Turkey’s Kurdish opera singer inspires Kurds by singing in native tongue

Pervin Chakar opens up a new avenue for inspiring her Kurdish peers who want to accomplish themselves in their mother tongue. (Supplied)
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Updated 13 October 2020
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Turkey’s Kurdish opera singer inspires Kurds by singing in native tongue

  • Chakar began singing opera when she was 21 years old

ANKARA: Pervin Chakar, one of the few Kurdish opera singers to be awarded various international prizes, is inspiring her Kurdish peers who want to establish a name for themselves in their mother tongue.

Chakar, 39, is originally from Turkey’s southeastern province of Mardin, but she has been living in Baden-Baden, Germany, for the past four years, after spending 11 years in Perugia, Italy.

It was no easy choice for her to live thousands of miles away from her home country, where Kurdish identity, language, culture, and political activism are still criminalized.

Unsurprisingly, performing opera in Kurdish is still perceived as a revolutionary act in Turkey.

Asked why she sings in Kurdish, Chakar responded that the greatest propaganda in the world is the use of one’s native language.

“The great German composer Johann Sebastian Bach said that wherever there is music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence. God is always with me. I feel really blessed when I give happiness to my audience through music,” she told Arab News.

Chakar released an opera album with the Bongiovanni record label in Italy, singing in Mysliveček’s “L’Olimpiade” as Megacle at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Italy.

She has two singles on digital platforms. One is the aria “Lascia ch’io pianga” from Handel’s opera “Rinaldo”; the other is the poem “Qimil,” written by assassinated Kurdish intellectual Musa Anter, composed by Chakar and played by harpist Tara Jaff to celebrate Anter’s 100th birthday.

Last year, Chakar was in Turkey for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Armenian composer Komitas Vartabed, for which she performed Armenian and Kurdish folk songs by Komitas at the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul and in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.

Chakar began singing opera when she was 21 years old. She learned to play the cello at the Diyarbakir Fine Arts High School. She explained how building a career in opera is partly owing to chance.

“I was singing folk songs when I was 14. I didn’t know anything about opera. I wrote some novels, and I won competitions in Turkey during my studies at the Anatolian High School of Fine Arts,” she said. “The competition committee in Ankara then organized a party where I sang the love song by Ludwig van Beethoven, ‘Ich liebe dich.’ The president of the writing competition was impressed by my voice and gave me a CD of Maria Callas after my performance.”

Chakar was unable to listen to the CD for four years because she did not have the money to buy a CD player. When she went to university in Ankara, she received her first scholarship and was at last able to buy a CD player. When she listened to Callas, she was impressed by her voice and decided to start singing opera.

In 2004, while working at the Ankara Opera House, Chakar sang for an Italian opera manager who had come to the city to scout for new voices.

“He invited me to sing in Italy where I continued my studies in opera and completed a master’s degree from the Conservatory of Music in Perugia. He totally changed my life,” she said.

She made her debut in Italy in 2006 at the Teatro Rosetum in Milan. Then, she began winning many international singing competitions and awards in Europe, such as the Golden Orfeo Grand Prix Leyla Gencer in France in 2012; first place at the 28th International Maria Caniglia Singing Competition; first place at the 3rd Giovanni Pacini International Singing Competition in Florence; and special prize at the 10th Ottavio Ziino Opera Competition, among others.

She got the chance to sing with many internationally acclaimed musicians like Montserrat Caballé, Luciana Serra, Salvatore Fisichella, Lella Cuberli, Andrea Bocelli, Ennio Morricone and others.

“I am sorry that Kurdish musicians have trouble finding a place to perform,” she said. “More possibilities and more space must be afforded to Kurdish artists to perform their art and culture. We need to express our art. We are producing a lot, but we fail to sell our product.”

Chakar learned her native language only recently, after the tragic Roboski airstrike in which 34 civilians were killed at the border with Iraq by a Turkish jet in 2011. The civilians were allegedly mistaken for outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party militants while smuggling goods into Turkey.

“I was in Italy for a concert organized by the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation. I read the news about the Roboski airstrike on social media. Then I cried a lot. I asked myself why, as a Kurdish opera singer, I didn’t know my native language and culture. After this tragedy, I started researching Kurdish singers, authors, and music. I realized that I had to learn my language immediately,” she said.

“Lo Şivano” (“The Shepherd”) was the first-ever Kurdish song Chakar learned. Although she loves all Kurdish songs, her favorites are those of the Dengbej (storytellers).

It was in 2013 when she sang in Kurdish for the first time in Istanbul for the Andante Classical Music Award Ceremony, where she was nominated Best Female Opera Singer of the year.

“I was surprised by some of the musicians, who asked what language I was singing in on stage. Their questions bothered me. At that moment, I realized that I needed to face the reality of Turkey,” she said.

