ISTANBUL // When the Turkish singer Hadise Acikgoz was asked to sing her country's national anthem in front of a crowd in a US stadium - and a huge television audience back home - she may have thought it was a dream come true. Instead, the performance of the foreign-born artist has triggered a bitter row that exposes tensions between Turks at home and Turkish emigrants in western Europe. Dressed in white and with her hair neatly tied in a pony-tail, the singer stepped onto the pitch of a sports stadium in the US state of New Jersey last weekend to sing the anthem before a friendly match of Turkey's national football team against the Czech Republic. The match was transmitted live to football-mad Turkey. Turkey's team, currently on a tour through the United States, won the match 2-1, but the result has not shielded Hadise, 24, who uses only her first name as a performer, from a wave of criticism. She has been accused of bringing "shame" to the nation. The Turkish anthem, known as the March of Independence, is sung every day at official functions around the country. The text by the poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy was adopted in 1921; the melody sung today, written by conductor Osman Zeki Ungor, replaced an earlier version in 1930. Venerated as a national treasure, the anthem deals with Turkey's war of independence, which led to the creation of the republic in 1923.
Hadise sang the anthem a cappella, without the support of a band or a tape providing musical background, which is the norm in most performances of the piece. She delivered a slow and almost sentimental interpretation, which is also unusual for Turkey, where the anthem is normally played by a marching band, often in a brisk military style. The impression that the singer's interpretation included some notes reminiscent of blues or soul music and that Hadise's voice seemed to slip a little during very high passages did not endear her to her critics either. According to some musical experts in Turkey, she butchered the hallowed hymn. "I have never heard such a post-modern version of the March of Independence," Sezen Cumhur Ozal, a well-known songwriter and music producer, told Turkish media after the performance. "No other country in the world has seen such a shame." Garo Mafyan, another producer, said Hadise had ignored all rules for a march. "Words fail me."
Some even doubt Hadise's ability to sing any song straight. Atilla Ozdemiroglu, who has written several songs for Turkish entries to the Eurovision Song Contest, said he had not listened to Hadise performing in New Jersey, but did not have a favourable opinion of her anyway. "I watched her sing live on television once," Mr Ozdemiroglu was quoted as saying by the press. "She was very much out of tune." A leading Turkish football official quickly distanced himself from the performance. "Players and officials were very much surprised" to hear the a cappella version, Lutfu Aribogan, deputy head of the country's football federation, told Turkish media. "We did not organise this; the Americans did." Hadise, who was born in Belgium to a Turkish family from the eastern Anatolian province of Sivas, represented Turkey at last year's Eurovision Song Contest, in which she came in fourth. She shrugged off the criticism. "I served my country without expecting anything in return," she said. "If that is a shame, then I say: yes, I am a shame."
For some, it is not just a question of whether you like the way Hadise sang. In Turkish internet forums, the row about the singer brought tensions between Turks living abroad and those in Turkey to the surface. Millions of Turks from poorer regions in the north and east have left their country since the early 1960s to find work in Europe, and many Turks in Turkey itself regard the emigrants as uneducated and backward. "What business does that Hadise have here anyway?" one reader wrote on the website of the Hurriyet newspaper. "She isn't even a Turkish citizen; her Turkish is bad and she doesn't know Turkish culture." Another commentator wrote: "Mehmet Akif Ersoy's bones are rattling" after Hadise's performance. "Go back to your own people," ran another comment, addressing Hadise. But a Hurriyet reader identifying himself as Sinan Akerman rejected the criticism. "I have been abroad since 1982," he wrote. "You have criticised and looked down upon the emigrants. But those people would gladly give their lives for their country. I congratulate Hadise from the bottom of my heart." A like-minded reader wrote that although "they say our emigrants have no culture, today's emigrants are more cultured than most people in Turkey". Some experts also supported Hadise. Izzet Oz, a radio and television producer, said it was not the singer's fault if the anthem sounded a little off. "The March of Independence is a flawed piece of music anyway," he said, according to media reports. "For this reason, we all make mistakes singing it." It is not the first time a prominent singer has come under attack for a version of the March of Independence. Sertab Erener, the first Turkish artist to win the Eurovision Song Contest, in 2003, was accused of mangling the anthem when she performed it before a Formula One race in Istanbul five years ago. tseibert@thenational.ae
Rosanne Barr Quite possibly the most remembered butchering of the US national anthem came from the actor and comedian Rosanne Barr. At a San Diego Padres game in 1990, Barr not only managed to "screech" her way through the Star Spangled Banner, but also spit, in the manner of a Major League Baseball player, after her performance. Barr, who was loudly booed by the fans, said afterward that she was screaming the lyrics because she could not hear herself on the stadium's PA system. She even drew harsh words from the then US president George HW Bush, who called performance "disgraceful". Jose Feliciano Before Game 5 of the 1968 baseball World Series, Jose Feliciano, the blind, Puerto Rico-born guitarist who had a hit that year with Light My Fire, was booed at Tiger Stadium in Detroit after performing a bluesy version of the Star-Spangled Banner. Television viewers bombarded NBC with complaints after the game was screened, there was uproar in the press and radio stations stopped playing Feliciano's records. He reckoned it put back his career two or three years, although today it is regarded as something of a classic. Tom Cochrane During the 1992 World Series, the Canadian rock musician Tom Cochrane sang his country's anthem incorrectly to open Game 3 of the series in Toronto. The anthem lyrics include "from far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee", but Cochrane sang the lines from the older anthem, which was changed in 1980, as follows: "O Canada, we stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee". In a double whammy, before his performace the US Marine Corps accidentially flew the Canadian flag upside down. Ras Dumisani Before a rugby match between France and South Africa in November, the singer Ras Dumisani's reggae version the Rainbow Nation's anthem drew big laughs from the stands - and angry stares from South Africa's players. After the game, the South African coach, Peter de Villiers, blasted French officials for Dumisani's performance: "They didn't get someone who really knows the thing and show any respect for it. We expect people to show respect to the anthem of any other country." Later, it was reported, the French said they had sought out the South Africans for advice on singers. Arnel Pineda Arnel Pineda found himself the subject of a complaint filed by the National Historical Institute in the Philippines, a government body that makes sure the anthem's integrity is maintained, after he performed his version of the island nation's anthem in Texas. The frontman for the US rock band Journey said he was singing from the heart when he belted out Lupang Hinirang before the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey boxing bout in March. The crowd cheered, but he faces fines and up to one year in prison if the complaint is upheld. * The National