EC Meeting Papers January 2018

After this we decided to hold a cultural and political festival for the Kurdish communities in Britain and raise awareness of the issues through art, film, workshops and so on. We were delighted to be joined at this event by more HDP MPs including Ocalan’s niece. This event brought very wide national attention to the struggle and also, I have to say, made Kurdish refugees in Britain who have had to flee from such terrible situations, feel valued and at home and made them recognise that their situation is not forgotten. I heard some stories that day about suffering that I wish I had never heard, but which more should hear about. We were proud to hear Kurdish spoken throughout the day. I wanted to make a personal fund raising contribution to our new campaign so I produced a little book. It is a translation of a 5,000 year old poem written in Sumer. Ocalan’s writings make us aware of the importance of the Sumerian civilisation between the Tigris and Euphrates and the many first human inventions it gave to us including agriculture, writing, architecture and many other things. The book is dedicated to Ocalan and the poem speaks out clearly across the millennia with a potent message for us today; it is human agency not the hidden hand of the market that the neoliberals so laughingly advocate, that changes the world and creates all value, and it is peace and democracy, not war and tyranny that most represents the essence of human beings. Please buy some copies of the book, it will raise funds for the campaign and keep an ancient important voice alive. After this successful event we took another motion to the TUC in September 2017 specifically calling on Unions to support our campaign and condemn the fascistic tyranny in Turkey. It is important to note that some of our biggest unions, notably Unite, and the GMB with their good progressive international departments and the National Union of Teachers have given a great lead on this.

5