The Amara Festival Days, organized under the slogan “Democratic National Unity with Free Leader,” concluded with a program held in front of the house where Abdullah Öcalan was born, following a march from Halfeti to Amara.
Addressing the crowd, Çetin Arkaş, Abdullah Öcalan’s former fellow prisoner, described Amara as the “zero point of the Kurds” and said that the Kurdish leader played a historic role in the national unity of the Kurdish people.
‘We will not give up our own roots’
Arkaş stated: “Not only have Kurds lived on these lands. There were Turkmens, Arabs, Armenians. There were different ethnic communities, who, too, are essential elements of this geography. Over the course of history, they were largely alienated from one another. Problems began among belief groups. Ethnic groups were subject to marginalization. Leader Apo (Abdullah Öcalan) did not give credence to any of this. He is a Kurd. He is from Kurdistan. Kurds are on these lands, but Leader Apo is also Arab, Turkmen, Persian. At the same time, he is a person of the world. No one should forget this. Those who seek to advance in this geography through ethnic and sectarian provocations are making calculations of 100–200 years. We must be aware of this. We will not give up our own roots. But we will also live fraternally with other peoples and beliefs. Leader Apo, by his very existence, is the ideological antidote to the mindset that seeks to pit peoples and beliefs against each other in the Middle East. This should not be forgotten by anyone.”
‘Today is the day of freedom for Leader Öcalan’
Emphasizing coexistence and brotherhood among peoples, Arkaş continued: “These lands are also where the first goddesses emerged. Mother Üveyş (Öcalan’s mother), with her existence, was a magnificent mother, a goddess. On this occasion, we also commemorate her with respect. In this geography, women once existed with their intrinsic values, but over centuries and millennia, they were othered, stripped of identity, deprived of will, and enslaved. But today I see that nearly more than half of this community is made up of women, and all of them are comrades of Leader Apo. Women who are comrades of Leader Apo are more determined, stronger, and more beautiful. You are all very beautiful.”
Arkaş added, “Leader Apo illuminated the path of women with his ideological and political ideas. Leader Apo’s freedom is the freedom of women. Today is the day of freedom for Leader Apo.”
‘Leader Öcalan’s freedom is the freedom of women’
Speaking on behalf of the Free Women’s Movement (TJA), Adalet Fidan drew attention to the women’s freedom struggle, saying, “Leader Apo’s freedom is the freedom of women.”
Abdullah Öcalan’s brother, Mehmet Öcalan, stressed that the people must strengthen their organization and struggle for Leader Apo’s physical freedom.
The program ended with a performance by a traditional dance group.
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