Despite the repressions and violence of the Turkish state amid the ongoing state of emergency, Kurdish children are singing anthems and songs on the streets and defy the state's prohibitive mentality.
The anthems and songs of Kurdish children are resounding sweetly at the Cumuhuriyet Avenue, one of Van's busiest street.
The AKP government has banned all kinds of cultural and artistic activities throughout whole Northern Kurdistan during the ongoing state of emergency and has already shut down dozens of cultural organisations by force. In particular all the works of the Van Metropolitan Municipality concerning culture and art have been stopped straightaway by the trustee. The NÛDA Culture and Art Centre, which was one of the biggest centres of its kind in the entire region and provided classes in culture and art to hundreds of attendees, has been closed by the trustee.
At the Cumuhuriyet Avenue, the busiest street of the city Van, three children are still singing songs that have been banned by the Turkish state. Even though singing those songs has been prohibited due to the imposed state of emergency, these three Kurdish kids however, who might be small in age but are no doubt big in their hearts, do not care about that ban.
The anthems sung by these children fill hundreds of people, who have gathered around them listening, with morale and courage, also attracting more people from around. Some of them expressed their worries about those songs the children sang and admonished the kids with words like: 'Because of these songs we will get problems. Look the police has already arrived'. But the little children replied: "Shall we not be able to sing songs in our own homeland? Let them come, nobody fears them."
