Peace and stability in Turkey, Kurdistan, the Middle East and the wider world, by David Morgan

Peace and stability in Turkey, Kurdistan, the Middle East and the wider world: a personal perspective on the events of the year just gone and prospects for the future.

By David Morgan, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign, 1 January 2015

Peace and stability in Turkey, in Kurdistan, in the Middle East and in the wider world might seem extremely precarious and elusive prospects in the light of the descent into chaos in Syria and Iraq witnessed in 2014, but there is never an option to entirely give up hope if you believe in life and it is a natural instinct for all living creatures to desire to continue to live in a state of comfort where basic wants for food, sustenance and love are satisfied. Thousands of years of human progress, enlightenment, ingenuity, creativity and inventiveness cannot simply be wiped out by the wars, wanton destruction and genocide endured in the recent period. It may seem that the world has entered a new dark age but the darkest forces that have emerged on the scene are being strenuously resisted and thus confidently we can predict that they can be eliminated by the forces of light and hope who are ultimately far stronger than their assailants for the simple reason that they offer greater prospects of a better life for more people. It is surely the shared values of socialism, cooperation, respect, tolerance, solidarity, that will continue to inspire and drive humanity forward creating a better world for men and women in equal measure. Harmony can assuredly triumph over discord through our combined human efforts. The alternative is simply too bleak to even imagine.
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Kurdish activist speaks at Tri-continental Anti-imperialist Platform event

The Tricontinental Anti-imperialist Platform held an event at Housemans in central London recently entitled Global Resistance: From Ferguson to People’s Korea. Activist and member of the Kurdish Student Union and People’s Assembly, Elif Sarican, took part in the event, which connected resistance struggles from across the world, on the place of the Kurdish struggle in the borader movement against colonialism and imperialism. You can watch the video of her presentation below, and you can find the full playlist of all speakers from the evening here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcsvsgYkqwo]

Rest in peace and power, Tony Benn (1925-2014)

Tony Benn, one of the UK’s foremost radical leftist politicians, president of Stop the War Coalition, long-time supporter of Kurdish rights, sadly passed on today. Here we recall his words on the Terrorism Act 2001, which criminalises the entire Kurdish community and many others as ‘terrorist’, when it was first introduced:

Tony-Benn-picture
“Until we can get the act defeated we are all going to live under its shadow”
Tony Benn

One of the last things I did before I left Parliament to devote more time to politics was to vote against the Terrorism Bill. It was introduced, after 24 hours, without any real discussion … I might add this was just after the Americans had bombed Sudan allegedly in an anti-terrorist act described as a humanitarian mission by the  United States … What you have to recognise is that imperialism always dresses itself up in the language of humanitarianism, always. Any one who remembers as I do what Britain was like when the Empire was there, it was our mission to the world, the sun never set on the British Empire, it was the white man civilising the world.

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