Holidays, Seasonal Festivals, and Their Social Meaning

Abbas Goya

Holidays tell different stories within a country’s official calendar. In Europe and North America, the two-day weekend stands out above all. This achievement was the outcome of workers’ struggles for a 40-hour workweek. The struggle was formally articulated at the First International Congress in Geneva in September 1866 through the demand for an eight-hour working day. Karl Marx referred to this demand in the following year in Capital.[1]

A two-day weekend in the United States was first recognized in 1908 at the New England Cotton Mill, and even then only for Jewish workers, so that they would not be required to work on Saturday, the traditional Jewish day of rest. In 1926, the Ford factory became the first to implement a two-day weekend on the initiative of the employer. In 1929, the clothing industry workers’ union secured the five-day workweek as a contractual demand. However, it was not until 1940 that the two-day weekend was implemented nationwide. Thus, the simple entry of a two-day weekend in the calendar reflects 64 years of struggle in America to reduce working hours and days. This struggle began with the First International, in which Marx participated, and continued into the early decades of the twentieth century. In other words, the weekend is a reflection of the balance of class forces in society.

In addition to weekends, the Swedish national calendar—of a country belonging to the tradition of Western liberalism and strongly influenced by social democracy in its contemporary history—includes May 1st; three days of Christmas holidays (December 24 and 25, and the thirteenth day of Christmas, January 6); New Year’s Day; Easter; Ascension Day; the first day of summer; and Sweden’s National Day. In this way, an amalgam of labor, secular, nationalist, and religious traditions is reflected in Sweden’s annual calendar. Let us compare this calendar with that of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

First, in the Iranian calendar—whether under the monarchy or the Islamic Republic—there is no two-day weekend.[2] This means that workers in Iran labor 52 more days per year than workers in countries with a two-day weekend. A single-day weekend in the calendar is a manifestation of the disenfranchisement of wage earners in Iran.

Second, the Islamic Republic has attempted to Islamize public holidays entirely—but to what extent has it succeeded? Specifically religious holidays in the calendar of the Islamic Republic occupy 16 days per year. These include the death anniversaries of Fatima, Muhammad, Ali, Sadiq, and Hassan Askari; Tasua; Ashura; Arbaeen; Eid al-Ghadir; Eid al-Fitr and the day after; Eid al-Adha; and the birth anniversaries of Ali, Mahdi, Muhammad, and the day of Muhammad’s first revelation.

In addition, the four-day Nowruz holiday and Sizdah Bedar—neither of which belong to religious tradition—are included in the calendar. Although nationalists claim ownership of Nowruz, the Nowruz holiday has nothing to do with nationalism, which is a relatively late concept born in the Qajar era. By contrast, the holiday marking the nationalization of the oil industry is purely nationalist. The March 20 is claimed and sworn by monarchists, nationalists, and national-Islamists alike.

The calendar of the Islamic Republic also includes the 22nd of Bahman commemorating the 1979 Revolution; the 12th of Farvardin as Islamic Republic Day; the 15th of Khordad; and the anniversary of Khomeini’s death. These four days constitute specifically political holidays of the Islamic Republic. Since we communists regard the 1979 Revolution—particularly the February uprising—as our own, and the Islamic Republic as the outcome of the counterrevolution of 1979, we consider the holiday of 22 Bahman/February 11, in the strictest sense, a symbol of the usurpation of the 1979 Revolution. Regarding Nowruz and the Islamic Republic, however, a more precise examination is necessary.

Because the Islamic Republic is a state, whatever it does becomes political. By merely opposing the Nowruz holidays, it has politicized them. At the same time, Iranian and Kurdish opposition nationalists attempt to politicize these days “for their own benefit” in opposition to the Islamic Republic. Yet these days are not political in themselves. They are neither nationalist nor religious. The Irish celebrate spring; in China and Korea spring is celebrated; in the West, spring is marked with colored eggs. The more a political activist tries to politicize such days, the more he undermines himself. People want to celebrate; it is not their concern to classify such celebrations as good or bad.

Let us return to the Swedish calendar.

At first glance, it may seem that official holidays in Sweden do not correspond to the beliefs of the people. The traditions of the ruling class appear to have shaped public holidays. Given that only about ten percent of Sweden’s population considers religion important, religiously based holidays do not even reflect the convictions of the largely secular ruling class.[3] If ninety percent of the population does not attach importance to religious traditions, why are Christmas and Easter observed with such emphasis and formality?[4]

Easter and Christmas are religious names for days that people celebrated long before the Christianization of society. In other words, the reason for celebrating these days does not originate in Abrahamic religion. On the contrary, Christianity appropriated pre-existing celebrations, attached its own symbols to them, and claimed them as its own. Easter, like Nowruz, is a celebration of the beginning of spring. It is rooted in agricultural traditions and was observed long before today’s major organized religions. Christmas is a celebration of the beginning of winter—the winter solstice—although its date differs by two days from the astronomical solstice. In Iran and other Persian-speaking countries, this night is called Yalda, derived from the Swedish “Jul” and the Old English “Yule.” It is celebrated on the last night of autumn as the longest night of the year and the astronomical beginning of winter.

