April 25, 2024 • 32 mins
James talks to Meghan Bodette of the Kurdish Peace institute about the recent elections in Turkey, the Van uprising, and aggression against Kurdish people in Europe and in Kurdistan.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media. Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast. It's me
today and I'm joined by Meghan Burdett, who is the
director of research at the Kurdish Peace Institute. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Meghan, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, thanks for joining us. So what we wanted to
talk about today was these local elections that have been
happening in Turkey in the last week or so. We're
recording in very early aprils that it happened I think
towards the end of March, right, yeah, March thirty. First, Yeah,
so can you explain to listeners first of all, Like
I mean, I've heard about these Turkish local elections almost
(00:38):
constantly for the past several months, because I hear about
them from Kurdish migrants leaving Turkey. Almost every time I'm
at the border. I meet people and they tell me.
Can you explain sort of the context of these elections,
the concerns going into them.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, of course. So first off, these are the first
elections in Turkey following the presidential and parliamentary vote last
year that was as a huge disappointment for the opposition
and also for a couple of separate reasons and a
couple of similar reasons for the pro Kurdish political movement
as well. The opposition underperformed last year. They were not
(01:13):
able to defeat Erdowan as the polling and the sentiment
in the country had suggested that they would, and the
pro Kurdish political movement also underperformed as well. They did
not win as many seats or as many votes as
they usually do, and a lot of that was attributed
to the very complex Alliance decisions they made, choosing not
(01:34):
to run their own presidential candidate and instead ask their
voters to vote for the CHP, which is the main
opposition party that has a history of being very nationalist
and violent and exclusionary towards Kurds. Though things have changed
in these past twenty years, voters didn't understand that. A
lot of voters weren't happy with that, and then there
were some local level issues with selections of candidates as well,
(01:55):
and then of course the climate of very severe political repression,
and had the Opposition one there was a lot of
hope that it would have started to change things on
the Kurdish issue in Turkey. You know, from what I'd
been hearing from people, there were prospects of political prisoners
(02:16):
being released of contacts between the state and of Dela
Ojealon being re established, which could have been the opening
of a new peace process. If you follow this, you
know the PKK declared a ceasefire prior to the elections.
They initially said that it was following the earthquake in
order to not allow the conflict to intervene with humanitarian efforts,
(02:37):
but they did very explicitly extend it through the elections,
and the discussions around that that I heard in Iraqi, Kurdistan,
in Northeast Syria and in Europe made it very clear
that that was an opening to hopefully be able to
leverage it into a larger piece process were there to
be a political change. But that change didn't happends. The
(03:01):
situation did not improve. Ardwan continued his crackdown and his
military aggression against Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and for
democracy in Turkey, for the condition of the opposition, for
the condition of all the groups oppressed under Aerowan's regime,
whether that's women, whether that's workers, whether that's the earthquake
victims that have been left behind. Things didn't get better.
(03:24):
So these elections were an opportunity for people to register
their disapproval in a way that I think many might
have wished that they could have a year ago, and
that disapproval was registered for the first time. Air Dowan's party,
the Justice and Development Party or the AKP, was not
the first place party in Turkey. The main opposition CHP
(03:48):
actually overtook them the pro Kurdish People's Equality and Democracy
Party or the DEM Party, which used to be the HDP.
So if I call it the HDP, I'm sorry. Went
Actually there was a el were much more in line
with what they had done in the past. They performed,
you know, right on standard. They actually won more municipalities
than they did in twenty nineteen, and there was a
(04:10):
lot of enthusiasm for change among Kurds, among supporters of
the opposition, you know, among people who I think had
wanted to see things start to move in a more
democratic direction last year. So that was a very big
deal for that reason, and it also shows the fact
that Airedwan is not necessarily as invincible in twenty twenty
(04:33):
eight as people feared he would be.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, So talking of invincibility, I think that's a good
kind of key into our next topic, which is that
the elections weren't exactly like a smooth kind of I
guess concession by Idowan and by his party. Right, can
you explain to people who aren't familiar with this what happened?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, So, to start, before the elections, over seventy five
percent of voters who supported six sucessful pro Kurdish mayoral
candidates had their elected representation taken away from them. The
government removed and imprisoned elected mayors and replaced them with
regime loyalist trustees who essentially ruled these municipalities on direct
(05:16):
orders from Erdowan in Ankarab. So this was on an
unfair playing field for the Kurdish political movement to begin with,
very unfair playing field for the main opposition as well.
