Young Civilians bring Kurds and Turks together

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The student movement Genc Siviller (Young Civilians) works for an open society with different language and cultures. Vedat Yildirim of the multicultural music groups Bajar and Kardes Turkuler thinks that the ideology of Genc Siviller is very important for him. He helped the NGO with training a Kurdish-Turkish choir singing songs in Kurdish.

Today’s Zaman says that Young Civilians aim to improve democracy in Turkey and recently travelled to Yassıada, a small island in the Marmara Sea, to protest against the military coup of 1960.

GS-member Pinar Akpinar explained that her organization organized humorous campaigns for a civil constitution, against military coups, the headscarf ban and ridiculed nationalistic fears. Not only Kurds are members of the organization, but also atheists, Christians, Muslims, ladies with headscarves and without. The group tries to include everybody who lives in Turkey.

Last year Genc Siviller for example organized courses to ‘Kurdify’ Turks with information about Kurdish language, traditions, music and culture. The Kurdish artist Rojin also participated in the program.

On Valentine’s day the GS organized their first Kurdish-Turkish concert in Istanbul to learn Turks how to say ‘I love you in Kurdish’ (Ez ji te hez dikim)’. The concert was organised under the idea that Kurds and Turks should live peacefully together. “If Kurds and Turks cannot live together in this world, then, go down with the world. Long live the love of peoples,” was the slogan of the concert.

More information:

Website Genc Siviller
Today’s Zaman: Turkey moving from oligarchy to absolute monarchy, says Oğur
New York Times – Turkish Group Wields Wit as Tool for Political Change