Tag Archives | Aynur Dogan

Aynur Inspires You to Join the Resistance

Aynur Doğan is a controversial Kurdish singer from Turkey whose “offense,” in the eyes of some Turks, is that she is Turkish but sings songs in the Kurdish language. Born in 1975 in Cemisgezek, a small town in the southeastern mountains of Turkey, Aynur and her family moved to Istanbul to avoid the struggles in their town between the Turkish Army and the Kurdish resistance. The Turkish government’s loosening restrictions on public use of the Kurdish language in 2004 gave Aynur the opportunity to not only perform but to rise to stardom. She has since been an outspoken advocate for the Kurdish people and their right to make art their own language. In this video Aynur Doğan performs “Keçe Kurdan” (“Kurdish Girl”),” from her album of the same name, which a court in southeastern Turkey banned briefly in 2005, fearing that its lyrics would incite Turkish women to abandon their partners and go to the mountains to join the Kurdish resistance.