On the Kurdish Singer Hama Jaza // Notes From Below

RESEARCH NOTES ON THE KURDISH SINGER HAMA JAZA

Ed Emery [SOAS, London]

Kurdish spelling: حەمە جەزا Heme Ceza

For reasons that I shall explain later, I have decided to prepare a study of the songs of Hama Jaza.

What follows is a set of notes from my papers, which I am in the process of ordering into a properly edited article. Together with an Appendix containing lyrics and translations. Please bear in mind that I have only a limited knowledge of Kurdish (Sorani).

Some of Hama Jaza’s songs deal with questions of imprisonment, torture and execution. Today there are particularly pressing reasons to talk about the oppression and imprisonment of Kurds. There is a mass hunger strike of Kurdish prisoners taking place at this present time (Spring of 2019), and there are movements of solidarity and support in the UK and worldwide.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY:

Mohammad Jaza (1949-2010), better known as Hama Jaza, was a much respected singer and songwriter from Suleimaniyah in northern Iraq (Kurdish Regional Government). In the Çayhane Sha’ab [People’s Teahouse] in Suleimaniyah, which is the gathering place for intellectuals, writers, politicians, poets and actors, his portrait is one of the largest and occupies pride of place.

Other photographs show him in the mountains, with an assault rifle at his side. In 1969 Jaza joined Kurdish liberation movement, and he spent many years in the mountains of Kurdistan as a peshmerga, the name given to the guerrilla fighters who fought Saddam Hussein and laid the basis for the present Kurdish regional government of northern Iraq. He became famous in the 1970s for his patriotic songs that supported the Kurdish resistance. He continued his activity as both fighter and artist before then fleeing with his family to Denmark, as refugees. There he continued singing. He performed in several European countries, Canada, and the USA.

In 1991, after the Kurdish Uprising against Saddam Hussein, Hama Jaza returned from Denmark to live in Suleimaniyah. Twenty years later, in 2010, he died (of cancer), at the age of 61. His funeral was a huge affair, with thousands lining the streets of his native city.

His songs, dating back to the 1980s, are patriotic songs for the liberation of Kurdistan. Including one song “Ho kaki peshmerga” which is an anthem for the Kurdish fighting forces, and another, “Matarezi Sharaf “, a political song or anthem recorded with the Shahid Karzan Band in 1980-3.

He is also a major exponent of the Kurdish art of song known as “Maqam”, which only a few singers are capable of performing successfully. He was particularly well-known for his traditional songs called ‘Lawanawa’

One of his daughters, Khandan Hama Jaza, went into exile in Germany in 2010 after having written “An Ocean of Crimes” (2007), an investigation into the lives of scores of women who were abused in the sex industry with the involvement of Kurdish officials in the police and security forces.

In developing this study of Hama Jaza’s songs, I begin by presenting four video clips which shed light on various aspects of his work.

SONG No 1. HAMA JAZA – ZHURI SEDARA – “The Hanging Room”

Lyrics: Hama Jaza

Music: Goran Ibrahim and Dana Salih

[A] DESCRIPTION OF THE FIRST VIDEO OF “ZHURI SEDARA”

A video clip posted by sozm aram, whose logo is an armed woman fighter. Published on 10 Sep 2011

Video clip of “Zhuri sedara” on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gjWQtxbZjNo

The video begins with a scene of blindfolded prisoners, overseen by armed guards. This leads into a powerful lyrical interlude on violin, later accompanied by accordeon. Scenes of prison cells, with prisoners’ graffiti on the walls, and then an artist’s representations of a prisoner being tortured – hung from a wooden roof-beam, naked, blindfolded and screaming. Other depictions follow – of handcuffed prisoners in cells, and of the full moon viewed through prison bars.

When the singing begins, it is the voice of Hama Jaza. We see him in a prison cell, at first seated, and then pacing to and fro barefoot as he sings. The cell is partly lit in red, reminiscent perhaps of the Red Prison (Amna Suraka), which was Saddam Hussein’s murderous security headquarters in Suleimaniyah until it was taken and destroyed by Kurdish armed forces in the Kurdish Uprising of 1991. In that prison thousands of Kurds were imprisoned, tortured and executed.

