For Nûdem Durak, Coline Linder and her friends sing “Bişenga Delal”

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I would like to share a clip done in sup­port for Nûdem Durak, a Kur­dish singer incar­cer­at­ed in Turkey, sen­tenced to 19 years in prison for hav­ing sung in her mater­nal lan­guage. And I would like to immerse you in this love­ly sto­ry of sol­i­dar­i­ty, of uni­ver­sal sis­ter­hood and of the col­lec­tive cre­ation that led to it.

The mag­i­cal bind­ing ele­ment was pro­vid­ed by Col­ine Lin­der. She is the essen­tial one and I would like to intro­duce you to her.

Col­ine is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist. No mat­ter what strikes a chord for you, she will touch it. The door to your affec­tions is visu­al? She will touch you with the tip of her paint­brush. The road to your heart is paved with words? Her texts will come toward you. Are you a sen­si­tive music lover? Col­ine will gen­er­ous­ly invite you into her musi­cal uni­verse. Are you more of a bent to defend caus­es? She will stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty by your side.

Inevitably, you will run across Col­ine on stage, in an exhi­bi­tion or dur­ing a sol­i­dar­i­ty ini­tia­tive and you will share her trea­sures.

In a reportage done in 2016 describ­ing her quite well, one can read: “Behind her wide smile and her gales of sin­gu­lar laugh­ter, one sens­es that she is inhab­it­ed by a feel­ing of revolt and injus­tice against the ills affect­ing our cur­rent soci­ety.” She answered: “I attempt to express this anger in a more poet­i­cal than polit­i­cal way. This is my way of get­ting involved.”

One way or anoth­er, you will be touched by the emo­tion and the affec­tion that radi­ate from this young woman from Stras­burg, now set­tled in the Angevin for the past fif­teen years. The daugh­ter of par­ents who were artists, she could not have turned out any oth­er way. She is over­loaded with projects, often car­ried out with an impres­sive sense of the col­lec­tive.

Col­ine is in the habit of car­ry­ing out sev­e­re­al cross-breed­ing projects at the same time. She found­ed Titi Zaro with Ori­ane Lacaille, a duo that became a wom­en’s quar­tet in 2015. There are so many oth­ers that I can only men­tion a few, such as her col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Wom­en’s Tribe, the Lo’Jo, Denis Péan’s group.

Or yet again, her con­tri­bu­tion to “Mano à Mano” with Momette, a work­shop project with refugees from Calais, but also with schools and retire­ment homes, in order to “move art along to oth­ers, invent truces, exper­i­ment shel­ter-moments, in order to do and to be togeth­er, with art as a tool, a pass­port, an ali­bi, a lan­guage, art for the com­mon good.”

These days, you will run into her in a duo with Fred­dy Bois­liveau: Baïne Kahlo… And she has an ongo­ing project, “Ouroboros” that aims to “weave links between peo­ple”, a kind of cul­mi­na­tion result­ing from her extreme­ly diverse expe­ri­ences.

This is Col­ine. Nec­es­sar­i­ly, our paths crossed.

• First of all Col­ine, I want to thank you for your musi­cal and poet­ic sup­port as an artist to sev­er­al caus­es, but also for being the woman, the sen­si­tive, gen­er­ous and present friend…You have just com­plet­ed a clip “Bişen­ga Delal” with your artist friends who con­tributed in var­i­ous ways to this col­lec­tive project done in sol­i­dar­i­ty. I have only one ques­tion, could you tell us about the path you fol­lowed and how this pre­cious gift came to be?

• A few years ago, I saw the film by Mylène Sauloy, “La guerre des filles” (The girls’ war”). This film was clear­ly an emo­tion­al shock for me. For six months, I could­n’t write a sin­gle word. I was ready to go over there.

I went through a peri­od of self-ques­tion­ing of my func­tion as a poet, as an artist. At first, I had the impres­sion that all that was use­less… Then, I told myself there were strug­gles to be fought there also. You have to fight with your own weapons. This is how I man­aged to escape from this sad­ness and a feel­ing of pow­er­less­ness.

A first song was born from these reflec­tions, “L’hymne des lou­ves” (The Hymn of the She-wolves), sung by Titi Zaro and ded­i­cat­ed to those women who fight evil, but not only…Through them, this song is for all women from every peri­od: A song for women who through their sweat, their smiles and their courage pro­tect the beau­ty of the world.

In Jan­u­ary 2018, Zehra Dogan’s works were exhib­it­ed in Angers at the gallery Tour Saint Aubain. On Jan­u­ary 20, “Une nuit de lec­tures” (A night of read­ings) was held in Angers. That evening, I want­ed to lis­ten to a read­ing by Denis Lavant. I was with my father, the poet Alain Ligi­er, and my friend Loredana Lan­ciano, an artist and come­di­an. We arrived late and could not get in. Right next door, at the gallery, the lights were still on… we went toward them. This was my great meet­ing with Zehra’s work. Her poignant tes­ti­mo­ny, the pow­er of her artis­tic expres­sion over­whelmed us. And we learned even more about the his­to­ry of the Kur­dish peo­ple.

