Freedom's Song

My mother lives in England. We speak on the telephone frequently, and she has recently discovered the wonders of the internet as both a means of communicating from afar and a way to stay up to date on events in her homeland.

Recently she called me at my office very excited and emotional. It took me several moments to get her calm enough to tell me what had her so tense. She explained that she read of President Talabani's trip to the US and that he had answered a reporter in Kurdish.

Why would such a thing bring her to tears?

In Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and other parts of the world heavily populated by Kurds, speaking our language or singing our traditional songs publicly often results in death. Turkey and Syria routinely jail any Kurd using his or her language.

Turkey, so long considered an ally of my adopted homeland, is among the harshest abusers of Kurdish citizens. Laws barring the use of Kurdish publicly have been repealed, but using the language in "official settings" is still illegal, and punishments are severe. No Kurdish associations are allowed, and it is illegal to teach the language, even privately. Tapes or CDs of Kurdish music are confiscated by the police. It is not uncommon for weddings, where music often plays a prominent role, to be raided. In recent years more than one Kurdish wedding resulted in a mass slaughter, and many Kurds have been detained and/or arrested for singing our traditional songs at wedding ceremonies in Izmir, Adana and Gaziantep.

England imposed a similar ban on Gaelic in Ireland many years ago. It has since been lifted; in fact there is a strong movement now within Ireland to rescue the "Old Irish" language (a particular form of Gaelic) from obscurity and possible extinction.

And so, when my Kurdish mama-- who fled Iraq with three children, forced to leave one behind because he was, at 13, considered old enough to stay if he so chose-- wept to read that Jalal Talabani answered a reporter from Voice of America in his native language. She wept to read that her language, which has been silenced in so many places, was spoken freely and without fear in the land that has become her son's home.

My American friends could not understand it. I rejoice at their ignorance. Loving them as I do it gives me great peace to know they can't imagine a world in which their music, poetry, or just simple words spoken in the tongue that comes naturally to them, could bring death.

Three days after President Talabani spoke his Kurdish words on American television, Marziyeh Feriqi died. She was a wonderful singer who was born in eastern Kurdistan, and the wife of Nassir Feriqi. I like to think that in her hospital bed in Sweden perhaps she, too, got word of the wonder taking place across the ocean. A Kurdish leader stood beside the most powerful man in the world and answered a reporter in his native tongue. I think she, like my mother, would have found impossible joy in that moment, great music in its freedom.

posted at 6:18 PM by Ahmed El Anjanar:: 0 comments: permalink

Ahmed, outside a mosque
being repaired after
2001 Jalalabad earthquakes.

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