Comment: Why We Will Always Love Tarkan
They Were Disappointed This Time
Aykut Tayfur writes...
Translated by Ali Yildirim
Copyright 2017, ODATV.COM
The 1990s: The years where now every house had a colour TV, a wide choice of channels, and new popstars emerged. And Tarkan was one of them. When he first came on the scene he was a name that all the girls totally adored. So much so, the girls would want their boyfriends to be like Tarkan. Time passed, Tarkan's fame went global. Today Tarkan is still young, he doesn't age. Moreover, I think his name will always be remembered... Because this country has always kept alive those people bound by love to it.
Tarkan, the man they call a "megastar", took time out from his hectic schedule to piece together this short video, and gave voice to all our longing, worded in the most shortest but surest way possible. On 10 November, he spoke to his national hero Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, to our Atatürk, on behalf of the longing in all of us...
Today when we remember our dear departed Turgut Özakman, it is as the author of the fantastic war novel titled "Those Crazy Turks".
Every generation of this country grew up with some form of calamity. The political troubles between right and left-wing groups that destroyed young people of the time, now gives way to the evils of terrorism. Economic crises are always in abundance. The public yearn for an opportunity to say to the country "we're united for you". The world goes chasing after a trophy and Turkey's footballers sweat blood as they run fiercely towards it. Tarkan appears. Coming with his long hair and shirt hanging out, as though he's just got off his sofa, leaving his cup of coffee at home. Holding his music notes, he gets in front of the microphone.
He gets stuck on the first part. When he says, "We'll find you wherever you may be, because we're stir crazy," he gets stuck on the "stir crazy" part for a while. Yes, we're stir crazy... The song's introduction had to be that. Just like Those Crazy Turks. He turns to the people in the studio and says they can take it from the "we're stir crazy" bit, and starts to sing. He feels he needs to shout it to the world. For all the troubles we've suffered, we're united for you; "In your good times and your bad, wherever you go, we go with you," he says, starting to walk. "Advance, my Turkey... My crescent and star..." Tarkan was a gust of wind blowing in the world now, but someone who knew how to be fuelled by his roots... [The music video to "Bir Oluruz Yolunda" (United for You)]
BIRDS TAKE FLIGHT BEFORE HIM
He takes the plucked notes of a bağlama's strings this time. He walks amongst the creeping thistle and wild-oat grass. On a dirt road, across an arid plain. Sweating under the heat, tired from walking, he sits down on the thirsty, cracked earth. He opens his arms out as if in defiance, for all the trees cut down from the land, for all Tatlısu's dead grey mullets poisoned in the lake, wanting to cry out in their name. He takes his cue from folk-poet Aşık Veysel saying: "I cannot tell what is my plight, I walk all day, I walk all night." Birds take flight before him... He wants to push back the poisonous waste, the smoke from the factory chimneys.
Tarkan couldn't abandon Veysel. This time he sits cross-legged under the familiar stark glare of the spotlights. Like Veysel, he grieves in front of the murdered earth, while behind him people are on the move, migrating to new lands. Beating his hand on his heart, he speaks Veysel's name, and cries "My faithful beloved is the black earth," swaying like a rendering of the ripened ears of wheat playing in the background.
[Music videos to a mash up* of "Uyan" (Wake Up) and "Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım" (On a Long Narrow Road), and "Kara Toprak" (Black Earth)]
A voluntary ambassador for historic site Hasankeyf, he didn't shy away from petitioning for Turkish nature conservation society Doğa Derneği and Atlas Magazine. "I love my country, I'm not comfortable with it's natural beauty being destroyed," he'd say.
In my first article for Odatv when I talked about the silent scream of the olive groves, Tarkan took to the stage again in a way that won my admiration. "A country's greatest asset is its natural habitat. The olive trees are the riches of Anatolia, its archive. Don't destroy the trees for monetary gain," he wrote. Despite this, in reply to those who would destroy the olive groves, he responded not with his own voice, but that of the olive tree: "I'm older than the modern age, older than the discovery of America by the white man, older than the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the United Nations. I am two thousand years old. I am an olive tree," he said, and it sufficed.
