Mihemed Şexo – a Kurdish Legend

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Ew berî her tiştî mirovbû û bi hesanî xwe berda dilê kesê kurd, wek dengê req reqa tavan û şewqa birûskan, deng û şewq daye her çar perçên Kurdistanê.

Before anything he was a human and with ease he let himself into the hearts of the Kurds. Like the beaming sun and sparks of lightning he gave voice and light to the four parts of Kurdistan, wrote Qado Şêrîn about Mihemed Şexo in the foreword to a collection of Mihemed Şexo’s songs.

Mihemed Şexo is regarded as the luminary of the Kurdish music world. He put melodies to the poetry of famous Kurdish poets like Cegerxwîn, Tîrej, Bedirxan Sindî and Bê Buhar. He is without doubt one of the most famous musicians in the history of Kurds and his deep impact on the Kurdish people started in the town that holds a special place in the hearts of many Kurds: Qamişlo.

Farsu, a friend of Mihemed Şexo

I was in Qamişlo in July when my mother excitedly told me that she had run into Saad Farsu and invited him over so I could meet him: “He looks just like Mihemed Şexo, he was a friend of him, he knows everything worth knowing about him and he plays his songs.”

It was late in the evening when Saad Farsu came to our home. He had to bow his head when he walked through the door and he avoided making eye contact with us when he sat down on the floor, holding his tembûr in a tight grip.

My family and I sat down too, silent and waiting with bated breaths for him to begin the story of the legend Mihemed Şexo.

Farsu looked up from his tembûr but did not fixe his gaze upon anyone or anything when he said: “There are people who claim I know nothing about Mihemed Şexo. I have been interviewed by many Kurdish TV-channels about the life of Mihemed Şexo, I was his friend and he told me he liked me. Yet some claim I do not know him and what I say about him is untrue. But it is not.”

Mihemed Şexo was born in 1948 on the farm Xecokê in Qamişlo, West Kurdistan (Northeast Syria). As a child he used to work for his uncle, watering the cotton fields and writing down the amount of harvested crops. He went to school without having books yet he was known by many for his intelligence.

When he graduated 6th grade, he and his family left the farm and moved into the city. Mihemed Şexo continued his studies and was one of the three top students in the school but he had to drop out in 9th grade because of financial problems.

When Mihemed Şexo was 19, he played the tembûr at a wedding while sitting on an old barrel. He had learned to play the tembûr from his uncle and at this wedding people recognised his talent. In 1969 he went to Beirut and began his studies in music. He also played at many concerts with mainly two Kurdish groups.

One was called Nyroz and was led by Seid Yusif, the other group was kalled Koma Serkewten and was led by Mehmud Eziz. During this period Mihemed Şexo did not write his own songs, Farsu told us, but played Yusif and Eziz’ songs.

“They even took my broom!”

In 1972 he returned to Qamişlo where he became the head of a group musicians. He began recording his own songs and was soon known and loved by the Kurds. But the Syrian government said: You must not sing about Kurdistan.

“Mihemed Şexo was the only one who kept singing about his beloved Kurdistan even though it was not allowed in Syria. He was beaten by the police and imprisoned many times. He was not scared but the other musicians stopped singing about Kurdistan,” Farsu said.

Qado Şêrîn wrote in the preface of the book that Mihemed Şexo was once beaten so severely that his socks were sticking to the flesh of his feet for days. He was beaten for his love for his people yet refused to stop expressing this love for Kurdistan through music. Artists like him never die, Şêrîn continued, Mihemed Şexo will stay alive in the hearts and history of the Kurdish people.

But the Syrian police raided and closed his music shop after having harassed him for years. “They even took my broom,”  Mihemed Şexo bitterly told my mother when they were driving to Hesekeh many years ago.

Mihemed Şexo played at weddings to earn a living but he did not like it. He was poor and people wanted to help him but he did not want to accept their money. He was humble and satisfied with just bread and tea.

In 1974 Mihemed Şexo went to South Kurdistan and stayed there until the beginning of 1975 when Mustapha Barzanî, the Kurdish leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq, had to end his fight against the Iraqi Baath Party and leave for Iran. Mihemed Şexo followed him and here he learned Farsi, became a teacher of Arabic and married a Kurdish woman.

Mihemed Şexo met many people when travelling in and outside Kurdistan; he became enlightened about different cultures and learned how to translate and use foreign melodies in his music. He was richer than most artists, Farsu said, because he was a pioneer. He crossed mental borders, broadened his horizons and learned about the world and the people in it.

This is what made him who he was because one must remember, Farsu told us, that Kurds at home in Qamişlo were unfamiliar with the rest of the world and were shocked when they saw men wearing pants and jackets as they were only used to seeing them in the Kurdish dress called a galabî.

Mihemed Şexo was moved by Arabic music, Farsu said. Back then they only had radios and there was this one Arabic channel that played songs loved by the people in Qamişlo. Mihemed Şexo was impressed by how powerful it was and asked himself why Kurdish music (in particular music from Qamişlo) was not as powerful and touching. He wanted to do for Kurdish music what Arab icons did for Arabic music.

In 1983 Mihemed Şexo returned to Qamişlo and became friends with Farsu who was then leader of the city’s communist party. When the party had meetings and needed instruments for the entertainment, Farsu used to ask Şexo if he would let him use his instruments. “Şexo would then say to me: I lend you my tembûr because I trust you,” Farsu proudly told us. “He liked me because I sang his songs.”

“I was working at a school once. My colleague had a son who one day stormed out of the house and jumped onto his bike. The colleague called after him: “Son, where are you going?” “Mihemed Şexo is playing, I am going to listen to him.” After a short while the boy returned home and his dad asked why. “It was not Şexo, it was your friend Farsu.” “

Farsu played Şexo’s songs that evening in my grandparent’s house where Mihemed Şexo himself many years before used to come and play for my mother and her family. Now many years later Farsu played the song “Nesrîn” and it was so alike Mihemed Şexo, that my mother, aunts and uncles began to cry.

Farsu has had that effect on others too because he said (with a hint of bitterness in his voice): “I once played at a university. A girl started crying because my voice reminded her of Mihemed Şexo. Yet when people say: Who can take over Mihemed Şexos place, they never say: Saad Farsu.”

“When I die …”

When Mihemed Şexo died in 1989, everyone in Qamişlo joined the funeral procession; all houses were empty, shopowners closed their shops and all students left their classrooms and pinned the picture of Şexo on their school uniforms.

He was buried right away because people knew that if they waited a couple of days, Kurds from all over the world would come to Qamişlo and pay their last respect which would create great chaos.

So it was only the people of Qamişlo who followed the great Mihemed Şexo to his grave and buried the Kurdish Sun who still enlightens all of Kurdistan with his love songs for the land of the Kurds.

I went to his grave and on it is written: Gava ez mirim, gelî zendya me neveşêrin, wek ku hemya.

“When I die, you who are alive must not bury me like you bury everyone else.”