The Kurdish all-women group Koma Amara have published a new song called “Apo is the sun (Apo Roje)” as part of the international campaign for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan. The song was published on their official YouTube channel on 5 June 2024.
The international campaign “Freedom for Öcalan, A Political Solution for Kurdistan” began on 10 October 2023. The campaign aims to advocate for jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan’s right to meet with his lawyers and family, and ultimately to secure his release under conditions that would enable him to contribute to the pursuit of a just and democratic political solution to the long-standing Kurdish conflict in Turkey.
Kurdish leader Öcalan has been held in solitary confinement since 1999 and in incommunicado detention for the last 39 months of his 25-year detention to date. Recently, a new six-month ban on lawyer visits has been imposed on him and his fellow inmates, Ömer Hayri Konar, Veysi Aktaş and Hamili Yıldırım.
The all-women collective Koma Amara was founded in 2002 and has recorded songs in different Kurdish dialects, reinventing Kurdish revolutionary music from women’s perspective.
Their new song “Apo is the sun” (Apo Roje) is sung in the Kurdish Kurmanjî dialect, English and Arabic.
In an exclusive interview with Medya News, Koma Amara shared the reason why the song is sung in different languages and the meaning of the name of their new song. Please enjoy reading the interview below:
Medya News: You made a new song for the campaign for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan. The name of your new song is “Apo is the sun”. Why did you choose this name?
Koma Amara: In 1974, Rêbertî [Kurdish: Leader or chairman, a term referring to Abdullah Öcalan, used by people associated with the Kurdish freedom movement] said that “Kurdistan is a colony” and on the basis of this analysis, he founded the beginning group (A socialist student group) in Ankara and later the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and started the Kurdish Women’s Freedom struggle. He built up the existence of the Kurdish people against all the politics that were denying and trying to eradicate the Kurdish people.
The identity and history of the Kurds had been removed. He built up the existence and helped the free and honourable Kurdish people to find their own identity. Rêbertî always addressed all the people and he did revolutionary works for the unity of nations.
During his imprisonment in İmralı, he developed his philosophy of democratic socialism and the democratic modernity and deepened the concept of democracy. Rêbertî established the approach and the system of the democratic nation.
Just as the Kurdish people in the 1980s created the slogan “Long live leader Apo” (Bijî Serok Apo) and spread it among the people, at the same time our people have been saying for years that “Apo (Öcalan) is our sun”, and when Sema Yüce set herself on fire in prison, she said “there cannot be two suns in the sky” to protest against the assassination attempts against Rêbertî at the time.
When the international conspiracy (the process that led to the imprisonment of Öcalan) began in 1998, lots of people, among them Arabs, Kurds and Greeks, set themselves on fire to protest the arrest of Öcalan and used the slogan “You cannot darken our sun” for their protests.
Because of this, Rêbertî has been described as “the sun” by mothers, women, young people, children and nations (and all of the guerilla also describe him like that). Rêbertî is the sun of the whole humanity against the darkness of the capitalist modernity.
M. N.: The song is sung in three different languages. Why did you choose the sing the song in these languages?
K. A.: At the moment there are millions of people from all over the world who are invested in the life of Rêbertî, they want his isolation to come to an end and want him to be physically free. They are fighting for this goal.
Because of this, it was necessary to find a new way to express the crowd and the union of people that have gathered around him.
Within the campaign ‘Freedom for Öcalan, A Political Solution for the Kurdish question’, a wide environment of loyal friends developed, which is getting bigger day by day. We made this song in three languages to symbolize and show all of the friends and supporters of Rêbertî. Other than in Kurdish, it is in Arabic and English, as we wanted to express the attitude of people from different continents against the reinforced isolation.
And we wanted the meaning and importance of this campaign to reach the whole of humanity and all the people struggling for freedom. With this song, we want to extend the campaign for the physical freedom of Abdullah Öcalan and achieve victory.
The scenario of the video was written according to Rêbertî’s interpretation of the millennia-old history of women’s struggles. Rêbertî said that “the lost history of women has not been written and the history of women’s freedom is waiting to be written”. Rêbertî showed us our own history. In this way, we got to know the hidden history of women and we are fighting to be worthy of this history.
The freedom of Öcalan is the freedom of all women. The freedom of women is also the freedom of society, because of this we wanted to put the focus on the connection of the physical freedom of Rêbertî with the freedom of women.
M. N.: What does the sun symbolise in your song and what call did you want to make with your song?
K. A.: The meaning of the sun is that it illuminates the universe, it is the rebirth, the resurrection. Rêbertî carries the same meaning and importance for all people. At the moment, Rêbertî is being described as the leader of the universal democratic modernity.
The people themselves made this description, the philosophy and thoughts of Rêbertî include all women, nations and beliefs. His resistance on İmralı is a fight for all women, nations and beliefs, that is a truth. All women and nations see Rêbertî as hope, a source for solutions and their freedom, and are calling him the leader of the democratic modernity for the universe.
Intellectuals, artists, writers and academics led by women oppose the torture system of İmralı and fight for the destruction of the walls of İmralı. The duty of intellectuals and artists is to show the public the fight for truth.
All women, young and old people need to unite to destroy İmralı and for the success of the campaign, so we will live together with Rêbertî in freedom this year.
This year will be the year of the physical freedom of Rêbertî and of all women and nations!
