The Soundtrack of Social Movements Among Kurdish Alevi Immigrant from Turkey in Germany
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Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies Copyright 2019 2019, Vol. 6, No. 2, 57-67 ISSN: 2149-1291 https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/253 The Soundtrack of Social Movements among Kurdish Alevi Immigrant from Turkey in Germany Ozan Aksoy1 New York University, USA Abstract: Based on multi-sited ethnographic research between 2010 and 2013, this article asserts that Kurdish and Alevi social movements in Turkey and in the transnational space have relied heavily on music and activist musicians to engage community members. This article marks several key songs, musicians, and events that effectively formed the soundtrack for these movements contributing the literature on cultural anthropology and ethnomusicology of protest movements as well as migration studies. Kurdish Alevi cultural entrepreneurs in Germany and Istanbul have established a transnational social field in which they can relate to members from those communities living in multiple locations. This multiplicity results from simultaneous politicization processes of Alevi and Kurdish movements that have allowed old and new actors to engage with political and social capital along with symbolic capital through cultural and religious activism around multiple identities. The transnational space has allowed new actors to employ different means to serve their main political goals: cultural, musical, and those of other art forms, along with public campaigns to mobilize activists. Therefore, cultural entrepreneurs and other religio-political actors have been navigating in this transnational space while reformulating their political demands. Keywords: Kurdish Diaspora, Germany, Alevi, music, ethnography. Introduction I had many melodies in my head from my early childhood. Like “Medina Min,” which I had on my last album, the melody I remember my grandmother used to sing; I added some parts and modernized it with a traditional touch. “Demme Demme” is another melody I remember from a Kurdish Alevi cem ceremony I attended when I was five years old. It was sung and performed by Seyit Murtaza, who was a rehber (guide) and also mirtik (entertainer), in a big house in our village. I also recorded my mother’s version of the dance of that semah a couple of decades ago. Our holy book is this three-stringed lute [bağlama], which goes back all the way to Zarathustra. Its melody allows human spirits to rest. The dance makes the body connect with the soul. (Ali Baran, personal communication in 2011). Ali Baran, whom I interviewed in Germany and New York in 2011 and 2012, is an exiled singer in Germany touching on many of these elements in the above quote where he explained what the sources of his music and lyrics are. Son of the great late Mahmut Baran, he has engaged with both Kurdish and Alevi repertoires since his early childhood years. Baran’s quest to represent traditional forms of Kurdish Alevi music has resulted in a diverse set of compositional approaches. Along with original lyrics, he has composed music for poems written by famous Kurdish poets such as Cigerxwin, Feqiye Teyra, and Mela Ciziri. Prominent Turkish and Kurdish musicians have covered many of his compositions. Our conversation ended with talk of the passing of Aşık Mahsuni, probably the most prolific Alevi aşık or ozan (bard) of modern times. Baran told me that although he used to criticize Aşık Mahsuni, now that he has passed away no other Turkish and Alevi folk music composer can fill the void. Baran described elderly musicians like himself as “like apples fallen to the ground, waiting to go bad.” Ali Baran’s music has influenced Kurdish Alevi musicians who have claimed both Kurdish and Alevi identities to various degrees. His primary audience has been of Kurdish Alevis, though he had many followers among other Kurds and Alevis in Germany and Turkey. Embodied in 1 Correspondence; School of Professional Studies, New York University, 7 East 12th Street New York, NY. E-mail: oea2@nyu.edu 57 Aksoy, O. the lives of diaspora musicians like Ali Baran, Kurdish Alevi social life cannot be defined without reference to music and oral tradition, especially the saz or bağlama (also known as tembûr in Kurdish), a long-necked lute that holds special symbolic significance for the Kurdish Alevi people. Music mediates the identities, homelands, and their activism. The sound of the bağlama or tembûr defines Kurdish Alevi social life, further this long-necked lute has gradually crowned as an essential symbol of the Kurdish Alevi people over the years. Each generation of Alevi men teaches this instrument to their sons; and it is part of the masculinist project of passing down politics and the symbols of identity from father to son (Thangaraj, 2015). For Alevi families, especially for Kurdish Alevis, family socialization with music is a central element of community cohesion. In the process, music also serves in both affirming community and serving as a vehicle of protest (Abe, 2016; Manabe, 2015). Who are the Kurdish Alevis? Since no official census figures account for Kurdish or Alevi people in