ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Koma Serxwebun, a music group from the Kurdish provinces of northern Syria known as Rojava, released its latest album on Monday titled Kurd Siwaren Rojhilate – Kurds: the knights of the east.
The eight-track album is the five-piece band’s third in four years, exploring revolutionary and folk themes.
“The singers have converted... Kurdish revolutions and tales into songs,” according to the album booklet.
Koma Serxwebun, which performs in traditional Kurdish clothing, debuted in Erbil in 2015 and released its first album in 2016 called Penaberin (They are refugees). Its second album came in 2017 called Heviyen Azadiye (Hopes for Freedom).
“We make music and sing in our ancestral land, Kurdistan,” front man Selah Bayram said in the album booklet.
“We would like to hold concerts for our new album in Erbil, Duhok, and Sulaimani,” he told Rudaw English in a phone call.
Koma Serxwebun describes music and art as playing “an important role in preserving the Kurdish identity as well as language in Rojava.”
The band accuse the Syrian regime of banning the Kurdish language and denying Syrian Kurds their identity.
“All the consecutive governments had rejected Kurdish government in Rojava after greater Kurdistan was partitioned into four during the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Kurdish language was also prohibited,” the group says.
“Despite the difficulties, Kurdish singers and musicians were considered important in terms of preserving Kurdish traditions,” the group added.
Syrian security forces exercised a systematic crackdown on “nationalistic” Kurdish activities and the “treachery” of Kurdish cultural expression prior to and during the Syrian civil war, according to the Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Centre.
According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report, Syrian security forces repressed at least 14 political and cultural public gatherings between 2005 and 2009.
Syrian Kurds gained de-facto autonomy for the first time in 2012 when the regime withdrew most of its forces from Rojava to fight insurrections elsewhere in the country.
Kurdish-led forces have since focused on combating jihadist attacks on their territory, becoming a close ally of the US-led coalition in its campaign against the Islamic State group (ISIS).
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria currently control about one-third of Syria. Beyond Rojava, the area includes the Arab-majority city of Raqqa – the one-time capital of the so-called ISIS caliphate – and huge swathes of the eastern Deir ez-Zor province, where ISIS made its last stand in March.
The Syrian regime has rejected the possibility of discussing autonomy for the country’s Kurdish-administered areas, believing it would lead to patrician and the loss of oil fields and fertile farmland.
Damascus expects the Kurds and their allies to surrender their hard-won gains and resubmit to its direct rule.
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