[B] DESCRIPTION OF THE SECOND VIDEO OF “ZHURI SEDARA”

Another video clip of “Zhuri sedara” on YouTube: https://youtu.be/L0oVRGCM0Pw

Published by Hallow H. Salih on 13 Jul 2013

Originally broadcast by MEDTV in 1997

The 7-minute video begins with a picture of two hangman’s nooses, next to a portrait photo of Hama Jaza., and then moves to a photo and video montage of Suleimaniyah in 1996-7. Against this backdrop, Hama Jaza appears, and sings.

Behind him another image appears – the Red Prison – the Amna Suraka

And the lighted flames of candles of remembrance.

At the two-thirds point the verse lyrics give way to an improvised lyric in the manner of a lament. In this recording the principal interest is the violin, playing lyrical accompaniment, and what appears to be digital percussion and choral voice accompaniment.

Lyrics of “Zhuri sedara” – “The Hanging Room” [Translation]
Away from my brothers and my family,
Unknowingly, age takes me with it.
But clearly it is towards the hangman’s noose.
My blood would colour the flag red.

Towards the room, towards the hanging room.
I am tired and my place is steamy.
My face shows the signs of weariness,
Along with the wound marks inflicted by torture.

Even though I am coming close to my final resting place,
I can see the first home of not dying.
I am glad because my death won’t be in a bed.
I am happy that I shall be on my feet until my last breath.

I would not exchange such a death for 100 lives,
A life in which my head becomes the shield for the enemy.
I am proud to see my shoes
Above the heads of enemies.

Don’t don’t say that he is dying and turned pale with fear.
If I am a Peshmerga* my death is inevitable.
I am happy to die before you.
There is still a smile on my face

Here, if I could not continue fighting,
There, [in heaven] my rifle would be in the hands of a cloud.
Here, if I may be left behind from the caravan,
But there I will lead the caravan.

Peshmerga means one who faces death.

SONG No 2. HAMA JAZA – “SHEHID”

Video of “Shehid” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/oINgOZm3JJA

In 2012, two years after the singer’s death, the composer Adil Mohammad made a musical homage to Hama Jaza.

This was a fully staged and elegantly filmed musical orchestration combined with rural on-location footage of musicians playing both traditional Kurdish and western instruments. The title of the piece was “Shehid” (martyr or witness).

DESCRIPTION:

The film footage contains scenes of the initiation of a Peshmerga (Kurdish) fighter, and a subsequent gun battle in the mountains, with fighters being killed. The musical passages are interspersed with summertime images of two musicians walking in meadowlands in the mountains. They carry santur (hammer dulcimer) and joza (vertical bowed traditional violin).

During the film we see young men in the streets of a town at night. They are spray-painting slogans on houses, and clandestinely dropping leaflets into the courtyards of houses. In a later sequence, a platoon of military police arrive at a typical Kurdish teahouse where men are playing dominoes. They are searching for someone. They find a young intellectual reading at a table. They arrest him and take him away. The same young man that we then see sitting on a stone grave in a field, dressed in white and playing a joza.

Hama Jaza is a constant presence in the film, appearing occasionally in historical footage in which he is singing. But the singing for the orchestral performance is done by someone else, a young man dressed in the traditional dress of the Hawraman region that borders onto Iran to the east of Suleimaniyah.

The film ends with a sequence in which men, possibly the members of the orchestra, place roses on a grave (red, white, green and yellow, the colours of the Kurdish national flag).

The ensemble is a remarkable gathering of instrumental skills: Violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, timpani, joza, santur, tar, daf.

The video was posted on YouTube on 23 Sep 2012 with a note explaining that “This video belongs to kurdan, but the editing have been done by zirak93”.

[Note: The original video appears to have been made for Kurdan TV, a local independent Kurdish TV channel operating out of Copenhagen in Denmark. Founded in 2003, KurdanTV aims to work to create a balance between Kurdish culture and Northern European culture. On their YouTube channel they post high quality clips of both old and new Kurdish music videos.]

SONG No 3 – Hama Jaza – “Maro Maro”

Published by the Kurdish Songbook Project @ SOAS
on 26 March 2016

YouTube: https://youtu.be/s2Z0ksvJYlc

A peshmerga song from Iraqi Kurdistan. I recorded this was it was performed by a singer from the Kurdish community in the tea tent of the “jungle” refugee camp in Dunkerque, Northern France. Part of a two-hour recording session held on 2 January 2016. A Kurdish musician from the camp accompanies on violin.