THIS IS WHY TARKAN IS VALUABLE
As I watch so-called writers who, just because two of their books were published abroad in English, post messages to their Turkish readers in English, or go running off to America and Europe to badmouth Turkey, and even some "people" who have left here saying, "I'm bisexual but didn't have the courage to come out in public," to the contary is our pop star who knew to nurture himself on Aşık Veysel, a blind man whose musical instrument, the bağlama, never left his hands, and who by his own description in reference to other poets is of the "race of Karacaoğlan, Dertli, Yunus / In some of my habits I'm like Mansur," "We're Turkish folk who sing folk songs". This is why Tarkan is a true star. In popular speak, a "megastar". This is why Tarkan is so valuable.
A long while back, he'd sung with such feeling with classical Turkish music's doyenne Müzeyyen Senar, "Benzemez Kimse Sana" (There Is None Like You). Years went by, but Tarkan hasn't held back from singing the songs of this soil he feels indebted to. He greeted his fans with the tribute album "Ahde Vefa" (A Promise Fulfilled).
I touched upon the longing he felt for his Ata on 10 November at the start of this article, and so I'd like to relay a past event between Atatürk and the Germans.
In 1917, Atatürk had resigned as commander of the Seventh** Army in disagreement over the way German Marshall Falkenhein was conducting Turkish troops. He had to return to the War Ministry in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) from the war front at Aleppo in Syria. In his own words, he was to realise later he "didn't have any travel fare" to make the trip. It was during this time he was short of money that he had a consignment of German gold. Atatürk gave his adjutant the gold and sent him with the order he was to "return it to Falkenhein and get the receipt back for them," with the message: "We haven't touched your money, but there is something worth more than this gold that I would have back - the signature of Mustafa Kemal". The adjutant was ordered "not to face him until he received a positive reply".
During the time Atatürk needed money for travel and the gold was sent back to the Germans, Atatürk sold his horses to get his travel money.
(Those interested in these events can read Falih Rıfkı Atay's book about the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire "Vahdettin, In Mustafa Kemal's Own Words" and can find the relevant parts about his interactions with German Commanders on page 20.)
THIS COUNTRY LOVES HIM
Yes, we have our problems. These problems are Turkey's problems. They are our problems. Those creating the problems are within our own ranks. Just as in the same way Atatürk rescued our prisoners of war from the English. Many of the rescued prisoners had been people who had strongly opposed Atatürk. I think those who would take advantage of our problems in an attempt to ridicule Turkey have now understood that the spirit of Atatürk lives on, and that this spirit is indelibly entwined with the earth of Anatolia. That light emanates from Aşık Veysel's unseeing eyes, and Tarkan's pop music too...
When the German media printed the news that Tarkan, uncomfortable with the current political climate, had fled Turkey, our artist replied by saying, "...I would never ever think of leaving my country". Those of us accustomed to people popping up on our screens and newspapers and then, after some time, going abroad to badmouth their own country have been left disappointed this time. It's obvious those printing such news have no idea about the Tarkan songs I mentioned above.
Obviously, you wouldn't expect any less from someone who recorded an album like "Ahde Vefa". In one part of his press statement, dear Tarkan said, "...the attempt to distort real events for a negative agenda with no truth whatsoever has saddened me". Tell Tarkan not to be sad! This country loves him.
Notes: *The original text mistakenly mentions a fan video. Tarkan's official music video to his remixed rendition of Aşık Veysel's folk song is of concert footage. | ** Atatürk was assigned from the Second Army to the Seventh from which he resigned. In the original text it says Atatürk didn't accept commission of the Second. This isn't accurate. Atatürk refused commission of a special army that was to be formed after his victories. His refusal meant the army was never formed and he was promoted to the command of the Second Army.
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posted by Tarkan Deluxe at 12:43 pm
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