Turkey’s crackdown on Kurdish culture and art continues. Concerts and songs by Kurdish artists are banned, musicians who sing in Kurdish on the streets are blocked and subjected to attacks by the police/judiciary.

Kurdish artist Azad Bedran was interviewed by ANF about the attacks on Kurdish culture and art. Bedran remarked that making music in the Kurdish language was enough to be subjected to an official crackdown, adding that bans on concerts affected numerous artists recently.

MENTALITY NEVER CHANGED

Bedran said that Turkish artists were also banned so as to suppress the critical voices that protest the bans on Kurdish artists and the attacks on the Kurdish language. “For example, they banned the concerts of Melek Moso and similar artists. I think that officials banned Turkish artists in order to avoid criticism against the bans imposed on Kurdish artists. They meant to say that ‘we ban not only Kurdish artists but also Turkish artists’. However, the official ban on the Kurdish culture is not a new phenomenon. There has been an assimilation policy in place for the last 30 years, 40 years, even a hundred years. The anti-Kurdish mentality has remained to be the same over the years. What we criticize is this mentality. There is a bipartisan consensus among the political parties in Turkey to crackdown on the Kurdish culture and language. There is an assimilation policy against this language.”

KURDISH HAS A POLITICAL SIDE

Therefore, artists must speak out against these bans and obstructions, the Kurdish artist said, adding, “No artist should say that 'I'm already on stage. There is no problem on my part. Unless I sing political songs, no one is banning my concerts’. No, artists who have nothing to do with politics are also banned. We have seen that, too. We all know that none of the artists whose concerts were banned recently actually sang a political song. All those banned artists sing only Kurdish songs. The Kurdish language has a political side. So, artists can no longer say that 'I have nothing to do with politics'. Their concerts are also cancelled.”

ARTISTS' REACTION MUST BE STRONG

Bedran stressed that the government wanted to get Kurdish artists on their side by broadcasting Kurdish content through the state-run TRT channel. “This is not our problem. An artist does not have to reconcile with the government. Criticism against the attacks on Kurdish artists should have grown louder. If we can't raise a voice today, artists who have their concerts banned will also be banned from future events. Artists should raise a louder voice against bans. When I look at fellow artists’ approaches, their social media posts, post-concert reactions, I see no opposition to the bans. Even the reactions of those artists whose concerts were banned remain weak.”

MAKING KURDISH SONGS TURKISH IS NO SOLUTION

Bedran noted that he had seen his two concerts banned a few years ago. “Mardin Governorate did not give permission, but İzmir Governorate gave permission for my concert at around same schedules. It was a very contradictory situation. The reason for the ban was my lawsuits. When you look at it, did my case pose a threat in Nusaybin, but not in Izmir? It's all about making concessions. There are some artists who liberalize their art and sing their songs in Turkish lest their concerts are banned. This is not the solution. Quite the contrary, the solution is to criticize this policy by reacting and mobilizing their audience. That's what an artist should do,” Berdan concluded.