GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

SIS THERESA EASTON (Artist Union England): It was really good to hear that.

Hearing from the horse’s mouth gives it a different weight. We can read

sometimes about these stories. I was in Milan recently and there were some

Kurdish people demonstrating about Öcalan, spreading the information, it was

all in Italian, so I could make some sense of it, but I just wanted to bring to light

that there are other ways of getting these stories out there. One of our trustees

of Artist Union England is of Iraqi origin and she has contacts in all of the

Middle East and some of her contracts recently in London talked to me about

how the Iraqi heritage and culture is being completely devastated. It is being

raped literally by people coming into the country, taking artefacts out, by the

actual Government itself, the corruption. So one of the things we do as a trade

union is we get together with different cultural groups and we have poetry

evenings, we have dances. Recently in the North East we had different

families come across, come to the community and we had Kurdish dancing. I

had blisters on my feet, because I did not expect to do so much dancing, but it

was a really good way of sharing the different cultures, because it is not done

enough sometimes. Sometimes we all sit within our own communities and I

think that is what trade unions are very good at doing – we have the resources,

we have the contact, we have the international contacts. So we maybe need to

do that more so we can share it so it is positive, because the story you were

telling, it made me feel really powerless. I just sat there thinking, “What the hell

can we do here? What can we do?” There is loads we can do. I have got

Turkish neighbours, I have got Kurdish neighbours. They have got their stories.

We can share these stories and get together and do it in a way where we feed

people, we nurture people and we come together and we break down those

barriers, because that is what it is, it is barriers. That was lovely. Thank you

for sharing that.

BERDAN ÖZTÜRK: Thank you. Thank you so much. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Did you want to respond?

ZINAR DEMENI: If I could say a couple of things, if I may.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, of course, do.

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