Atkreme Mamuluh's, the very popular mayor of Istanbul, who just
won reelection by a very large margin, as a criminal
case against him that could have him banned from politics.
(05:37):
So this was very difficult in the Kurdish regions. There
were many many irregularities on election day. One that a
lot of people were discussing were these so called mobile voters,
where the government actually sent members of the security forces,
predominantly from Western Turkey into Kurdish cities to vote in
large groups for the ruling AKP. You know, there's a
(06:01):
lot of videos taken by local media, local politicians and
activists challenging these people, asking them where they're from, and
then videos of them all crowding into the airports and
back on their buses flying back to Western Turkey the
next day, so you know, they're not even making a
pretense of being local voters that shifted the results in
some districts in Schernock, which is a very heavily militarized
(06:23):
province where the government bases a lot of its military campaigns,
you know, into the occupied regions of Iraq and Syria
from the pro Kurdish political movement alleges that these voters
shifted the outcome. So you had that kind of outright
attempts at theft in addition to the context of repression.
And then most brazenly, just one day after the election,
(06:45):
the local provincial election board denied a mandate of victory,
you know, essentially the documents certifying that a candidate has
won the elections and will be allowed to assume office
to the pro Kurdish candidate Bill A. Zaidon in the
province of Vaughan, which is a heavily Kurdish province, where
the dem Party won all fourteen district municipalities and the
(07:08):
metropolitan municipality as well. So the local election authority essentially said, no,
you can't run. There's been a last minute legal finding
that you're unfit to run for office, as there always is, right,
And then they tried to give the municipality to the
candidate from Erdowon's party, the AKP, who got less than
half of the number of votes.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Right, yeah, so kind of yeah, and validating the results, well,
you're going to break briefly for an advert here, and
then moved back. Right, we're back. So when they tried
(07:51):
to invalidate these results right into install representatives, I guess
you could call them that who didn't win the popular vote,
there was like a significant street response to that, right
can you talk us through that? And then the repression
of it and the results of it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Absolutely so. There were mass demonstrations in Vaughan in other
Kurdish provinces, and these are people coming out who not
ten years ago saw the military raising their cities to
the ground, killing civilians in the streets. This is a
very costly endeavor. For Kurdish people in these provinces to
go protest. That's why you haven't seen it to such
(08:27):
a degree as was seen in the nineties, in the
early two thousands, since the collapse of the peace process
and that violent military campaign in the cities. But last
night they were out in full force, and very notably,
they weren't alone. There were protests in Istanbul and solidarity
as well, you know, carried out by Kurds living there,
(08:48):
but also by leftist parties, by feminists, by Kurdish religious organizations,
by all the segments of civil society that have sort
of oriented around the pro Kurdish political movement. And there
was also a pretty significant reaction from the main opposition CHP,
which is not known for radicalism. You had the CHP
(09:09):
party leader Osgara Ozel saying that it was illegitimate for
the government to deny a candidate a mandate, and then
you had Imamulu in Istanbul also criticizing the decision, saying
it was illegitimate and calling on the government to respect
the popular will. So at the same time you had
this outcry across the Turkish political spectrum. You had tens
(09:30):
of thousands of people out protesting, braving police violence. You know,
there were armed pro government vigilantes caught on video shooting
into crowds. There was very, very harrowing videos of beatings
and torture of civilians. Journalists were attacked and prevented from
covering the protests. This was a very difficult situation to watch,
(09:52):
and a lot of people that I was speaking to
were worrying about a return to the level of violence
that was seen in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. Were
things to escalate, but you know, sometimes there's good news
in Turkey and Kurdistan. Not always, but sometimes, you know,
in Turkish you'd say d nae Kazlanachaz will win by resisting,
(10:14):
and in Kurdish you'd say berghludan Jiana, resistance is life
and that sort of Those are very famous protest slogans
that proved really accurate last night, because today Turkey's Supreme
Electoral Council actually reversed the attempt to give the election
to the losing pro government candidate and gave the Dun
party candidate his mandate back. So they've said that he
(10:36):
will be allowed to assume office. And I think they
looked at this huge street protest. They looked at this
opposition coming from not only the pro Kurdish political movement
but many different political forces in Turkey, and the state
decided to back down. They decided not to pick this
(10:57):
fight now. And you know, that's not to say that
voter suppression in other provinces wasn't an issue. That's not
to say that there are still outcomes that are being contested.