If one seeks the historical roots of these days, it must be noted that celebrations tied to seasonal change arise from humanity’s relationship with nature and social production. They are not religious in origin. Religion appropriated these ceremonies by attaching symbols to them in order to appear “popular.” Different branches of Christianity disagree on the birth date of Christ. Some celebrate it on January 7; others attribute his birth to April or May. Yet the celebration of the winter solstice was recorded in the ancient Roman calendar on December 25 long before Christianity fixed that date. The thread connecting Yalda, Christmas, and Hanukkah can be traced across different societies of the Northern Hemisphere up to three thousand years before Christ. Egyptologists date seasonal traditions to thousands of years before the emergence of today’s religions. Therefore, “Christmas” as a celebration of Yalda night should be distinguished from Christian Christmas and from capitalist Christmas.

The word Christmas means “Christ’s mass.” Christianity designated December 25—the Roman date of the winter solstice celebration—as the birth of Christ in order to confer religious legitimacy upon the existing festival. The name of the winter celebration (Yalda) was thus transformed into Christmas. Today, the religious or non-religious character of the winter celebration depends largely on who hosts it.

First, these days are recognized by governments. Even a secular government, such as Sweden’s, may maintain their religious associations to varying degrees. Second, religious institutions celebrate them in explicitly religious ways, with prayers and liturgical ceremonies. Third, the masses celebrate them in their own manner. For most people, the celebration of the beginning of winter represents light confronting the darkness of winter.[5] People emphasize aspects that resonate with them—gathering together, participation, friendship, and camaraderie.[6] The “seasoning” of the celebration lies in honoring these human expressions of collective joy.

Fourth, one must consider capitalism’s use of these days. The familiar image of Santa Claus—an elderly, white-bearded man in a red suit trimming gifts throughout the year and distributing them worldwide in a single night with the help of reindeer—was shaped in its modern visual form by the Coca-Cola Company through advertising campaigns beginning in the early twentieth century. The legend of Santa Claus, however, long predates this imagery and is not inherently tied to contemporary religion, despite various claims of ownership. There is no consensus regarding Santa’s historical origin.

Christianity’s principal achievement in this regard was to record this legend in its own name—just as some Islamists altered the Haft Shin table into Haft Sin to eliminate elements such as wine.[7] In a similar way, Christianity appropriated Yalda and associated it with Christ. Capitalism, in turn, superimposed its commercial interests upon this widely cherished seasonal celebration. Coca-Cola’s advertising campaigns from 1931 to 1964 consolidated the modern image of Santa Claus. Yet the foundation upon which capitalism built its marketing success was the people’s longstanding desire to celebrate the beginning of winter

Jamshid Hadian wrote on Facebook last year:

“Nowruz, which is nothing other than a spring festival—called ‘Spring Festival’ in English—is not referred to by Christians as Easter in French-speaking countries or in English-speaking ones, although egg coloring forms part of the celebration and has subsequently been attributed to the resurrection of Jesus three days after his death. Jews celebrate the same spring festival under the name Passover, again later associated with the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Each of these three spring festivals takes place within days of the others—just as the winter festival we celebrate as Yalda is observed by Christians a few days apart as Christmas (or Noël in France), and by Jews as Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. The same applies to autumn and summer celebrations. Therefore, these celebrations have nothing to do with nationality, religion, or—at least in their original form—with nationalism or internationalism. They are simple festivals corresponding to the seasons of the year, to the transformations of nature, and to the different stages of agricultural labor that have been vital to humanity up to the present day. Even May 1st, before becoming International Workers’ Day, was in Europe an ancient spring celebration. Later, in 1904, at the Sixth Congress of the Second International, it was officially designated as International Workers’ Day in memory of the victims of the labor demonstrations of May 3 and 4, 1886 in Chicago—just as the winter festival was later attributed to the birth of Jesus, and the spring festival to the resurrection or ascension of Jesus.

