The demand for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in Imrali Prison Island for over 26 years, is no longer just on the agenda of Kurdish society but of the entire world.
From the Middle East to Latin America, from Europe to Asia, many social movements, human rights organizations, academics, and artists are calling for an end to the isolation imposed on Öcalan and for his release. This international solidarity shows that the demand for his freedom has become a human rights struggle that transcends borders and calls on the global public to take action.
In recent days, as part of the campaign “Freedom for Öcalan, Political Solution to the Kurdish Question Kurdistan,” a group of artists led by Argentinian artist-writer Federico Racca launched a social media campaign on Instagram called “A Place For Öcalan.”
ANF spoke with Federico Racca, who is known not only for his art and writing but also for his active stance on human rights.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am Argentine, 54 years old, married, with a young daughter, and I live in a small town in the countryside called Río Ceballos, in the mountains of Córdoba province. I am a writer and visual artist. My undergraduate degree is in law and I hold a master’s degree in Lacanian psychoanalysis.
This very condensed biography is intertwined with the things I do, which often have to do with political art.
As an Argentine artist, how did you first learn about the Kurdish people’s struggle for liberation?
It was more than a decade ago. I first learned about Abdullah Öcalan’s story and then about the Kurdish people and their struggle. Over the years, I have learned and worked a lot in my writings and art with Öcalan.
You recently launched a campaign on social media titled “A Place for Öcalan.” How did the idea for this campaign come about? Why the name?
One day I was telling my wife about Öcalan, about the Kurdish people’s struggle, about Imrali, and she said a phrase that I still keep written on a small piece of wood in my room: “Because they would not give land to the Kurds, they gave their leader one of the most beautiful places”. She was referring to Imrali and its place in the sea, which, for us, people from inland with no sea, is always something longed for.
Returning to the name of the campaign, for me, Abdullah Öcalan is someone who inhabits me, who fills me with anguish whenever I think of him, because I imagine him alone, and so always, absolutely always, I would want to give him a place next to me. At this moment, it would be this beautiful view I have of the city of Santiago de Chile, as I am answering this interview in its airport.
What is the aim of this campaign?
To make Öcalan visible, his loneliness. To say how much it pains us. Hopefully it helps.
We are carrying out this campaign together with Argentine psychoanalyst Francisco Larrambebere, with the help of the Kurdish Women’s Movement of Latin America and some friends.
We are very few, but it is happening, and it is happening with depth. This is art, and we are very happy with the depth the action has acquired.
I invite anyone who wishes to make their own video, in silence, with an empty chair next to them for Abdullah Öcalan. Something happens there, that experience touches you. I also know that Abdullah will know, he will feel us beside him.
This action includes videos from people one admires, who have fought for their peoples, for a better humanity. For me, it is an honor that my video is alongside all these people from many places and diverse struggles.
As you know, Abdullah Öcalan has been imprisoned for more than 26 years in conditions of severe isolation. What can you say about this situation? Why is Öcalan’s freedom important?
Abdullah Öcalan is not imprisoned, he was kidnapped. For me as a lawyer, that makes a big difference. Öcalan is an example. He is today’s Mandela, and when I think of him, I cry.
From Argentina, from South America, Öcalan is the “extimate.” This term “extimate” belongs to the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and combines the words “external” and “intimate.” It refers to how what is most intimate to someone, or, in this case, to a society, can be read in something outside that person, something distant.
Thus, Öcalan, the fighter, the leader of that Kurdish people with such a particular culture, is the extimate, the distant one who defines us and who can teach us here in Latin America.
At a time when war and militarization are intensifying in the world, especially in the Middle East, Abdullah Öcalan has taken a stance in favor of peace. How do you evaluate his insistence on peace in such a context? What can you say about the ideas he has formulated?
Abdullah Öcalan’s pacifism is a consequence of his critique of capitalism. War, weapons, are at the center of business.
I worked with Öcalan’s book The Origins of Civilization in a text I have just published, called The Dandelion Flower, a huge book of about a thousand pages. There, I created a series of chants based on Öcalan’s work.
In two weeks, in a performance at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Argentina, in a hall that contains a series of paintings by the master Francisco de Goya dealing with the Spanish people’s resistance to the Napoleonic invasions, I will read The Dandelion Flower continuously for 24 hours.
That will be an act of physical resistance that speaks to the resistance of my people, Argentina, who are going through a very difficult political moment. It will also carry the resistance of Öcalan and the Kurdish people.
As an Argentine artist, what message would you like to convey to the Kurdish people in terms of solidarity or strengthening the internationalist struggle?
Let us not allow the chairs to remain empty.