PUNK ROCK LYRICS DRAW TURKEY’S IRE
The New Anatolian, Turkey
The Associated Press / Istanbul
July 16 2007
As punk rock goes, a song bemoaning a high school exam is hardly
the stuff of anarchy. But in Turkey, it can land you in court, as an
Istanbul rock band discovered.
All the song does is lash out against the exam all Turkish
high-schoolers must pass to have a shot at getting into college.
High-schoolers the world over may sympathize, but to Turkish
prosecutors, it’s an insult to the state. The troubles besetting
Deli as the five-man group heads to trial Thursday are typical of
the extremes endured by a country historically torn between cultures
– Islam and secularism, Europe and Asia, democracy and military
dictatorship, and a reverence for institutions of state that often
collides with civil liberties.
The song is several years old and may have gone unnoticed were this
not the Internet age. It came to prosecutors’ notice only after a
teen lip-synched the song and posted it on youtube.com last year.
If convicted, the band and its manager face up to 18 months in jail,
but could get just a fine or a warning.
Turkey, which seeks European Union membership, retains strict
limits on expression. Several intellectuals, notably Nobel Prize
winning author Orhan Pamuk and Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, were
prosecuted on charges of "insulting Turkishness" for comments on mass
killings of Armenians a century ago. Dink was later assassinated and
14 suspects are on trial. The punk song is called "OSYM," the Turkish
acronym for the state’s student selection and placement centre that
decides which students go to university, based on a yearly three-hour
multiple-choice exam.
In a nation of 70 million with 10 per cent unemployment, passing the
test is critical to every young Turk’s future prospects. Even so,
in 2006, there were university spots for fewer than one-third of the
1.5 million who took the test.
"Life should not be a prison because of an exam," go the lyrics. "I
have gotten lost/You have ruined my future/ I am going to tell you
one thing:/ Shove that exam…"
Mild stuff by Western standards, but according to Turkish media, it
prompted Unal Yarimagan, who chairs the university placement system,
to seek legal advice.
"We opened the case and now it is in the hands of justice," state
prosecutor Kursat Kayral said.
There’s been little public discussion about the wisdom of prosecuting
the punk band. Turkish prosecutors routinely file defamation
complaints, creating a glut of cases, some of which never go to trial.
Gathered in a cramped Istanbul recording studio, the Deli musicians
don’t look like punks – no spiked hair, lip studs or drugs. They’re
in their early 20s, polite, mild-mannered and irreverent. And all
passed the university exam.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