You know, the government's doing a lot of very unfair
things right now to try to take districts from the
CHP and from the pro Kurdish political movement. But what
this does show is that when people insist on a
(11:20):
democratic outcome, and when they are willing to stand up
for it in large numbers and face the consequences the
difficulty of doing that, that even regimes like air dons,
these very you know, autocratic, far right governments have a
point at which they will back down. And I think
(11:40):
that that display of resistance and solidarity getting a government
like that to back down is something that can be
very hopeful for people around the world.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Right now. Yeah, definitely. I mean we've seen like just
to the stuff we've cold or obviously the United States,
but also in Mianma, like increasingly it's becoming harder and
harder for states to people's right to be represented or
to be heard, and like that's a good thing Germany
for democracy. Yeah, I wanted to ask about you spoke
a little bit about the Turkish military's incursions into northern
(12:12):
Assyria and into Iraqi Curtistan Curdistan Autonomous Region. Can you
explain that there's a lot of like I think Turkey
is pretty clearly like telegraphed plants for increased military activity
in that region. So can you explain, like what's what's
being proposed and what that means.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So, I think because they have gone into this election
and found themselves weakened, this is something that could make
Aerdon very dangerous. One thing that the government has always
done when it's found itself weak is try to polarize
society by attacking the Kurds both domestically and internationally in Iraqi,
(12:53):
Kurdistan and in North East Syria. Of course, you have
the AKP government's loss of its majority in the twenty
fifteen elections during the peace process becoming the reason for
the government's abandonment of the peace process itself. Then in
twenty nineteen after the local elections where the government lost
control of Istanbul and Ancara for the first time. That
(13:14):
was very quickly followed with the appointment of state trustees
to Kurdish municipalities and then the invasion of North and
East Syria following Ardwan's agreement with Donald Trump about that.
And so this does look like the kind of context
in which he has lashed out against Kurds in Iraq
and Syria before. And given these threats that you mentioned
(13:35):
that he has been making, the diplomatic traffic between Turkey
and Iraq, Turkey and Iran, Turkey and the US and Europe,
they do appear to be preparing for something now. I
was just on the ground in North and East Syria
and in Iraqi Kurdistan, and I heard from many people
that they're concerned the threats that the government has been
(13:56):
making a peur to suggest that they might try to
go for a geographically larger military operation this time. There's
a chance that instead of only conducting their typical spring
offensive into Iraqi Kurdistan, which usually gets them nowhere, they
might also attempt to invade northern Syria as well. Of course,
(14:16):
that's very internationally contingent. They would need a green light
from the Americans and from the Russians to be able
to violate those ceasefires and go in there. But the
threat's very real. It's something that people are very concerned
about on the ground, and I think that it's worth
paying attention to, and particularly for those of US and
countries that are allied with the Turkish government making noise about,
(14:38):
you know, opposing trying to get onto the agenda, so
that permission is not given here and they're not incentivized
to do this.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, I think that's a very good point, because, like
Kurdish issues are ones that don't come up very much
in the press in the United States for the most part,
and people and their representatives don't hear about them very much.
