A POEM FOR MEHMET AKSOY
You taught me
What is inevitable for life
For new life to grow: it’s a tiny
sun whose roots I’ll have
to water well
and encourage it to deploy
its own attack against the weeds.
Tiny, wretched bread of solidarity,
a banner against the cold, fresh water for the blood:
maternal elements that should not stray far
from the heart.
against melancholy, trust; against
despair,
Tiny, wretched bread of solidarity,
a banner against the cold, fresh water for the blood:
maternal elements that should not stray far
the voice of the people
rattling the windows of the secret house.
To discover,
decipher
articulate,
set in motion:
The ancient duties of fighters and liberators
now become our obligations
and are out and about measuring our steps:
from breakfast to sleep,
from stealth to stealth,
from action to action
from life to life. A free life!
Towards freedom!
Azadi!
Estella Schmid
26 September 2019
Estella Schmid is a political activist. Since the mid 1980s she has been active in campaigns in solidarity with the Kurdish people’s struggle for self-determination and worked in cooperation with the Kurdish freedom movement. She is the Co-Founder of the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign (1994) and the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC, 2001). She was also a co-founder of the first Kurdish solidarity campaign in the UK, the Kurdistan Solidarity Committee in 1989 and the Kurdistan Information Centre 1991; her other initiatives have included the Ilisu Dam Campaign (1997) and the Refugee Project (2003). She met Mehmet Aksoy at the Kurdish Film Festival in London in 2004. Estella studied philosophy, history and theatre at the university in Vienna. She has worked as a director, producer and playwright with theatre companies in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Dusseldorf, New York and London. She has lived in London since 1974.