their homeland is Euskal Herria, which literally translates to "the Country of the Euskara Language". The language is the homeland. As long as the language is spoken, the nation exists.  

The Oppression: The Franco Regime (1939-1975) 🚫 General Franco saw this unique identity as a threat to a unified Spain. He sought to "annihilate Basque culture". 

➡️ Euskara was banned from all official discourse, education, and publishing. 

➡️ The state sponsored the burning of Euskara books. 

➡️ It was made illegal to register newborn babies with Basque names. 

➡️ People were fined for speaking it in public , and it was officially despised as a "rural language... unfit for modern discourse".  

The Resistance: A Brilliant "Pincer Movement" 🦞 The Basque response was a strategic, two-pronged attack to save their language, attacking the problem from the "bottom-up" and "top-down" at the same time.

👶 The Bottom-Up Pincer (Creating Speakers) During the dictatorship, parents and activists defied the state. They created a clandestine, underground network of Ikastolak—Basque language immersion schools. Often starting in secret in homes and church basements, this grassroots movement kept the language alive and created a new, educated generation of fluent speakers.  

📚 The Top-Down Pincer (Creating a Modern Language) Simultaneously, the Basque Language Academy (Euskaltzaindia) undertook a massive academic effort. They standardized the various, disparate Euskara dialects into one unified, modern language: Euskara Batua. This new standard language could be used in media, science, literature, and government.  

Why it Worked: Neither pincer could have succeeded alone. Without the Ikastolak (the schools), Euskara Batua (the standard language) would have been a purely academic exercise with no one to speak it. Without Euskara Batua, the Ikastolak would have remained fragmented, unable to scale into a modern, unified education system.

This dual strategy, combined with political action after Franco's death , led to a powerful revival. Today, Euskara is an official language in the Basque Autonomous Community, a testament to a people who saved their "homeland" by refusing to let it go silent.

The "Lausanne Defense": A Legal Paradox 🤯

Here is a legal and political paradox: How can Turkey, a member of the United Nations (UN) and the Council of Europe, and a signatory to international human rights treaties , constitutionally ban mother-tongue education for its largest minority of 30 million Kurds?  

It seems to defy international law, but it's all based on a specific, 100-year-old legal interpretation.

The Law: The Constitutional Ban 📜 The policy of assimilation is written in plain sight. The 1982 Turkish Constitution, written after a military coup, is the legal bedrock. 

➡️ Article 3 states Turkish is the sole official language. 

➡️ Article 42.9 is the "linguicide" article. It explicitly states: "Aside from Turkish, no other language shall be studied by or taught to Turkish citizens as a mother tongue in any... institution".  

This makes Kurdish-language schools illegal.  

The "Lausanne Defense" 🛡️ So, how does Turkey justify this to the UN and the EU? By using what is known as the "Lausanne Defense".  

Here’s how it works: 

1️⃣ Turkey’s official state position is that the only document that legally defines "minorities" in Turkey is the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. 

2️⃣ Turkey's government interprets this treaty to mean that minorities are only non-Muslims (specifically, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews). 

3️⃣ Because the Kurdish population is predominantly Muslim, the Turkish state argues that they do NOT legally constitute a "Kurdish minority." In the eyes of the law, they are defined simply as "Turkish citizens".  

The Legal Fiction 🌀 This is the key to the paradox. By legally denying that a "Kurdish minority" exists, the state argues that international minority-rights protections—like the right to mother-tongue education under UN covenants —do not apply to them.  

This legal fiction allows Turkey to present itself as "in compliance" by protecting the (very small) Greek and Armenian communities , while simultaneously carrying out a policy of forced assimilation against its 30-million-strong Kurdish population.  

International bodies like the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) have repeatedly condemned this position and highlighted the severe restrictions and discrimination Kurds face. Even the Treaty of Lausanne itself, in Article 39.4, stated that "No restrictions shall be imposed on the free use by any Turkish national of any language... in the press, or in publications" —a clause in direct contradiction to decades of state policy.

VENGÊ MA

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 105