But this is one of those like maybe right to
your rep that doesn't a lot of shit isn't going
to get changed with an email to your elected officials,
but especially like certain officials who are on you know,
(15:07):
foreign relations to committees or something, as well as as
like other forms of political activism could help here, right, like,
especially in an election year like that, that's a way
to stop that.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Now, this is something that needs to be made into
an issue. And one thing I hear time and time again,
whether I'm speaking to people from the Autonomous Administration, the
YPG and the YPG or pro Kurdish politicians in Turkey
is they know, you know, the weapons that are being
used against them, the tear gas canisters, you know, the
drone parts, the bombs, the equipment, the military training that
(15:41):
these personnel get. It all comes from Europe, the United States,
NATO countries that are allied with Turkey. There's a lot
of leverage and you know, pushing to end that military
support is something that could be done right now, that
could be very important. And really, you know, this is
something where one feels almost on one makes these calls
(16:01):
like once constantly asking you know, you should do this
for these people because they're being oppressed and your government
has a say in it. But we really benefit from
this too, Right if you look at what the Kurdish
people and their allies in Turkey have done and standing
up for democracy in getting the government to reverse this
attempt to steal an election, you know, that's one small
example of the very powerful democratic tradition that they have.
(16:24):
That is something that we can learn from. You know,
whether you're in the US or in Europe, in many
different countries around the world right now, the threat of
authoritarianism and the sort of far right politics of which
Airedwan is an example. It's an international threat, and you know,
standing with the people who've been able to resist it
is something that you know can benefit us all around
(16:46):
the world as well.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah, and like it presents a vision for a future
in which we all stand united against state violence around
the world, rather than being isolated and gradually destroyed by
various states and violent actives talking I guess of violent actors.
The one more thing I wanted to cover with we're
jumping around a little bit was that, like, I think
people will probably have seen at least maybe their social
(17:11):
media timelines are different than mine, but there was a
lot of violence against Kurdish people in Northern Europe recently,
right in Belgium, I think, I think maybe in Germany
as well. Explain a little bit of that. Like it's
we get into a little bit of like like Turkish
fascist politics as well, but can you explain what was
going on there?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So this all began when some far right Turkish nationalists
started threatening a Kurdish family after returning from Neil Rose
or Kurdish New Year celebrations and escalated into you know,
essentially these far right vigilantes prowling the streets looking for
Kurds and Kurdish businesses to attack. And this is not
(17:50):
something new at all. The Turkish government has invested a
great deal in allowing these structures to operate in Europe.
You have the GRABLE, which are a fascist paramilitary actually
the paramilitary wing of the party with which Airdwon is
currently allied and with which he has a majority in parliament,
the National Action Party or the MHP. You know, this
(18:13):
is a group that's been responsible for murders and assassinations
and all kinds of attacks on Kurds, other minorities, dissidents,
and has been responsible for violence in Europe as well.
You have the government encouraging religious fundamentalism through its network
of religious institutions in Europe and trying to make that
(18:34):
very extreme and very politically instrumentalized vision of religion popular
amongst the Turkish community. And then you have you know,
Turkish intelligence assets able to freely operate and conduct all
kinds of attacks on Kurdish dissidents. You know, within the
(18:54):
very center of Europe. Right, we all remember in twenty
thirteen the assassination of Sakina Johnson in front of the
Kurdish Community Center in Paris. That murder was never solved.
