Sezen Aksu, the unequalled queen of Turkish pop, has invoked the wrath of the nation’s Islamist nationalist teams with a track she wrote 5 years in the past that allegedly insults the biblical Adam and Eve.
With Turkey’s challenges piling up from a faltering economy, political divisions forward of upcoming elections and conflicts in and with neighboring countries, it might seem unusual for a five-year-old track by a reclusive diva in her late 60s to make headlines. But for the reason that starting of the week, Aksu, a slight determine with full lips and soulful eyes, has been one of many high points in parliamentary speeches, statements by Turkey’s highly effective Non secular Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) and a few Turkish political events’ inside dynamics.
The controversy began when Aksu shared a clip of her 2017 track, “Şahane Bir Şey Yaşamak” (“How Great to Be Alive”) on her YouTube channel, wishing everybody a contented new yr. “Pleasure and ache, plans and video games, standing tall or hitting the underside, it’s fantastic to be alive,” go the lyrics. “Right here we’re, on a rollercoaster, heading straight to catastrophe, simply say hello to Adam and Eve, these ignorants.”
Islam considers Adam the primary prophet and refers to him and Eve with the spiritual honorific titles Hz. Adem and Hz. Havva.
When the track — largely ignored till then — too off on social media, Aksu turned the goal of dueling hashtags. First #sezenaksuknowyourplace accused the singer of blasphemy, after which #sezenaksuisnotalone expressed assist for the pop star’s freedom of expression. After every week, the controversy continues to be fueled by political statements on each ends of the political spectrum.
On Jan. 17, the highly effective Diyanet made an announcement that urged Turks to watch out of public sensibilities in referring to non secular figures. The assertion didn’t title Aksu, however stated that statements about holy figures together with Adam and Eve should not present disrespect “regardless of the purpose, intention or content material.”
Cuppeli Ahmet Hoca, an typically ridiculed cleric with a big on-line following, pointed an accusing finger at Aksu and her supporters. “If those that deign to insult the mom and father of humanity are thought-about to be the highest artists of this society, isn’t it clear that this isn’t a society that’s worthy of God’s favor?” he tweeted.
That night, a bunch of 20 folks from the National Defense Movement staged a protest in entrance of the 68-year-old’s home in Beykoz, an elegant neighborhood of Istanbul. “Some pseudo artists have been racing with one another to belittle our nationwide and non secular values and insult faith beneath the guise of artwork,” stated Murat Sahin, the chair of the affiliation. The group, which defines its mission on its web site as to guard and preserve the nation’s Turkish-Islamic heritage, has been described by columnist Baris Terkoglu because the “Black Shirts” of Inside Minister Suleyman Soylu. Its members have held a number of demonstrations in Istanbul, accusing the municipality of employing members of the outlawed Kurdistan Employees Get together.
The demonstration in entrance of the artist’s residence, the place the group’s actions have been tightly managed by the police, ended peacefully, however Sahin introduced on social media that the protest is probably not the final one. “We’ve got shown our reaction to this ignorant particular person. We are going to adamantly proceed our battle with those that insult our nationwide values and faith,” he stated.
An Ankara-based group of attorneys has filed a judicial criticism in opposition to Aksu that she has “insulted spiritual values.”
Article 216/3 of the Turkish Penal Code penalizes “public degradation of non secular values” and if the act disturbs the general public peace, the offender could also be imprisoned from six months to at least one yr. The vaguely worded article has been used more and more typically in Turkey within the final 10 years. Through the Bogazici College protests, two college students have been arrested and charged with insulting spiritual values for placing up a poster depicting Islam’s most sacred website with LGBT flags. Varied Turkish intellectuals who made satirical or humorous references to faith have been charged with blasphemy as nicely, together with famend pianist Fazil Say and Turkish-Armenian author Sevan Nisanyan.
Fellow artists rushed to assist Aksu. “I’m behind Sezen. She is without doubt one of the most precious artists on this nation and area,” stated Mabel Matiz, from the youthful technology of musicians. MESAM, an affiliation that helps the rights of creators of music, additionally rallied to assist Aksu, saying that the assaults on her have been unacceptable and worrying.
Nicknamed “Little Sparrow,” Aksu has been an innovator within the Turkish pop scene for practically half a century. Although her preliminary fame was as a consequence of her wealthy and husky voice and reside exhibits, she can be extensively often known as a songwriter. An excellent lyricist, Aksu may be very apt at turning on a regular basis phrases or saucy expressions into catchy, devil-may-care refrains or transferring her viewers to tears with songs that captured moments of agony, such because the dying of a kid or destruction of a city.
Drawing each on Western classical and native Turkish musical traditions, she scored one hit after one other, influencing and educating youthful generations of pop singers. Her fame went past Turkey as she cooperated with Bosnian singer Goran Bregovic and Turkish-German director Fatih Akin. In 2010, she was named among the many top 50 voices by American Nationwide Public Radio. Six years later, she introduced that she would by no means seem in one other live performance — and has saved her phrase. In the present day, her album gross sales are round 40 million worldwide.
Her politics, then again, have been controversial, fiery and generally a bit blurry. She was closely criticized by secularists when she expressed assist for the Kurdish initiative of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then the prime minister of Turkey, and voted in favor of the constitutional modifications within the 2010 referendum, a defining second that many secularists consider opened the floodgates for Erdogan’s unshakeable grip over the state. It was exactly for that reason that a few of her contemporaries have been reluctant to throw their assist behind her. “We is not going to let the wolves get you however maybe you, expensive sparrow, will notice that the political Islamists have been by no means democrats and you’ll not disappoint us in one other referendum,” tweeted Ilyas Salman, a comic who’s going through as much as two years in jail for insulting the president.
Aksu, who loved the federal government’s favor within the early 2000s, got here out strongly in assist of the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations and devoted a track, “Yeni ve Yeni Kalanlar” (“The New and These Who Stay New”) to the protesters. Dubbed “the Liza Minelli of Turkey” as a consequence of her recognition with the LGBT motion, Aksu has publicly supported homosexual rights.
Whereas authorities figures steered away from the controversy and Aksu firmly kept away from commenting on the blasphemy vs. inventive freedom debate, the hardest assertion in opposition to her got here from Devlet Bahceli, the grim chair of the Nationalist Motion Get together and Erdogan’s political ally. Depicting Aksu as “a nugatory artist who had written a nonsensical track” to his get together’s parliamentary group on Jan. 18, Bahceli stated, “In case you are a sparrow, be a sparrow, don’t aspire to be raven.” Early Turkish mythology generally refers to ravens as a logo of death and deceit.
“Artists must speak out; you can not silence their voice,” tweeted Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul mayor from the opposition Republican Individuals’s Get together, tagging not solely Aksu however Tarkan and Mustafa Sandal, two artists who’ve been vital of the federal government’s human rights file. “They’re the inside voice of this nation.”
On the correct of the political spectrum, Democracy and Progress Get together chair Ali Babacan additionally expressed assist for Aksu. “Turkey can solely develop if there may be freedom of expression,” he tweeted. “Our artists have to be free. We can’t settle for the assaults on Aksu.” A member of his get together, the native chair within the jap city of Elazig, Adem Sagir, resigned in protest of Babacan’s expression of assist. “I can’t keep within the get together if it supports somebody who insults faith,” he stated.