More­over, Zehra’s work whis­pered to me about the impor­tance of art, of poet­ry, in the strug­gle, and it showed me, once again, the place for my own work. “Yes, yes, it is most impor­tant to offer anoth­er per­spec­tive through art, one that leads through an emo­tion­al path to reflec­tion and sub­ver­sion,” I told myself.

I was folow­ing Kedis­tan, and shared my song “L’hymne des lou­ves” with the team, dis­cussed with them… I became immersed in Zehra’s uni­verse, for entire sleep­less nights, read­ing the trans­la­tions of her prison let­ters. And of course, inevitably, I start­ed talk­ing about her, who was still impris­oned at the time, every­where my feet took me, and every­where my voice car­ried. I sang for her, dur­ing a sup­port ini­tia­tive in which Eléonore Four­ni­aux and Nol­wenn Kor­bell par­tic­i­pat­ed, read excerpts of her writ­ings in my con­certs, at sup­port ini­tia­tives, I spoke of her tes­ti­mo­ny, of her peo­ple, of Kur­dish women.

The Kur­dish cause finds a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong res­o­nance in me. It’s almost phys­i­cal. What I expe­ri­ence when I hear the Kur­dish lan­guage, and when I sing now, is some­thing pow­er­ful and beau­ti­ful.

The polit­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal, com­bat­ive side of the Kur­dish cause, war­like when need be, but also its com­mit­ted, poet­i­cal, fem­i­nine and fem­i­nist sides are bal­anced. A bal­ance that encom­pass­es every­thing.

Then, I met Nûdem Durak in the pages of Kedis­tan. Anoth­er sis­ter… I imme­di­ate­ly expe­ri­enced a very pow­er­ful sis­ter­hood. More­over, I shared music with her. A very pow­er­ful link. She was a singer. An artist thrown in prison for hav­ing sung in Kur­dish, her mater­nal lan­guage.

Recent­ly, I had been work­ing a lot. And the con­fine­ment arrived. This imposed shut­ting off was a peri­od of med­i­ta­tion for me. Immer­sion in Nûdem’s world, her music, the Kur­dish lan­guage in her mouth… I lis­tened to her a lot.

“Bişen­ga Delal” moved me in par­tic­u­lar. This song was com­posed in 1991 by Peşeng Papo and the cur­rent lyrics are from the group Koma Awazê Çîya. But for me, it is one of Nûdem’s songs, because I met it through her voice, with her group Koma Sorxwîn. She may be in prison but her voice is free. That is the pow­er of art you can­not keep in a cage.

So I began to sing her. Dur­ing the time of con­fine­ment, we gave con­certs every Fri­day, live on the Face­book page of Baïne Kahlo. And every Fri­day, I spoke about Nûdem, I sang “Bişen­ga Delal”, for her free­dom, and I con­tin­ue to do so…

Once the words were trans­lat­ed and fol­low­ing a bit of research, I also learned what this song was about, who was Bişeng…

Bişeng Anık, a young Kur­dish girl, 16 years old, was arrest­ed and killed by the police in 1992. On March 21 of that year, the Newroz (Kur­dish New Year) had already been put down by the police. On that day, in the town of Şır­nak (Şirnex in Kur­dish), there were 103 deaths, 47 of them on the square where the Newroz cel­e­bra­tions were being held.

Bişeng was arrest­ed and tak­en into cus­tody on March 23, fol­low­ing police raids tar­get­ing stu­dents. Her body was giv­en back to her fam­i­ly on March 24. Her body showed wounds, lac­er­a­tions on the legs and feet. She had been exe­cut­ed with a bul­let to the head. Clutched between her fin­gers, she was still hold­ing a Kur­dish bracelet in three col­ors, yel­low, red and green… She then became one of the icons of the Kur­dish strug­gle.

In fact, a well known Kur­dish deng­bêj (bard), Sal­i­hê Şirnekî (from Şirnex) com­posed and sang a lament for her, the tra­di­tion­al song inter­pret­ed fol­low­ing a death. This bard was killed also, in his town, in 2015… Bişeng’s case was also record­ed by Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al in 1992.

I learned all this… Then I shared this infor­ma­tion with oth­er artist friends. They were moved as I was, and these friends con­tributed to this project, each one bring­ing some of her art, her words, her music…

For us, it also rep­re­sent a reflec­tion on how to weave spaces of free­dom inside confinement…Just like Zehra, just like Nûdem, just like so many oth­ers.

It is real­ly great to see how they became involved. Even Fred­dy, my musi­cal com­pan­ion, is extreme­ly enthu­si­as­tic. It’s beau­ti­ful to see.

It’s my turn to present to you these friends who are scat­tered a bit all over. Every­one, or almost, worked out of con­fine­ment.