This song has been archived as part of the Kurdish Songbook Project @ SOAS.

Translation:

“MARO MARO” – “Don’t go, don’t go”

Lyrics and music: Hama Jaza

The son says to the father:

“Don’t go away, dad, don’t leave! For how much longer do you have to take on all the problems of our people all on your own? For how much longer do you have to deprive us of a father’s love?”

The father replies to the son:

“I am going. I am leaving. Don’t by angry with me, my little ones. Be sure, my children, I am not coming back until we get the freedom of my Kurdistan. Until we change the map of this country back to what it was [i.e. united].”

The son says to the father:

“Don’t go away, dad, don’t leave… We shall come with you on the same path. We shall carry your water bottles and bread bags. We have no life in this city any more, because of having to move from house to house. Our life is full of fleeing, torment and bitter poison.

“Don’t go away dad, don’t leave…Why are you leaving us? For how much longer shall we be forced to live like this, like a people lost and disoriented? For how much longer do you have to take on all the problems of our people all on your own? For how much longer do you have to deprive us of a father’s love?”

Translation: Arazu and Baxi [Rojava refugee camp, Arbat, Kurdistan Region, Iraq, 30 March 2016]

ANOTHER VERSION – Published by the Kurdish Songbook Project @ SOAS –

I recorded this in the mountains of Kurdistan in March 2016:

https://youtu.be/OTWd2_yM82w

APPENDIX – SONG LYRICS

SONG No. 1 – ZHURI SEDARE

Zhûrî Sêdare – The Hanging Room

as sung by Hama Jaza

[NOTE: A note on the question of Kurdish media: The video of this very moving song was posted in two separate YouTube clips, one of which, dated 1997, is from MedTV, the world’s first Kurdish satellite TV channel. In Turkey it was forbidden to watch Med TV, and people were arrested for having been caught watching its programmes. Turkey saw MED TV as a part of the PKK. In 1999 the British government’s ITC revoked MedTV’s broadcasting licence, at the request of Turkey. This came just after the arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The closure of MedTV was part of the continuing suppression of Kurdish culture in the world. MedTV’s successor RojTV, operating from Denmark, was also shut down, in 2013. This move was apparently the result of an agreement with Turkey, in exchange for Turkish approval of Denmark’s former PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO Secretary General.]

Video clip of “Zhuri sedara” on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gjWQtxbZjNo

Another video clip of “Zhuri sedara”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0oVRGCM0Pw

Translation:

Away from my brothers and my family,
Unknowingly, age takes me with it.
But clearly it is towards the hangman’s noose.
My blood would colour the flag red.

Towards the room, towards the hanging room.
I am tired and my place is steamy.
My face shows the signs of weariness,
Along with the wound marks inflicted by torture.

I would not exchange such a death for 100 lives,
A life in which my head becomes the shield for the enemy.
I am proud to see my shoes
Above the heads of enemies.

Don’t don’t say that he is dying and turned pale with fear.
If I am a Peshmerga* my death is inevitable.
I am happy to die before you.
There is still a smile on my face

Here, if I could not continue fighting,
There, [in heaven] my rifle would be in the hands of a cloud.
Here, if I may be left behind from the caravan,
But there I will lead the caravan.

Peshmerga means one who faces death.

Translation: Hiwa Qochalli and Ed Emery

Original Kurdish (Sorani) text:

Bira dûr û xizim dûr û kesim dûr
Bena belled temen emba berew jûr
Bellam rûne berew sêdare çûne
Xeney xiwênim lepê egrê allay sûr

Berew jûrî berew jûrî sêdare
Mandûy kirdûm û şiwênekem şêdare
Kenîşaney peşêwî pêwe şêwem
Ewa bînî eşkenceye û cê dare

Gerçî ta diwa mallî jîn berêwem
Yekem mallî nemirdinim diyare lêwim
Dillxoşim çunke mirdinî naw cê nîye
Şadim ke ta diwahenaseş be pêwem

Mergî awa nagorrmewe besed jîn
Jînêk serim bo dujmin bê be perjîn
Serberzîye ke pêllawm ebînin
Beser serî dujimnewe leberzîn

