Turkish band faces trial over song
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, July 15, 2007
ISTANBUL, Turkey – As punk rock goes, a song bemoaning a high school exam hardly sounds like the stuff of anarchy. But in Turkey it can land you in court, as an Istanbul rock band has discovered.
All the song does is lash out against Turkey’s equivalent of the SAT, the exam that all Turkish high-schoolers must pass to have a shot at getting into college.
High-schoolers the world over may sympathize, but to Turkish prosecutors it’s an insult to the state and its employees.
The troubles besetting the five-man group called “Deli,” or “Crazy,” as they head to trial are typical of the extremes endured by a country historically torn between cultures: Islam and secularism, democracy and military dictatorship.
The song is several years old, and came to prosecutors’ notice only after a teenager lip-synched the song and posted it on YouTube.com last year for the whole world to see.
Now the musicians, along with their manager and a former band member, will go on trial Thursday in the Turkish capital, Ankara. If convicted, they face up to 18 months in jail, although they could get off with a fine or a warning.
Turkey retains strict limits on expression. Several intellectuals have been prosecuted on charges of “insulting Turkishness.”
The punk song is called “OSYM,” the Turkish acronym for The Student Selection and Placement Center. That’s the state institution that decides that students go to university, based on a three-hour multiple-choice exam held every June.
In a nation of 70 million with 10 percent unemployment, passing the test is critical to every young Turk’s future prospects. Even so, in 2006 there were university spots for fewer than one-third of the 1.5 million students who took the test.
“Life should not be a prison because of an exam,” go the lyrics of “OSYM.” “I have gotten lost/ You have ruined my future/ I am going to tell you one thing/ Shove that exam … “
Gathered in a cramped Istanbul recording studio, the Deli musicians don’t look like stereotypical punks – no spiked hair, lip studs or drugs. They’re in their early 20s, polite, mild-mannered and irreverent. Vocalist Cengiz Sari is studying to become an art teacher. Bass guitarist Enis Coban studied textile manufacturing.
And all passed the university exam.