As for the mentality that emerged during the guerrilla era—“Our Eid will be the day when there are no traces of oppression”—or its repetition in a harsher and more rigid form during this year’s Nowruz, which coincided with the criminal tragedies in Afrin: this mentality has nothing to do with communism. It is, in fact, entirely religious in nature. It resembles the religious outlook promoted by the Islamic Republic during the Iran–Iraq war: “We have given martyrs; your wedding ceremony must not be accompanied by music and joy—or postpone your wedding until after the war. It is wartime and we are giving martyrs. Do not celebrate birthdays; the families of the martyrs are in mourning. Tighten your hijab; the families of the martyrs are grieving. Do not sprinkle salt on their wounds by laughing loudly.” In short, because some have been killed and others are becoming happy, joy must be entirely suppressed; liveliness and dancing are forbidden; sadness is mandatory; make-up is prohibited; and in one word, life itself is forbidden.

In opposition to this religious mentality—which, during this Nowruz was echoed even by some who consider themselves communists, expressing blind anger toward those who allowed themselves to celebrate despite the human tragedy in Afrin—one must take a stand. It must be protested loudly and clearly that this destructive, anti-life, and ultimately anti-human mentality has nothing to do with communism or with the workers’ movement, nor with nihilistic displays of sympathy for workers’ poverty. I wish all people a happy spring celebration filled with health, joy, victory, and well-being."

In addition to what Jamshid Hadian rightly stated, the argument that because a worker does not have the financial means to celebrate Nowruz we should therefore eliminate the celebration is equivalent to saying: because a worker cannot afford to go to the cinema, we should close the cinema; because he cannot afford to travel, we should abolish travel; because he cannot enjoy a two-day weekend (or cannot afford unemployment), he should be content with only one day off. The equation must be solved from the opposite direction. Because cinemas exist, because air travel is possible, because Eid provides four days of holiday, because there is a two-day weekend—these are precisely the reasons wages must be increased to meet these needs. Communists should demonstrate that they celebrate Nowruz alongside other people, free from nationalist or religious attributions—that is all. If some communists believe that, in competition with nationalists, Nowruz must be politicized beyond its celebration, they are completely mistaken.

The general public celebrates the beginning of spring—Nowruz—in more than a dozen countries and regions of Asia under the name Nowruz, and in the West under the names Easter and Passover. Autumn is marked in the West at the beginning of November as Halloween, and in Iran and many East Asian countries it is celebrated under different names in October. The beginning of summer, around the first of July, is celebrated in Scandinavian countries as Midsummer. [9] Across the world, people celebrate the beginning of winter through the legend of Santa Claus, through family visits, gift-giving, mutual assistance, shared celebrations, and by illuminating homes and streets.

Religious and non-religious traditions alike have influenced seasonal celebrations. In my view, the life-affirming aspects of these seasonal festivals deserve respect. The presence of a cross or star atop a pine tree during the winter celebration need not be handed over entirely to religious institutions. On the contrary, religious additions should be detached from these ceremonies and from other seasonal festivals. The calendar’s starting point can be set at zero or established on a non-religious basis. The hands of Zoroaster, Jesus, Buddha, Christ, and Muhammad should be removed from the festivals of changing seasons. Likewise, capitalist consumerist practices—such as the official “Boxing Day” on December 26, dedicated to discount shopping—can be critically reassessed as one of the negative byproducts attached to the winter celebration.

Although in most countries the New Year begins either in winter or in spring, [10] in some regions it has traditionally begun in autumn or summer. In Jewish tradition (Rosh Hashanah), among Coptic speakers in Egypt under the name “Nayrouz” on September 11 or 12, in Ethiopia and Eritrea, in parts of South Asia including regions of Pakistan and India, and in Irish tradition where Halloween marked the turning of the year, autumn was considered the beginning of the New Year. In these regions, the autumn New Year is still observed either alongside the official New Year or, like Halloween, as an independent celebration. In St. Kochian, India, the New Year begins on June 22 or July 1, marking the start of summer. [11]

The season chosen as the beginning of the year in the Gregorian calendar is not necessarily the most suitable season for such a purpose. The Jalali calendar, by contrast, begins in spring and determines the exact moment of the New Year through precise astronomical calculations; this seems more fitting. I am not dogmatic about this matter, but I am certain that the beginning of every season of the year is worthy of celebration—of festivals of light and joy.

Happy New Year.

May your Nowruz be victorious; may your spring be blessed.

Happy beginning of summer.

Happy beginning of autumn and Halloween.

Happy beginning of winter—Yalda.

AG

Footnotes & Sources

[1]At the same time (early September 1866), during the Congress of the International Workers' Union — the International Working Men's Association — which was held in Geneva, the following resolution was adopted by the General Council of London (London General Council). It was proposed and approved:

> “We declare that the limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvement and emancipation of the workers must prove abortive… The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working day.”

— Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 10: “The Working Day,” Section 6: “The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Compulsory Limitation by Law.” Karl Marx 

[2] In Iran, the struggle for the eight-hour working day was the result of continuous labor movements. Three labor unions in Iran established the “Central United Council of Workers' and Toilers' Unions of Iran.” These struggles began in 1918 (1295 in the Iranian calendar) and finally, in 1946 (1325), the first labor law was approved by the National Assembly. However, the working week remained six days.

[3] The exact statistics of atheists in Sweden are confusing. For example, churches function as civil registry offices within the government apparatus. As a result, when a person’s name is registered, they automatically become a “member” of a church. However, leaving the church is not automatic; one must formally apply for cancellation of membership, and few people do so.

This technical detail allows religious groups to misuse statistics. They argue that out of Sweden’s population of 10 million, more than nine million are members of the church and therefore “believe in God.” On the other hand, ten-year census data indicates that approximately 50% of Swedish people are irreligious. Yet this statistic is also not entirely accurate, since only a limited number of individuals are asked about their religion during the census. In other words, the reported percentage is itself a relative figure.

Apart from these statistical ambiguities, in practice, only about 10% of Sweden’s population actively participates in religious ceremonies and traditions.

[4] The above discussion occasionally resurfaces among communists outside Iran. However, communists in Western countries generally do not view wearing Santa Claus costumes or celebrating Christmas as contradictory to their beliefs. In Sweden, a song titled “Santa Claus Is a Communist” has even been produced.

[5] It is said that the celebration of the beginning of winter dates back to the time when humans lived as hunters in early communal societies. For this reason, in the ancient Roman calendar, the winter solstice was celebrated as the rebirth of the earth, and festivals were held during these days.

These seasonal transitions directly affected food supply, both during the hunter-gatherer period and later during early agricultural societies. Around these celebrations, legends were formed. One such myth concerns Horus.

According to ancient Egyptian mythology, a daily battle took place between the sun god — Horus — and the god of darkness. Every morning, the god of light defeated his opponent, bringing daylight. At sunset, however, he lost the battle, and darkness prevailed.

[6] An article about the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life notes that in the 1930s this film was labeled as communist propaganda by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

[7] During the Sassanid era (the pre-Islamic period), the Nowruz table was reportedly known as “Haft Shin” and included candles, wine, sweets, nectar (honey), boxwood, syrup, and anemones or shayeh (p. 151).

At that time, beautifully decorated kaolin molds were among the most important commercial goods imported from China to Iran. These molds were known as “chini” (Chinese ware), and the seven food items placed on the Nowruz table were arranged in these containers. For this reason, the Nowruz tray was also called “Haft Chin.”

Later, with the arrival of Islam in Iran and the spread of the Arabic language — which does not include the letter “ch” — the term gradually shifted to “Sin.” Additionally, due to the prohibition (haram) of wine, vinegar replaced wine. Thus, “Haft Chin” or “Haft Chinese-Iranian” evolved into “Haft Sin.”

Another interpretation suggests that ancient Iranians placed seven types of dried or fresh fruits on the Nowruz table and called it “Haft Chin” (seven picks): elderberry, sumac, samanu, apple, garlic, vinegar, and greens (Rezaei, 1378, pp. 473–474).

Some have argued that the term derives from “the seven classes,” while others extend this interpretation by referring to the Abjad numerical system, in which the letter “Sin” corresponds to the number 60. It is claimed that the ancients gradually abandoned the zero and associated “Sin” with the number six, symbolizing that a person should view the world from six directions (Bromand Saeed, 1377, p. 327).

Source: How Haft Shin Became Haft Sin

[8] It is generally believed that Halloween originated in the Celtic tradition of Ireland. Halloween marks the end of the summer season and the beginning of autumn. The day after Halloween — November 1 (sometimes mistakenly noted as November 10) — was considered the beginning of the New Year in the ancient northern calendars of France and Great Britain.

[9] In Sweden, the summer opening celebration is important; however, after this festival, the beginning of winter is considered the most significant seasonal celebration.

[10] The beginning of the New Year in China, according to the lunar calendar, falls between January 20 and February 20. In many countries of East and Southeast Asia — including India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, Thailand, and Nepal — the New Year, similar to the Babylonian tradition, begins in spring, between March 20 and April 14.

[11] According to Wikipedia’s entry on the New Year, and with the revival of an old tradition in New Zealand, June 22 is celebrated as the beginning of the New Year. However, in the Southern Hemisphere, June 22 marks the beginning of winter.