Nellên emrê û bo mirdin peşêwe
Pêşmerge bim her ekewme pêş êwe
Bemergî pêş mergî êwe asûdem
Rûşim bizey pêkenînî herpêwe

Eger lêre nemtiwanî bêt bicengim
Lewê bedest hawrêyekeweye tifengim
Eger lêre becê mabim le kariwan
Lewê lepêş kariwanewe pêşengim

Lyrics: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/hama-jaza-j%C3%BBr%C3%AE-s%C3%AAdare-lyrics.html

SONG No. 4: Hey Brother Peshmerga
YouTube:
https://youtu.be/WEJvHVT4dUk

Posted to YouTube on 16 August 2014. Original broadcast on Kurdsat, and presumably produced for them.
[WIKI NOTE: Kurdsat Broadcasting Corporation (Kurdish: کوردسات‎ Kurdsat) is the second Kurdish language satellite television station in Iraqi Kurdistan, broadcasting since 2000. It belongs to the local ruling party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and is based in Sulaymaniyah.]

A patriotic film, of Kurdish peshmerga armed forces. Filmed with full orchestra of strings etc, interspersed with images of tanks, trenches, and soldiers fighting at the war front. Sandbags, rocket launchers, mortars, and an ‘ud player. An extraordinary shot [at 2.44] in which the loading of a howitzer shell morphs into the vigorous bowing of a violin.

Hama Jaza sings in peshmerga dress..

This song is also available in another recording, made in 2011, with full production values. Orchestra has strings, santur, ‘ud and male-female chorus.

See YouTube: https://youtu.be/1jqLDRq4iKo

Lyrics – HO KAKI PESHMERGA – “Hey, brother peshmerga” – Translation

Hey brother Peshmerga, oh you brave revolutionary
Yours is the sacred name that’s on everyone’s lips.

You exist inside the souls and selves of the oppressed
You’re always a friend of weapon, belief and hills

Hey brother Peshmerga, oh you brave revolutionary
Yours is the sacred name that’s on everyone’s lips.

Your hanger and struggle have become your occupation for years
You should tolerate and strive against this bitter life

Hey brother Peshmerga, oh you brave revolutionary
Yours is the sacred name that’s on everyone’s lips.

Your weapon and belief denote your firmness
Your continual on struggle is a sign of victory

Hey brother Peshmerga, oh you brave revolutionary
Yours is the sacred name that’s on everyone’s lips.

Your life, palace and mansions are beneath the rocks and in the mountains
You’ll never ever possess any of a so-called property in this world

Hey brother Peshmerga, oh you brave revolutionary
Yours is the sacred name that’s on everyone’s lips.

Lyrics – Original:
Ho Kaki Peshmarga | هۆ کاکی پێشمەرگە

هۆ کاکی پێشمەرگە شۆڕشگێڕی قارەمان
ناوی پیرۆزی تۆیە بۆتە وێردی سەر زوبان

لە گەڵ گیان و دەروونی چەوساوەکانا دەژی
هەمیشە هاورێی چەک و بڕوا و سەنگەر و کەژی

هۆ کاکی پێشمەرگە شۆڕشگێڕی قارەمان
ناوی پیرۆزی تۆیە بۆتە وێردی سەر زوبان

برسیەتی و رەنج کێشانت بوەتە پیشەی چەند ساڵە
ئەبێ هەڵکەی خەبات کەی دژی ئەم ژینە تاڵە

هۆ کاکی پێشمەرگە شۆڕشگێڕی قارەمان
ناوی پیرۆزی تۆیە بۆتە وێردی سەر زوبان

بیر و بڕوا تفەنگت مایەی خۆ راگرتنە
بەردەوامیت لە خەبات نیشانەی سەرکەوتنە

هۆ کاکی پێشمەرگە شۆڕشگێڕی قارەمان
ناوی پیرۆزی تۆیە بۆتە وێردی سەر زوبان

ژینی کۆشک وتەلارت بن بەرد و ناو چیایە
هەرچی ناوی سامانە شک نابەی لەم دونیەی

هۆ کاکی پێشمەرگە شۆڕشگێڕی قارەمان
ناوی پیرۆزی تۆیە بۆتە وێردی سەر زوبان

Lyrics – Transliteration: