Ode to Rojbin Şafak Tufan | From occupied to freedom

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Rojbin Şafak Tufan is 31 years old and was born in Kurdistan, in a region occupied by Turkey. She currently lives in Amsterdam, where she has been trying to build a new life for 18 months. However, her connection with Amsterdam began much earlier, some seven years ago, when a loved one from her family moved here. This gave Amsterdam a special place in her life. But her real struggle essentially began the day she was born.

A forbidden name and the struggle for identity

Growing up as a Kurd in Turkey brought with it great challenges. Her name, Rojbin, means “sunrise” in Kurdish and symbolizes a new beginning and beautiful days. But it was forbidden to give a child a Kurdish name. The Turkish state tried to deny the Kurdish identity, to ban the language and to make the Kurds invisible. That is why her parents had to officially give her the name Şafak.
 

When she went to school and heard her name Şafak, it felt strange. She was Rojbin, but who was Şafak? She was too young to understand that her language was forbidden, that her very existence was denied. But over time she learned the harsh reality. She was confronted with oppression, the difficulties of her identity, her native region and being a woman. Everywhere she felt the pressure of the state and the invisible walls that kept Kurds out. But it was precisely these challenges that made her stronger.

Rojbin came into contact with the violence of the Turkish state at a young age. In the mid-90s, the Turkish army set fire to her village. She was only a small child at the time, but that day is still etched in her memory. Even before the destruction, it was a challenge to reach the village. There were no cars because there were no roads. Kurdish villages were deliberately isolated, without infrastructure or facilities. But there was a military checkpoint on every mountain top.

The state had never built roads to the villages, but there were military checkpoints. This was a deliberate strategy to slowly drive the Kurds out of their villages. Even when their village had been burned down and they wanted to return, there was not a single car or road. They had to walk for hours. Mothers carried their children on their backs, the elderly leaned on their walking sticks and tried to move forward. Every step was a painful memory. That march was not only a return to their land, but also a struggle to survive. At that moment Rojbin realized: 'We are the ones who are reborn out of nothing. They burned our country, they drove us out, but we will always return.

Amsterdam: discovery of freedom

Amsterdam became a turning point in Rojbin's life. Here she began to rebuild herself. Amsterdam gave her the space to freely live out her identity. She learned to speak her mother tongue without fear. She learned what it felt like to be herself, to walk with her head held high, to make a victory gesture and to say: “I can do this!” She started all over again here. She learned the language, improved her English, strengthened her Kurdish and discovered everything she couldn't do before. She traveled, learned, saw the world and finally found her happiness.

Fight for Justice
 

Rojbin mainly addresses women and says that the struggle never stops, that every end is a new beginning: “Our struggle continues, never give up! Our bodies and our minds are ours, not someone else's.” The women who inspire her are not only her mother, aunts and grandmother, but also the Peace Mothers in Kurdistan. These are mothers who search for the graves of their murdered children, women who lost their loved ones in the war and have never stopped searching for their bodies. It is mostly women who continue to fight this battle.
 

For Rojbin, these women are not only symbols of resistance, but also of hope and life itself. They give her the strength to live and persevere. Growing up with the example of these powerful women, Rojbin found her own strength. And today she proudly says: Maşallah to them, forty times!