NEWS CENTER – The “Internationalist Long March”, organized to commemorate the anniversary of the international conspiracy against Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, started this year in Geneva, Switzerland. Organized with the slogans “We are marching for peace, democracy and freedom, for the end of war, isolation and political persecution”, “The philosophy of Leader APO is our life”, the march started in Place de Neuve Square in Geneva, Switzerland and is walking towards Strasbourg in France.
More than 150 internationalist activists and many Kurdistanis from Germany, Spain-Catalonia, Portugal, France, England, Switzerland, Greece, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Kenya, Ecuador, Mexico, Hungary, Austria, Brazil and India are participating in the march.
A Young Women from India taking place in the March talked with our agency:
I am from India and I work in movement spaces, in collectivization and organization of young people for mostly ecological movement as the anti-dam and anti-mining movements.
I came because there was a lot of similarities between our movements, and the Kurdish Movement which has being growing so strong so many years. It is a similarity the need to have antifascists movements and collaboration between our movements. But also to form community and learn from the movement (Kurdish struggle), it’s philosophy, the people organized within it and support this really important cause, so that it’s what brought me here.
When I read about his work (Abdullah Ocalan), for me it brought so much generational knowledge back as you can see the connection to the land and the importance to going back to our land roots, I see it as really important. As a person he enabled so much collectivization and mobilization but also from what he stands for. When I think about his imprisonment I remember a lot about the indigenous leaders imprisoned also in India right now for the essence of the spirit of community that they spread, the need to come together and go back for the land, to find our roots again. For me that is a very strong message. Liberation is there, but it a collective liberation, for all of us. So for me, when you say his name of the name of a generation of people (especially women), indigenous leader across the world and India, that is what comes to mind and you really can’t put it behind bears. You cannot stop this idea, you imprisoned a person but not his idea. As the March if to fight for his Freedom is also to say that ‘Even that is not here is us physically, we are caring forward his thoughts and ideas.’
Right now we have a fascist government in India and has being there for many years, there is a lot of persecution of Muslims communities and other minorities but there is also a lot of resistance. There is a lot of hope and strength within this communities. Right now the biggest problem I think they are facing is land grabbing, because India is moving really fast towards a Neoliberal state by pushing forward their agenda and cultural homogenization. So there is a really important need to resist and fight back against loosing the land and the culture that is associated with it. Specially coming here I can see the strength of the movement, the Kurdish diaspora and the Youth, but also other people’s and in India I think there is still many people that are shadowed and removed, we need to bring them into the organization’s and break some barriers.
We have a lot of actions happening in the world today, many of us young people have a lot of energy and that’s important but I think we also need to take more time to slow down and heal and build community. Because this is not a short fight, is a very long fight and it is really about healing and building our communities again, connecting with the land and roots. As young people we need to reflect within ourselves and our communities, connecting more with each other, so much of it is what Rêber APO spoke about and that’s why his liberation is so important.
A comrade from Portugal that is also present in the Long March said:
Hello, my name is Dani. I am here because I believe that we all must be in Solidarity to the cause of the Liberation of Kurdistan and the Freedom for Rêber APO, that is a central personality within the Kurdish Struggle and presents a political solution to the Kurdish Question that in this moment is quite needed for a lasting peace in the Middle East.
I came here not only with the idea to give a step into Solidarity with all people’s of the World, in particular the Kurdish people, but also because I see that the Kurdish struggle has much to collaborate with the struggles we fight here. It is a struggle that reflects in what does it mean to be free and to respect the autonomy of different people’s, a topic that is not respected within the european society and this makes us think how we could rethink our political relationships in our context.
To the Portuguese Youth I would say that we need to search for Autonomous Alternatives to organize ourselves, if we are in a Union – for example, it is important to create a group of young people so our demands are heard in specifics, so a line can be developed under the proper problems of the Youth if we are present in a cultural organization, it might be interesting again to develop a group of young people. By this groups of young people, once we get together with each other we can create in our spaces – either in living, working or other, we would have a strength that when separated from the society structures like it is the case so many times with these groups of young people that are outside of the structures and the social life and do things only to their own, but as well among our youth groups we would have a better way to be connected and have clear interests much more practical…
Either it be by the Students Union’s or by the Barrios Organization or Community Organization’s, that at the moment is quite important because we see many young people with living problems that does not have access with houses with low incomes, more young people depend on living with their parents and this kind of situation can be solved by the youth itself, without the need to some one from outside to come and help. We can do it and need to do it, because no one is doing it for us.
