Ferhat Tunç

Ferhat Tunç ( born March 14, 1964 in Babaocağı, Tunceli ) is a musician and human rights of Kurdish origin, and a politician of the Kurdish party BDP ( Baris ve Demokratik Partisi ) which for a solution to the issue of minorities of Kurds and Alevis and for the special interests the population of Tunceli (Kurdish / Zazaki Dersim ) is used.

Childhood and youth

Ferhat Tunç was born on 14 March 1964 as the first child of an Alevi Kurdish family in the province of Tunceli in eastern Turkey. Grew up from childhood in the rural mountain region with Alevi folk songs of his grandparents, his singing talent already stepped forward to Elementary School. When his working as guest workers in Germany father Ferhats means school purchased a house in Tunceli, settled the six siblings with their mother in this city over the ( regionally known as " Kırmancki " ) a center of Alevi and Zazaki -speaking minority among the Kurds represents in Turkey. To his high school years Ferhat Tunç already possessed a "small Ozan of Dersim " over a certain regional awareness and succeeded his father in 1979 to Germany, where he studied at the community college in Rüsselsheim German.

Artistic Career

Appeared in 1982 in West Germany his debut album " Kızılırmak " he learned in the same year in Frankfurt am Main the musician Darnel Summers know, founded by him and other musicians formed his first band and toured the Federal Republic of Germany and neighboring countries. In 1984 the album "Bu Bu Sevda Var Iken Yürek " after he began singing lessons at the music school of the University of Mainz, whom he half a year later, however, broke off again to continue life as a touring musician. In 1985, he returned for the first time in Turkey, where he wanted to learn his neglected due to the political situation of "mother tongue " Zazaki better. In order to build a new musical existence, he joined the musician Hasan Hüseyin Demirel to, who wanted to create a new company for musical productions at the famous Istanbul- Unkapanı, and lived with him and the currently known singer Emre Saltık ın a modest apartment in Istanbul. Within a week Tunç recorded his album " Vurgunum Hasretine ", but could initially move for issue, because the actually moderate content was too hot due to the tense political situation in Turkey no company. After unsuccessful attempts by Tunç in Germany succeeded Demirel but then in Istanbul to find a distributor who brought the album on the market, which brought the artistic breakthrough for Tunç. In 1988 he met Ahmet Kaya, who became officially tolerated as practical first and only opposition voice. With it came in the wake in concerts and tours, several times in Germany.

Political influences on Tunçs work

Even in his childhood came Ferhat Tunç by the Alevi music with an enriched from political- opposition hints musical culture in contact to this in the " Kurdish " region of Dersim, a geographically by mountain ranges and culturally homogeneous Alevism highly insulated to the outside region in which the Turkish Army had 1937/1938 Alevi Kurdish uprisings severely beaten, was followed by an expanded Turkish city named " Tunceli " on the spot. This eventful history of riots, war, flight and expulsion in Dersim, as well as belonging to the minorities of the Alevi religion, " Kurdish " Population and the Zazaki - native language reflects not only the local closeness to nature in musical compositions, authorship, songs, and in political and social activities of the artist often resist.

In the 1970s, with its violent and bloody confrontations left - and right-wing social trends Tunç, like many other Alevis developed, strong sympathies for the Communist movement and its Turkish İbrahim Kaypakkaya icon. In Tunceli, a stronghold of the political left also jokingly " Küçük Moskova " (Turkish for "Little Moscow " ) called, there was almost revolutionary mood, and his time living in Germany Ferhat Tunç understood at this stage as a revolutionary singer and his music as tool for the revolution. The military coup in Turkey in 1980 with his arrest and killing wave for many thousands of leftists, intellectuals, workers and peasants delayed his return to Turkey, as well as the fact that his performances in the Federal Republic mainly in public its from the left Turkish-Kurdish spectrum persecution could appear possible by the military government in Turkey.

Upon his arrival back in 1985 in Turkey, he was interrogated for a week in Ankara, harassed and tortured. There he met a still modified by special laws and mass trials society. In his concerts and albums he built now always also some songs until 1991 banned in Turkey Languages ​​Zazaki and Kurmanji, which increased the social explosiveness of his political texts. Concerts were transformed then gradually to the central social " meetings " of the opposition. Tunç now supported workers' strikes, struggles for democratization in Turkey and timidly emerging environmental movement in Turkey. Several times it came to his arrest, to concert prohibitions and to stay in police custody.

Nevertheless, his music career is also distinguished by economic success and professionalism. He limits himself with his Turkish folk music and with his Özgün or protest music is not extremely leftist audience, but makes the accompaniment of a separate solid band at concerts, through television appearances and music videos for its high popularity and good sales. Finds support from friendly Tunç intellectuals like Akın Birdal, Yaşar Kemal, Esber Yagmurdereli or Yılmaz Erdoğan. He supported, for example, pieces of exiled artists such as the Kurdish rock musician Ciwan Haco or Aram Tigran from Armenia.

Commenting on the political censorship in Turkey, he specifies the conditions and reasons for his desire to have more than 25 years addressed taboos of the Turkish state openly in his music: " The Kurds play in this problem a big role because I myself been a Kurd [ am ], the Alevis play a big role, because I myself am Alevi, the people of Dersim play a major role in this truth, because I was from Dersim. Certainly - this collection, so to be a Kurd, they are Alevis and to be from Dersim, puts me in a situation as a musician or as someone who published his ideas or his opinion, so [ ... ] I get in trouble from the government and of the Turkish state. [ ... ] There are certainly many problems in Turkey. For example, I experience since years ago when I was a child: I could not speak my native language [ ... ] now, because that was forbidden. I can my faith [ as ] means not experience [ ... ] because I was the Alevi [ ... ] was banned and now I want to be able to understand it all by myself and millions of people that know [ that we ] such have had a problem and now no longer want to have, do not want to experience. "

Career and involvement in politics

Ferhat Tunç was a candidate for the 2007 parliamentary elections as an independent candidate DTP since this went into the race with so-called "Bin Umut Adaylari ", but was not placed on the electoral list of the party, because Şerafettin Halis was selected as a candidate, in turn, with 30 % of votes was elected in the province of Tunceli in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Ferhat Tunç took an active part in the election campaign of the DTP.

He was arrested several times, including as the PKK Kutudere kidnapped a soldier in the field and Ferhat Tunç demanded his release. Nevertheless alleged contacts with the PKK he was accused of and he was detained for several days.

For the general elections in Turkey in 2011, he ran again as an independent candidate for Tunceli, but won again no mandate.

Awards

• 2010: Free Muse Award from the human rights organization Free muse for his struggle against censorship of music.

Discography

• " Kızılırmak " (1982)
• "Bu Bu Sevda Var Iken Yürek " (1984)
• " Vurgunum Hasretine " (1986)
• " Ay Isigi Yana Yana " (1987)
• " Yasamak Direnmektir " (1988)
• " İstanbul Konserleri -1 " (1988)
• " Vuruldu " (1989)
• " Gul Vatan " (1990)
• " Ates Gibi " (1991)
• " İstanbul Konserleri -2 " (1992)
• " Firari Sevdam " (1993)
• " Özlemin Dağ Rüzgarı " (1994)
• " Kani Susturun " (1995)
• " Kayıp " (1997)
• " Kavgamın cicegi " (1999)
• "Her Mevsim Bahardır " (2000)
• " Şarkılarım Tanıktır " (2002)
• " Nerdesin Ey Kardeşlik " (2003)
• " Sevmek bir eylemdir " (2005)
• " Ateste Sınandık " (2006)
• " Cığlıklar Ülkesi " (2009)
• " Dersim " (2012)