either Turkey or Germany, it is difficult to pinpoint the size of this population. According to widely accepted estimates, around fifteen million Kurds are living in Turkey and 700,000 in Germany, of whom the majority are Sunni Muslims, while approximately one third are Alevi (Aksoy, 2014). On the other hand, varying estimates place the total population of Alevis in Turkey at around twenty-five million, of whom a quarter (slightly over six million) are Kurdish while the remaining nineteen million are of Turkish, Arab, or Albanian (who are Bektaşi) origin. I use the term Alevi, like almost all that call themselves such, to include the people categorized under the larger Alevi-Bektaşi tent that has been used to label all heterodox groups in Anatolia in the twentieth century (Dressler, 2013). In the current public discourse in Turkey and elsewhere, Alevis and Bektaşis use the labels Alevi and Alevi-Bektaşi interchangeably to refer to all of those heterodox groups. The Turkish-speaking Alevi groups include the Tahtacı, Çepni (see Gökalp 1980 for a more detailed account), and Abdal, whereas the Kurdish-speaking Alevis include both Kurmancî and Zazakî speakers, some of whom identify themselves as Kızılbaş. Alevism (Alevilik, Elewî, and Kızılbaş) is an Anatolian religion whose relations to both Sunni and Shi'a Islam are historically controversial. Markus Dressler defines Alevis as "a number of heterogeneous socio-religious communities in Turkey and the Balkans, historically referred to as Kızılbaş, who in the twentieth century began to share in a common trans-regional Alevi identity called Alevism" (2008, p. 93). Turkish Alevis, mainly from Central and Eastern Anatolia, constitute the majority of Alevis in Turkey. A quarter of Alevis are ethnic Kurds speaking Kurmancî or Zazakî (Dimilî). Kurmancî is the most commonly spoken Kurdish language/dialect among some thirty million Kurds in the world, the majority of whom live within the borders of Turkey. Most Kurmancî speakers are Sunni Muslim while a small minority (approximately 20%) are Alevi. Zazakî is the language, sometimes categorized as one of the dialects of Kurdish by Kurdish nationalists, spoken by the residents of cities in Turkish Kurdistan 2 including Tunceli, Elazığ, and Diyarbakır. More than half of Zazakî speakers are Alevi though not all of these identify as Kurds (Kaya, 2011). Thomas Solomon (2011), in discussing the diversity of the immigrant population from Turkey in Germany, refers to the situation as the “dizzying array of multiple identities” among the broader “Turkish community.” Methodology and Complexities of Kurdish Alevi Self-identification and Ascription Taking the approach of Martin Stokes (2010) in his work on music in Turkey, I rely on a particular set of representations––in this article cornerstone or iconic songs and their representations through radio, TV, and Internet broadcasts––explored as texts. These musical examples, as specific musical "objects," mediate multiple and sometimes contradicting identities through sonic, social, discursive, and visual modes. My access to musicians was helped by the fact that I am a member of this community and a former member of a popular music group whose music has found a loyal following among Kurdish Alevis interviewed for this transnational project whereby Kurdish identities and social movements cannot be understood as territorially bound. For this study, I participated in cultural events sponsored by various organizations that provide an arena for Kurdish and Alevi sociability and socio-political outreach and organizing. Each city and different national site present varying relations to Kurdistan and Kurdish life. Germany is the country with the largest Turkish immigrant population in Europe, hosting about 70 percent of all Turkish immigrants, and Cologne hosts the second-largest immigrant population in the country. Almost half of those immigrants are from Turkey, with a sizeable Kurdish segment (Sirkeci, 2006). At the same time, Cologne has been a leading center for Kurdish and especially Alevi social and political organizations in Germany. The headquarters of many associations such as KOMKAR (Immigrant Organization of the Kurdistan Socialist Party), FEK (Federation of Kurdish Alevi Associations), and AABF (Federation of Alevi Unions of Germany) are located in Cologne. The founders of those cultural, political, and religious centers have also chosen 2 Although Kurdistan has been known for centuries as the geographical location populated mostly by Kurds (along with Turkmens and Arabs among others), it is still a politically charged label and term in Turkey. 58 Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies Copyright 2019 2019, Vol. 6, No. 2, 57-67 ISSN: 2149-1291 https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/253 Cologne as their base. I researched Internet forums and forms of digital sharing platforms, including social media sites like Facebook and YouTube (Mahmod, 2016). I conducted over 80 interviews of Kurdish Alevi immigrants and refugees in Cologne and Istanbul. Those Kurdish Alevis trace their roots to villages within a geographical triangle defined by the eastern Turkish cities of Maraş, Malatya, and Adıyaman.