Black the night, I am bound
A silent bird in a foreign cage
March of men, the bells are ringing
Poets shackled in iron chains
Hush child and halt your singing
Dark eyes turn to the ground
Whispers of truths, deceiving
Ghosts, echoes and chanting crowds
Rivers and mountains, sickle moon, snow
Shackle the dancers; an ancestor’s woe
Militant daughters and absent her sons
A mother is grieving, the damage is done
Murmurs of a thousand voices
Song the needle that weaves the thread
Weave and spin the ancient stories
Word for which your daughters bled
The mother tongue of stateless pilgrims
Threaten the pillars of prison walls
Guards lay siege to the songs of children
Fettered by thieves as darkness falls
Rivers and mountains, sickle moon, snow
Shackle the dancers; an ancestor’s woe
Militant daughters and absent her sons
A mother is grieving, the damage is done
Rivers and mountains, sickle moon, snow
Shackle the dancers; an ancestor’s woe
A militant daughter not silent by choice
They can shackle my body
But never my voice
A silent bird in a foreign cage
March of men, the bells are ringing
Poets shackled in iron chains
Hush child and halt your singing
Dark eyes turn to the ground
Whispers of truths, deceiving
Ghosts, echoes and chanting crowds
Rivers and mountains, sickle moon, snow
Shackle the dancers; an ancestor’s woe
Militant daughters and absent her sons
A mother is grieving, the damage is done
Murmurs of a thousand voices
Song the needle that weaves the thread
Weave and spin the ancient stories
Word for which your daughters bled
The mother tongue of stateless pilgrims
Threaten the pillars of prison walls
Guards lay siege to the songs of children
Fettered by thieves as darkness falls
Rivers and mountains, sickle moon, snow
Shackle the dancers; an ancestor’s woe
Militant daughters and absent her sons
A mother is grieving, the damage is done
Rivers and mountains, sickle moon, snow
Shackle the dancers; an ancestor’s woe
A militant daughter not silent by choice
They can shackle my body
But never my voice
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Album: DAISYWHEEL (2019)
Nûdem Durak is an ethnic Kurdish singer from Cizre, Turkey. She is well-known throughout her community for teaching local folk songs in the Kurdish language to young children in sing-alongs. Kurds are one of Turkey’s most heavily persecuted minorities, with a long history of tensions between Kurds and the governments of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, where sizable minorities live.
Up until 1991, the Kurdish language was entirely banned in Turkey. A law passed that year allows the language for communication but bans the purposefully vague “spreading of propaganda.”
To the Turkish government, which even banned the word “Kurd” until the 1990s (calling them “Mountain Turks” instead) simply singing was unacceptable. Nûdem was arrested in 2015, and charged under the vague notion of propagandizing because the songs she sang were in her own language.
In April 2015, Nûdem Durak was sentenced to ten-and-a-half years in prison for the charge of “promoting Kurdish propaganda” by performing in her native language. In July of 2016, with no additional charges or convictions, her sentence was increased to 19 years. Friends report that she had been wanted by police since at least 2014. The singer was arrested with three other women, but they were let free.
Nûdem Durak is currently being held in the “Type M” prison in Bayburt, Turkey, where she is scheduled to remain until September 2034.
John Dierickx - The Little Bird and the Tyrant - David Steffen and Stefan Steffen - Song for Nudem Durak - Claus Zimmermann - The Story of Nudem Durak - Christoph Scheffler - Der Pfahl - Minipax - Mundtot - Ruth Hazleton - Shackled (Song for Nûdem Durak)