The perpetrator, who they caught, very conveniently died in prison
before he was set to go to trial. Turkish responsibility
has never been proven in court, I think because there
(19:16):
are a lot of people who don't want a full
investigation of a case like that to come out. And then,
just I believe yesterday or maybe the day before, it
came out that a Belgian court found alleged Turkish operatives
responsible for planning attacks on two very senior Kurdish diplomats
in Belgium who are members of the Kurdistan National Congress,
(19:38):
which is sort of like the de facto foreign ministry
of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. You know, these individuals
had been spying on the Kurdistan National Congress building, They'd
been in contact with Turkish officials, They'd been planning assassinations
very senior politicians. This is a real problem. You know,
these groups and the state itself are able to freely
(20:01):
attack civilians, plot murders and do violence and really cause chaos,
and that's something that's very dangerous, not only for the
Kurdish community, but for really anybody living in their way.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah. Yeah, and there are a lot of people who
would rightly want that to stop. I think, so, like,
what's the current situation is a number of people were
like beaten. Was somebody kidnapped? Did I see what was that?
I didn't see any further reporting on that than one photo.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It was very serious. I mean, there were people were attacked.
I'm not exactly certain of the extent of kidnappings or
other instances like that, but this was some very serious violence.
And we know what these groups are capable of. They
have killed people and they have essentially gotten away with it.
So it may have dived down for now, which is
(20:50):
certainly good. And obviously, you know, we saw a lot
of calls for restraint, you know, from the Kurdish community,
a lot of calls for these European governments essentially to
do their job and prevent these groups from you know,
importing their nationalist campaigns against a persecuted minority to a
place where you know, these chords have fled to be
(21:10):
free from that sort of thing. So it stopped for now,
but it's very much not over, you know. I when
you see the Kurdish community in Europe and spend time
with them and look at the security precautions that they
have to take just to hold conferences and cultural festivals, Yeah,
it's really quite disheartening.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah. Yeah, especially like you say, in northern Europe, like
they're not in Turkey. They left Turkey to avoid that stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
We'll take a second outbreak here and then we'll be
back to finish up. So for the last part, do
you have anything you want to add that we haven't
got to yet.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I think that, you know, overall, looking at the situation
in Turkey following these elections, looking at the situation in Europe,
we're seeing that the Turkish government continues to be an
example of the danger of these kinds of far right nationalist,
religious fundamentalist regimes that are on the rise everywhere. These
(22:14):
are political trends that are growing around the world, and
Airdowan and his current Turkish government are a very clear
example of the danger that that causes not to just
the population of a country, but to neighboring countries, to
diaspora communities that have left that have gone elsewhere. That
(22:36):
maintain their culture and maintain their interest in political organizing.
So these are threats that people are going to be
looking at around the world, and I think it's very
important to be following the situation in Turkey for that reason.
But at the same time, looking at how the Kurdish
people and their allies in Turkey, you know, on the left,
in workers' movements, in feminist movements and all of these
(22:57):
sort of groups that have also been victed by Erdowan's regime.
We're seeing that resistance is possible, that people can stand
up for democracy and they can win, and that look right,
nobody's giving up on their work. You know, the KMK
doesn't stop advocating for Kurdish interests in a diplomatic capacity
(23:18):
because their members face threats. You know, these people go
to work every single day, you know, in Roosjeva, in
North and Eastsyria, in Iraqi, Kurdistan, Kurdish groups, you know,
Kurdish political organizations, Kurdish politicians and activists, they continue building
up their project. You know, I said, I was just
in northern Syria. It's extremely difficult right now. People don't
have electricity, people don't have water because Turkey bombed all
(23:40):
the infrastructure, but still they're celebrating Noil Rose. You know,
they're talking about their upcoming local elections that they want
to hold and how to hold them in the best way.