Chakar believes that not knowing one’s mother tongue means losing a part of one’s soul.

“The Kurdish language is such a fantastic, rich and musical language. I have the privilege of learning foreign languages ​​such as English, Italian and German. Then I learned my mother tongue. What is a nation without a mother tongue? The Kurdish language is a language of the soul,” she said.

After seeing many international opera singers perform in their mother tongue, she began asking herself what she could do to inspire her Kurdish peers in Turkey.

For Chakar, being a Kurdish singer in the world is an important statement. She hopes to spread messages of peace through her music.

“It is the language and culture of a nation that makes that nation what it is,” she said.

Chakar is saddened by Kurdish youth in Turkey who forget their mother tongue after facing social and political restrictions.

“My father was a teacher. Because he was born in a Kurdish-majority town, he was always assigned to remote villages, far from our hometown. My mom always instructed me not to speak in Kurdish. They were always hiding their Kurdish books and music cassettes. Therefore, I had to wait years before I could discover my Kurdish roots through music. It was the beginning of my return to my soul and inner spirit,” she said.

As a goal in her career, Chakar aims to release an album covering the poems of Melayê Cizîrî, one of the greatest 16th-century poets and philosophers in Kurdistan.

“I would like to publish more songs in Kurdish and Kurdish dialects with piano and the duduk instrument. I am also waiting for my new album of Kurdish songs to be released very soon in Japan by a Japanese label,” she said.


Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

Updated 05 April 2025
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Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

  • Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year, Aboul Gheit said in a statement

CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through irresponsible military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”

In a statement, Aboul Gheit lamented that global inaction has further emboldened the Zionist state.

“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries, and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

He said Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year. 

Aboul Gheit suggested that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.

“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.

As per the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and over 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel.

In Lebanon, war monitors have said at least 3,961 people were killed and at least 16,520, wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from October 8, 2023, to November 26, 2024.

Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion killed 13 people, in the southern province of Daraa. 


Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Updated 05 April 2025
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Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Damascus: Syria’s government said late Friday it was “closely following” the findings of a new Amnesty International report urging an investigation into sectarian massacres last month.
Amnesty called on the Syrian government in a report on Thursday to ensure accountability for the massacres targeting the Alawite minority, saying they may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those responsible.
In a statement on Friday, the government said it had been “following closely the Amnesty report” and its “preliminary findings.”
“It is up to the Independent National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding to evaluate them, in accordance with the mandate, independence, and broad powers granted to it by presidential decree,” it said.
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
The government on Friday complained the report failed to note “the broader context of the events.”
It said the violence began with a “premeditated assault” by the “remnants of the previous regime, targeting army and internal security personnel.”
In the ensuing chaos, “acts of retaliation and serious violations occurred,” it said, vowing that these would be investigated and a report issued within a month.


Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

Updated 05 April 2025
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Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

  • Organization calls for greater effort to reduce contamination that spans 2,100 sq. km.
  • More than 80 casualties recorded since 2023

LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose a severe threat in Iraq, contaminating an estimated 2,100 sq. km.

In a statement issued to coincide with the International Day for Mine Awareness, the organization said landmines from past conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War and the 2014–17 battle against Daesh, remained a major hazard.

The contamination had resulted in civilian casualties, forced displacement, restricted farmland access and slowed reconstruction efforts, it said.

Between 2023 and 2024, the ICRC recorded 78 casualties from landmines and remnants of war in Iraq. Earlier this year, three students were killed in an explosion in Abu Al-Khasib, Basra.

The ICRC has appealed for greater efforts to reduce contamination and support mine-affected communities. Clearance operations continue in cooperation with national authorities and humanitarian partners.

The call for action comes at a time when several NATO member states, namely Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, have signaled their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. They cited the growing military threat from Russia as the reason for reconsidering the ban.

Meanwhile, the US, previously the largest funder of global mine clearance efforts, has cut back support due to a foreign aid review under the Trump administration.

Washington had contributed over $300 million annually, covering 40 percent of total international mine action funding, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor report, which led to major clearance efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Laos.

A State Department official said last month that the US had restarted some global humanitarian demining programs but provided no details.


Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

Updated 04 April 2025
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Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

  • “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives,” said Abu Obeida

GAZA CITY: Hamas on Friday said Israel’s offensive in Gaza was creating a “highly dangerous” situation for the hostages held there, warning that half of the living captives were in areas where the army had ordered evacuations.
“Half of the living Israeli (hostages) are located in areas that the Israeli occupation army has requested to be evacuated in recent days,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement. “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives.”


Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

Updated 04 April 2025
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Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

  • The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
  • The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month

ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in the Syrian Arab Republic’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.