Italian professor Sandro Mezzadra sent a message of support to the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) regarding Abdullah Öcalan’s “Call for Peace and Democratic Society.”
Mezzadra said:
“On February 27, Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan issued a call for peace and a democratic society, declaring to the world that the fate of the Kurdish people is not a tragic one.
In the current conjuncture of war, Öcalan’s words open a horizon of peace and coexistence in Turkey. They build upon his rigorous criticism of nationalism and of the structural link between capitalism and the nation-state. The predicament, the long suffering and discrimination of the Kurds were turned by him into a vision for transforming the world – beyond any narrow interpretation of the struggle for self-determination.
Öcalan’s writings and the Kurdish struggle have therefore become a source of inspiration for social movements struggling for social justice in many parts of the world. The call for peace is the crowning of this vision. As other times in history, this call comes from a man who is detained since 1999 in a high-security prison, enduring conditions of isolation and deprivation.
It is to be hoped that Öcalan’s conditions of detention will be improved in proportion to his contributions to the peace process, and that the Right to Hope—as recently reminded by Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli—will be implemented without delay.”
Mezzadra teaches political theory at the University of Bologna. He also serves as a visiting faculty member at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and at the Centre for Cultural Research and Development at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. His recent work focuses on the relationships between globalization, migration, and capitalism, as well as contemporary capitalism and postcolonial critique.