Annabelle Gal­land from the group Les Or-l’Amour, invit­ed her­self with her dou­ble bass and Fred­dy Bois­liveau, with his gui­tar. From the duo Far­fal­li­na Intre­p­i­da, David Boidin con­tributed his tal­ents on the beat box and Loredana Lan­ciano, of Ital­ian ori­gin, her singing in her native lan­guage. Speak­ing of voic­es; Nadia and Yam­i­na Nid el Mour­di from the Lo’Jo’s and singer Béné­dicte Ragu, form the cho­rus. Lau­ra Caron­ni from Las Her­manas Caron­ni grabbed her cel­lo, Mélanie Bourire a musi­cian, singer and per­cus­sion­ist from La Réu­nion, a mem­ber of the group Kom­bo said yes imme­di­ate­ly… The duo Bon­bon Voudou answered present: Ori­ane Lacaille on per­cus­sions and Jerem Bou­cris, with his “can­is­ter gui­tar”… And even their 4 year old daugh­ter Josephine, con­tributed to the project…
All these musi­cal record­ings were gath­ered up and assem­bled by Fred­dy.

And, of course, we want­ed a col­lec­tive clip for this col­lec­tive song. The scenes were filmed on the shores of the Loire.

Our dancer friends con­tributed with their body lan­guage. Wom­en’s bod­ies, so impor­tant in the Kur­dish peo­ple’s strug­gle, these bod­ies that serve as the door to the spir­it, mis­treat­ed with such impuni­ty by wom­en’s enne­mies, had to express them­selves also, so that this mod­est offer­ing of sol­i­dar­i­ty could be com­plete. Sophie Couineau, Falila Tairou, Car­ole Bon­neau, Lucile Cartreau danced in the spring fields. They had just stepped out of con­fine­ment and had­n’t danced for a long time. This was also a very pow­er­ful moment for them…

Both the mix­ing and the edit­ing went like mag­ic. Each of these con­tri­bu­tions quick­ly found their nat­ur­al set­ting.

Here then is our sol­i­dar­i­ty con­tri­bu­tion to the sup­port cam­paign for the lib­er­a­tion of Nûdem Durak, a cam­paign you can fol­low and sup­port by click­ing on the links below:

You can sup­port Nûdem Durak

Petition Free Nûdem Durak • Facebook @nudemdurak • Twitter @NudemDurak • Instagram @freenudemdurak • Youtube Free Nûdem Durak • Write to Nûdem and her friends in prison: Nûdem Durak M Tipi Kapalı Cezaevi Bayburt – TURKEY

BİŞENGA DELAL • MUSIQUE : Annabelle Galland, Nadia Nid el Mourid, Oriane Lacaille, Loredana Lanciano, Laura Caronni, Bénédicte Ragu, Yamina Nid el Mourid, Freddy Boisliveau, Jerem Boucris, Mélanie Bourire, Josephine Boucris, David Boidin, Coline Linder. • DANSES : Sophie Couineau, Falila Tairou, Carole Bonneau, Lucile Cartreau • SON, MIXAGE ET MASTERING : Freddy Boisliveau • IMAGES REALISATION, MONTAGE : Coline Linder. Avril/Mai 2020, en solidarité avec Nûdem Durak

An approximate English translation of the words follows:

Bişenga Delal

Your love is made of fire
Of the sacred fire and conviction
This road, this intent
Are life and hope

You have re-written this History
With your limpid blood
You were the star of the radiant day
Brave Beritan’s companion
Oh precious Bişeng

You started to dance
Under the warmth of the sun’s rays
Flowers bloomed for you
On the battle fields

You were love in the hearts
Oh Kurdish girl
Rise up
Dress in you precious marriage veil

Thousands are marching
In your footsteps today
You are the symbol of the new life
Oh precious Bişeng

Bişenga Delal

Evîna te ji agir e, agirê pîroz
Bawerî, hevi û jîn e ev rê û ev doz
Wê dîrok ji nû ve nivîsî bi xwîna zelal
Bû sitêrkek roja ronî Bişenga delal

Bûyî hevala Berîtan sipehî û lehengê
Bi tîna tîrêjên rojê ketî govendê
Kûlîlk bi navê te bişkivîn li qada cengê
De rabe xweliyê li xweke ey bûka şengê

Gula baxê welatê min Bişenga delal/ciwan
Di nav dilan tû bûyî evîn ey keça Kurdan
Îro rêya te dimeşin em bi hezaran
Tû bûyî sembola jîna nû Bişenga delal

Transcription : Adorenas Çelik

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges – iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com

You may use and share Kedistan’s articles and translations, specifying the source and adding a link in order to respect the writer(s) and translator(s) work. Thank you

Naz Oke

REDACTION | Journaliste 

Chat de gout­tière sans fron­tières. Jour­nal­isme à l’U­ni­ver­sité de Mar­mara. Archi­tec­ture à l’U­ni­ver­sité de Mimar Sinan, Istanbul.