"At Least Some Diyarbakır Soil for Aram Tigran"

Armenian musician Aram Tigran's wish to be buried in Diyarbakır, in the southeast of Turkey, has not been granted by the Ministry of the Interior.

Funeral planned in Brussels

His family has thus decided to bury him in the Armenian graveyard in Brussels. The funeral is planned to take place on 17 August.

Inhabitants of Diyarbakır have staged a symbolic funeral instead. On 12 August, the ceremony at the Armenian graveyard in Diyarbakır was attended by Metropolitan Diyarbakır mayor Osman Baydemir.

Baydemir said that they would take soil from the graveyard in Diyarbakır to Brussels to honour the musician's wish. A delegation from Diyarbakır will arrive in Brussels tomorrow (14 August).

The mayor said, "They did not allow him to come back to his soil, but with your permission, in your name, we will take from this graveyard the soil which he longed for and wanted to be buried in, and, even if it is only symbolic, take it to his grave. Thus we will try to live with the peace of mind that we at least fulfilled his wish partially."

Baydemir expressed his sadness at not being able to bury Tigran in the city: "It is not our shame, but the shame of those who made that decision."

"The people's nightingale"

At the ceremony, people held placards prepared by the Democratic Society Movement and the Mesopotamia Democratic Cultural Movement. The poster read in Kurdish and Armenian, "The people's nightingale has been left without a home."

Fırat Anlı, province chair of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) said, "If Tigran had been buried in this soil today, it would have made this place richer. Because we pulled out their roots in this soil and threw them away. Perhaps it could have been a kind of apology to Armenians and Assyrians and to all the people of the Mesopotamia area whose value we did not appreciate, and whose lives and cultures we targeted. With the person of Aram Tigran we would have had the opportunity to face the past in order to build a new future."

DTP MP Aysel Tuğluk said, "Tigran was an artist who protested, saying that all identities, all languages and all beliefs should be free. That is why this region, this society, the Kurdish people will not forget Aram Tigran."

Tigran, who sang many songs in Kurdish, died in Greece, where he had been living since 1995, on 6 August.

Last year he had expressed the wish to be buried in Diyarbakır, and his family applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after his death.

According to Hilal Köylü from the Radikal newspaper, because there is no standard procedure for non-Turkish citizens to be buried in the country, the question was taken to the Ministry of the Interior, which gave a negative reply.

However, there has been no official statement made.

"Diyarbakır, I have missed you"

During a previous stay in Diyarbakır, Tigran gave an interview to Aknews, saying that he loved Diyarbakır very much. He said, "It was the dream of the century to come to Diyarbakır. I always used to say, 'God, will I ever see the place where my parents lived before I die?' Two years ago, after becoming a Greek citizen, I first came to Diyarbakır. I was very touched and wrote a song. One verse of it goes like this (in Kurdish):

'Di xewnên şevan de min bawer nedikir (If I had dreamed it, I would not have believed it) / Bi çavan bibînim bajarê Diyarbekir (Being able to see Diyarbakır) / Rojbaş Diyarbekir me pir bêriya te kir (Good morning Diyarbakır, I have missed you very much) / Te derî li me vekir (You opened your gates to me) / Te me şa kir (You made us very happy)."

Tigran also visited the villages of Bêemde (Kexriban in Armenian) and Kaskê, where his parents had been born. He said about these visits, "When I looked at the mountains, trees, streams and houses, my inside was shaking. I cried. I was extremely pained. I remembered what my father, my mother, what they experienced. I was saddened and bemoaned the fact that we had not grown up on this soil."

Who was Aram Tigran?

Born in Syria in 1934, Tigran sang in Arabic, Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish. His father had been saved in what the Armenians call the "Great Disaster" of 1915.

Tigran's interest in music and the oud began at the age of nine.

In 1966 he moved to Yerevan, Armenia's capital, and worked for Erivan Radio for 18 years. After 1995, he moved to Athens.

This year, he took part in Diyarbakır's 9th Culture and Arts Festival, but because of ill health he only performed three Kurdish songs.

During Newroz celebrations in Batman last year, Tigran sang songs in Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian and Arabic. He also sang the "Sarı Gelin" song in memory of assassinated journalist and human rights activist Hrant Dink. (TK/AG)