Fréderike Geerdink
Even though I don’t like football – and I’m expressing myself mildly here – I did once go to an Amedspor match. They played against Galatasaray in the Turkish cup. It was amazing to feel what the club stands for. They keep reflecting not only the hopes, but also the resistance of the Kurdish people.
The match I went to was against Galatasaray in December 2014. I found the goals back – one for the home team, four for the guests. No surprise of course that a top club from Istanbul beat a team that was playing in a lower division. At least, it was a comfort that it was Galatasaray that gave Amedspor a beating, I remember, because from the three Istanbul clubs, Galatasaray is the most loved among Kurds. It has to do with the club colours red and yellow, playing on a green field. Get it? Those are the Kurdish colours red, yellow and green.
Identity
You may find that simplistic, but it’s not. Everything that refers to Kurdish identity was, and is, criminalised. Depending on the political mood of the day, you can still be beaten, detained and locked up for singing Kurdish songs, dancing the govend or for wearing a shawl with those three colours. Or for defending the right to elect and be represented by the mayor of your choice, for that matter. So it’s fun to see the colours that are connected to your culture play out on football fields.
Now, Amedspor released a new video about the club, “Halkın Takımı”, or “Peoples’ Team”. It seems part of a campaign to give the club more international profile, with the English voice-over – are they counting on European football? The footage is wonderful and energising. And you hear that text, saying about the club: “You are the hope and resistance of a people”? It’s not an exaggeration.
Amedspor has for many years been the target of anti-Kurdish hate, both on the football field and outside it. Often when the team plays an away match, their player’s bus is attacked with stones, and more often than not supporters of the away team show up at the hotel where the Kurdish team is staying to spit their hate speech – and worse – around.
Death squads
And you can’t believe what sometimes happens during matches. One of the most horrifying attacks happened in Bursa last year. During the match, literally hundreds of objects were thrown at the players. Bursaspor fans also held up photos of specific cars that were used by the Turkish army’s illegal death squads in Kurdistan in the 1990s, and portraits of the secret agents who carried out the assassinations at the time. The match wasn’t even stopped.
And how do the Amedspor fans react? With violence and intimidation? Never. And this is where it becomes interesting. Because in the resistance of the fans, you really get to know the club, and with that, the people. They know that standing up for their sports club is part of the larger political resistance. And that resistance is experienced, smart, resourceful, dedicated, and it doesn’t stop until freedom is reached.
Banners
This month, three elected Kurdish mayors were sacked and replaced by a so-called ‘trustees’ of the state, in other words, by unelected AKP stooges. The resistance against that is fierce, and ongoing in Batman, Mardin and Halfeti, the cities affected, but in other cities in the Kurdish provinces as well. Protest meetings continue to be held, youth take out to the street, sit-ins are held, and more. And also, the Amedspor fans make their contribution. Which is not that easy, because if you carry for example banners with political slogans, the Turkish Football Federation will fine the club, so you have to be creative.
What happened, as this nice website wrote? In the match of this weekend, against Keçiörengücü, the supporters chanted “Xelfetî” (the Kurdish name of Halfeti) in the 63rd minute and in the 72nd minute, chanted “Everywhere is Batman, everywhere is resistance”. Why those exact moments? Those are the respective city’s vehicle registration codes, with Halfeti being part of Urfa, which has code 63. Mardin, number 47, was apparently forgotten, but that’s understandable, two minutes after half time. I’m afraid, it won’t take long before other moments in matches will have to be used for such protest as well. Keep your eyes on minutes Şırnak, 73, and Amed itself, 21.
T-shirt
It may be small, but it shows the club and the people. Their resistance is always everywhere. Football is politics, there’s no denying that. How dirty that can also get, we saw in the capital city of my country, the Netherlands, last week. The news went around the world: supporters of the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv chanted racist, misogynist and violent songs, and glorified the genocide that Israel is currently carrying out in Gaza. Part of those supporters had recently been on active duty in Gaza, so they were glorifying their own war crimes. It was shocking and disgusting.
And it confirms: show me your football club and I will show you who you are. A genocidal state will have teams with supporters that condone that genocide and even celebrate it. A fascist, anti-Kurdish state like Turkey, has several teams with supporters who strongly support the state’s suppression of Kurds, and help intimidate the Kurds. A nation that is resisting suppression in a long-lasting, well-organised resistance, like the Kurds, gets the supporters it deserves as well.
A friend from Amed recently sent me an official Amedspor T-shirt. I wear it with pride!
Fréderike Geerdink is an independent journalist. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her acclaimed weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan.
