In June 2010, Istanbul witnessed one such mega-concert organised by Grup Yorum with thousands of young Turks as the audience. One of the attractions of the event was a young Kurdish girl who inspired that large mass to sing along with her the lines of “Bella Ciao”. After ten years of the event, the whole world witnessed the brave fight of that girl, Helin Bolek, against one of the most ruthless authoritarian governments in the world.
“Ciao Bella Ciao Bella Ciao Ciao Ciao…”, the beautiful folk song with its origin in the paddy fields of Italy has become the anthem of resistance, freedom and anti-fascist movements all over the world. In Turkey, it was Grup Yorum which played a major role in making the revolutionary song a hot favourite among the youth through their concert shows and albums.
In June 2010, Istanbul witnessed one such mega-concert organised by Grup Yorum with thousands of young Turks as the audience. One of the attractions of the event was a young Kurdish girl who inspired that large mass to sing along with her the lines of “Bella Ciao”. After ten years of the event, the whole world witnessed the brave fight of that girl, Helin Bolek, against one of the most ruthless authoritarian governments in the world. On 3 April 2020, she succumbed to death after 288 days of hunger strike, which she started with Ibrahim Gökçek, another member of the band against the ban on her group and for the release of its detained members.
Grup Yorum is an independent folk collective, a band of singers known for their protest songs, formed in 1985 by four students of Marmara University. The group has been accused of having links to the banned leftist militant group, Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party (DHKP). This resulted in the ban and arrest of many members of the group by the Erdogan government. In protest to the government’s actions, several members of the group including Bolek started a hunger strike in June 2019. Despite the government’s efforts to force-feed them and the frequent arrests, they did not give up the hunger strike, which eventually led to the martyrdom of Bolek.
The conceptually secular-democratic nation of Turkey and its political transformation into a religion based authoritarian State inspired by the cult of Erdogan’s personality is more than a reference for India’s declension to an illiberal democracy. The issues on the protection of minorities (especially that of the Kurds, the largest ethnic minority of Turkey), human rights and freedom of the press are some of the many accusations against the government under President Erdogan.
The post-truth world is witnessing the potential of the elected governments to exercise fascist ideas by favouring the majority and this is by and large becoming a phenomenon that reconstructs the very definition of fascism today. This further shows the growing immunity of authoritarianism and dictatorship in the so-called socialist, secular and democratic environments.
As Helin Bolek urges us, “. . . I invite you all to multiply the voices,” the time demands nothing better but to resonate the spirit of freedom and resistance that she inspired us through her brave struggle against fascism.
