50 thousands say “Freedom Now” in Diyarbakir
?erafettin Elçi added that “today is the day of honour. We stood together, we stand together, and by standing together we will win”.
As well as the independent candidates the mayor of Diyarbak?r, Osman Baydemir, the BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) city presient, M. Ali Ayd?n were at the rally.
Independent candidate (and former DTP, Democratic Society Party co-chair) Emine Ayna, underlined that “May in Kurdish is Gulan, that is the month of the roses. Our roses are our martyrs”, she said referring to the people who lost their life because of the war. And then she directly addressed the Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdo?an. “The Prime Minister – she began promptly adding – no, I will not refer to him as Prime Minister because he is not acting as a Prime Minister towards us. So I simply say, Recep Tayip Erdo?an says that ‘there were Kurds but we solved this issue’. And now he said there are no Kurds. And people should simply take his word as evidence of this.” The reality is, added Ayna that the ruling party’s police is killing the Kurds who reclaim their rights and language”.
Leyla Zana started her speech by saying that “for 30 years they are bombing this wonderful nature with chemical weapons. Nature is suffering”, and in a highly symbolic gesture Zana removed the hair band of daisies from her head and throw it to the crowd saying “I throw this flowers to you so that nature once again could flourish”.
It was then the turn of Altan Tan to take the microphone. “These are days when patience are wearing out – he said – They keep telling us to wait and be patient. I am asking you, after thousands of our children who lost their lives, thousands of our brothers and sisters in prison, thousands of our families in exile… can we have any patience left?” The crowd answered “No”.
At the end of the meeting a message from Hatip Dicle, independent candidate in prison at the moment because one of the defendant in the KCK (Kurdish Communities Confederation) trial was read.
Saturday also saw the beginning of celebrations for Kurdish Language Day.
eace and Democracy Party (BDP) General Office, in the statement made for the 15 May Kurdish Language Celebration Day, made a call for an end to assimilation while celebrating the language feast of the Kurdish people who brought their ‘language and culture’ into being through the struggle they give.
BDP Co-chairs Filiz Kocali and Hamit Geylani’s message for the 15 May Kurdish Language Celebration Day is as follows;
“May 15, the day Kurdish literature, art and philosophy magazine Hawar started publication by linguist Celadet Ali Bedirxan and his fellows in Damascus in 1932, is celebrated as Kurdish Language Celebration Day.
Beyond any doubt, the deep meaning of this feast is inner the sanctity of mother-language as it s their initial fact that give personality to an individual. The language raises thought and thought raises the language.
The celebration of this day as the Feast of Kurdish language was approved upon the suggestion of Kurdish language litterateurs and linguistics and made a major contribution to the improvement of the Kurdish language. The Hawar magazine has enabled the cultivation and emanation of immortal writers like Cegerxwîn, Qedrîcan, Osman Sebrî. Another important service of the Hawar staff is the preparation of the Kurdish alphabet with Latin characters.
The Hawar magazine staff has also made great contributions on the Kurdish training given today in all primary, secondary schools and three universities in Iraqi Kurdish federal region, the opening of Kurdish language departments at tens of Kurdish institutes and European universities and the adoption of the Kurdish language by these institutions. The Kurdish language, which has been neglected and banned for many years, unfortunately found the chance of advancing in exile. (Translation: Berna Ozgencil)
THE RIGHT TO BE TAUGHT IN KURDISH CAMPAIGN
Tevgera Ziman û Perwerdahiya Kurdî (TZPKurdî, Kurdish Language and Education Movement in English)has began several months ago a campaign called ‘Read, Speak, Write in Kurdish Everywhere’, launched against the prohibition of the Kurdish language in certain spheres in Turkey.
TZPKurdî has suggested three measures to resist the repression of Kurdish in Turkey: 1) to promote the Kurdish language in education, 2) to speak the language in private as well as in public venues and 3) to speak it at all political events. Currently, the use of Kurdish in the political arena is forbidden according to the Law on Political Parties.
There is an ongoing denial of Kurdish language since the creation of Turkish Republic about 80 years ago. He criticised Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s approach to the Kurdish question and his defence of the motto of the Turkish state: ‘One Language, One Nation.’
At a demonstration in support of Kurdish language on International Mother Language Day, back in February, BDP deputy Hamit Geylani also made a speech saying that the trial of Kurdish politicians in Diyarbak?r is a trial where the Kurdish language is being tried. ‘There will be no freedom until or language is free,’ he said, and added that ‘the struggle of Kurdish people for their language will go on.’
Amnesty International (AI) has now recognised Kurdish and will began to use it on its website. AI signed a protocol with the KURD?-DER Batman (Elîh) branch in order to translate all written documents into Kurdish for one year.
In February 2009, Ahmet Türk, then head of the now defunct DTP, spoke Kurdish in the Turkish parliament to honour International Mother Language Day. TRT quickly cut the live broadcast.
ANF / DIYARBAKIR
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In search of the Commonwealth
Antonio Negri
1. Empire and Multitude raised many problems and questions: it was pointless to define these again in Commonwealth, and of no use to try to solve them. Rather, it was better to begin anew and, on the basis of the concepts we had developed, dwell on the question of what the political is today. What is subversive politics? What partage of the social does it involve? How can capital be fought today? By moving on from the debates around those books, we are convinced we can confront the unsolved problems with renewed strength. But after ten years of work on Empire and Multitude, when sat down to write Commonwealth, our convictions had strengthened and our perceptions matured: contemporaneity had been re-defined, and the time when the prefix post- could define the present was over. We had certainly experienced a transition, but what were the symptoms of its end?
In particular, our impression was that the concept of democracy was being re-evaluated. During the War on Terror, this concept had been worn out by the frenzied propaganda of the neo-conservatives, and political science had witnessed the emergence of issues that could no longer be comprehended with the concept of democracy. To simplify, we refer to what Rosavallon tries to grasp and qualify in his latest book (La contre-démocratie. La politique à l’âge de la défiance), when he states: ‘the republic and the comportments of modern populations have left something profound behind that cannot be found again, something obscure that can no longer be explained’. In this way Rosavallon tries to define sentiments of mistrust and impotence, those figures of de-politicisation that arise out of contemporary democracy. And almost against his own wishes, he adds that ‘political democracy’ has become the name for the consolidation of a ‘mixed regime’ that includes counter-democracy, a ‘democracy of exception’.
Irish election called for February 26th
The 26 County President, Michael D Higgins, has dissolved parliament at the request of Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who has called a general election
