Image by SyriaUntoldThis article is the outcome of a collaboration between SyriaUntold and openDemocracy’s NAWA
On January 19, 2013, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) announced the death of Lawand Qamishlo, one of its field officers during the Serê Kaniyê-Ras Al-Ain battle against the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamist factions. In less than a week, the Botan group, which is one of tens of music bands belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK, i.e, the party behind the YPG), released a song titled (The Martyr Lawand).
It isn’t strange that the group responded so quickly to the incident, so its members are “fighters” of a different kind in the party ranks. They sing to the public about PKK literature, and praise “resistance” in prisons and their fights. Therefore, a song -- from the perspective of the party -- is a tool to aid the revolution and to rally the masses. Music has shaped the social engineering of the entire Kurdish community, be it in Turkey and Syria to the swathes of Rojava in northern Syria.
