Turkey: Punk rockers face prison time for protest song

Nicholas Birch 4/13/07

Five Turkish punk rockers and their agent face up to 18 months in jail after a government official was offended by the lyrics of a song criticizing the country's unpopular university entrance exam.

Head of OSYM, Turkey's central examination board, Unal Yarimagan reportedly smiled when he first saw a clip of "OSYM, Kiss My Arse," by Deli (Mad), a group from the western city of Bursa.

"I'm a tolerant person, but that didn't stop me doing my duty and checking [that] it wasn't breaking any laws," he said. In March, an Ankara prosecutor said the lyrics could constitute an insult against a civil servant in the course of his duty. The trial is scheduled to open May 2.

"It's ridiculous," says lead singer and lyricist Cengiz Sari, 24. "I was 17 when I wrote that song. I was just your typical rebellious teenager. It shouldn't be a problem." He'll be a defendant in the case along with the rest of the band members, including drummer Resat Saral, who joined Deli late last year and has never played the offending song in public.

Turkish leaders of late have exhibited a marked sensitivity to criticism. Since March 2005, when he sued a cartoonist who portrayed him as a cat tangled in wool, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is believed to have earned at least 300,000 lira ($215,000) in damages from insult cases.

Turkey's quirky understanding of freedom of expression surfaced again last month when a judge ordered the popular website YouTube to be blocked after a Greek nationalist posted a video that included a defamatory allegation against the Turkish Republic's founder Kemal Ataturk.

YouTube has a central role to play in Deli's story, too. Until last June, few had heard of what was at the time little more than a student band. It was then that a 16-year old fan named Hako uploaded a clip of himself lip-synching his way through "OSYM."

"I worked day and night / to pass the exam / What's changed now / My future is unclear," Hako mouthed over a sound track reminiscent of the Sex Pistols. "So let me tell you something: / screw your exam system."

Posted days before 1.5 million Turkish teenagers took the university entrance exam, Hako became an overnight sensation. Within a week, nearly 300,000 people had gone on line to watch him. The song perfectly captured the brewing mood of student rebellion.

"I had the tune in my head throughout the test," one teenager commented on YouTube. Others said that Deli should represent Turkey at this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

The three-hour long test has faced criticism for years, in part because it is intensely competitive (Barely 20 percent of those taking the exam earn a university spot). In a country plagued by high youth unemployment, the future of those who do poorly on the test is grim. "The whole life of families revolves around the OSS for years before exam day," says sociologist Nilufer Narli. "It's a 'to be or not to be' question."

It's also a question of money. In the run up to the exam, high schools empty as final-year students flock to private tutors. Even small towns have several of these so-called "dershane," who try to attract customers with huge banners listing the names of successful students who passed through their classrooms the year before.

"Kids going to state schools in the poorer parts of the country are at a disadvantage as it is," says Zafer Akmar, editor of Leman, a satirical magazine. "The [tutors] just make things worse."

He and his colleagues at Leman have been off-beat critics of Turkey's educational system since long before Deli or Hako came onto the scene. After years spent handing out bikes to students with the lowest grades in high-school, they turned their attention in 2005 to the university entrance exam. "We were offering a scooter to the student who got the worst marks, but nobody called in to claim it," Akmar says. "I think they were too ashamed."

Though a flop, the scooter campaign did provide the spark last summer for another highly publicized protest against the exam: one university student's decision to retake it and try to get every question wrong. "It was the most difficult exam I'd ever taken," said Sefa Boyar, who spent three months preparing for his record-breaking attempt. He got one question right, but plans to take the exam again this year, with a group of friends this time.

Boyar thinks this wave of protest shows students are finally making their voices heard. The parliamentary opposition party is now promising to scrap the test if it comes to power in elections later this year.

The men of Deli doubt much will change. But they are sure of one thing: the song "OSYM" has made them famous. "We've already had half a dozen lawyers offering to represent us for free," says Mustafa Kirgul, the band's manager. "That is just as well, because we don't have any money."

That might just change when Deli's first album – minus "OSYM" – is released on April 14 by Kadikoy Muzik Yapim, an Istanbul-based alternative label. "It may not be EMI," Kirgul says, "but you can't get better publicity than this, can you?"

Editor's Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

Posted April 13, 2007 © Eurasianet