You know, They're talking about their new social contract and
how they can implement it. They're moving forward constantly despite
the threats that they're facing. And I think that that,
you know, many of you listening to this are people
(24:03):
who are probably looking to improve and change the society
that you live in. And so when we look at
what's going on in Turkey and in Kurdistan, we can
see both very clear examples of what it is that
people who want change are up against, but also what
they can accomplish even under those conditions.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, I think like one of the things I took
from going to Kurdistan was like how invested, like how
genuine the solidarity that those people have with other like
oppressed groups. It's like I spent as much time answering
questions about me and ma as I did like asking
questions about Kurdistan, which was surprising to me, but they
(24:42):
obviously happy to do it. But like it would be
nice to see some of that solidarity come back from
the us, right, so are they're like, I mean, I
guess you can come down to the border and help
Kurdish people literally any day of the week if you'd
like to do that all the time. But what concrete
actions can people take, especially with regard to like helping
(25:02):
your self administration in North and East Syria right, Like
they're facing constant attacks, power stations get bombed, Like all
my friends there are always struggling to have power, internet
or even like electricity, and they got flooded recently on
top of all that. Yeah, so like their concrete actions
people can take to help to be in solidarity.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Oh absolutely, I mean I think one thing, if you
have expertise on anything to do with, you know, power
grids that are resilient to these kinds of attacks, on
alternative clean energy sources, anything that could possibly help people
in a situation like this live they want expertise. There's
a lot of problems that they're facing that they simply
(25:43):
because of the war, don't have the capacity not only
to solve, but even to start thinking about how it
is that one solves a problem like this, because there
just aren't that many societies in the world going through it.
So any kind of expertise in addressing energy issues, environmental issues,
(26:03):
these kinds of problems, the second and third order effects
of the attacks on infrastructure, on oil and gas, on
power facilities, that would be very important. They really do
need that, and that's something you know, you can write
to us at the Kurdish Piece Institute. We can connect
you with people. If you have contacts on the ground there,
you can talk to them. That's one thing. Then at
(26:24):
the end of the day, you know, they have these
elections coming up. That is a big step for them.
They've just put out a new social contract. They're really
trying to listen to some of the internal criticisms that
they get and really build up the civil, social political
side of their system. You know, there's a belief among
many people there that I've talked to that because of
(26:45):
the existential nature of these wars that they're fighting, they
haven't been able to really pursue the political elements of
their revolution to the degree that they want to. And
they're trying to do that now. They have this new
social Contract. It's an incredible document. You can read it.
Going to hold municipal elections on May thirtieth, I believe
is the date that was announced. So any if you
(27:07):
know a lot about electoral systems, if you have done
election observation before, if you want to help them do
that right and get international attention for what it is
that they're doing. That's another way that people have been
telling me that you can help. And then finally, you know,
if you're here listening in the US, Airdowan is coming
to the White House on May ninth. According to reports
(27:30):
from Turkish and international media, there is going to be
a demonstration. There will probably be a lot of campaigns
around that demonstration as well, on things like conditioning and
ending arm sales and security assistants, on calls for peace,
on calls for the US to end its support for
(27:52):
and enablement of Turkey's occupation of Iraq and Syria, It's
repression of its Kurdish people at home, and so anything
that you can do to join those actions in those
campaigns would be very helpful. You know, this is going
to be an opportunity to let both Airdowan and the
White House hear what the American people think about US
support for what the Turkish government is doing. So be there,
(28:16):
get involved. That's one way that we can, you know,
make our voices heard and try to push for a
change in policy.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, I think that's great. I think people should like
if you want an example of I guess the US complicity.
Like while I was in Kurdistan, there was a bombing
that killed thirty nine SI like internal security forces, and
that was like a plane that your tax dollars if
you live in the US developed, right, like an F
sixteen with munitions that you probably sold to them, and
(28:47):
the US is selling has sold more F sixteen since then, right, yes, yeah,
so like that is a thing that we could stop,
and that would concretely stop. Like I spoke to a
mother who lost her son. I think it was like
fourteen fifteen little football player. They had pictures of him
all over the house, right, Like it was really heartbreaking stuff.
(29:07):
And I know that this happens a lot in other
parts of the world. I'm not saying that's one important too,
but yeah, it's it's always hard to talk to parents
who have lost their kids, and you can stop that happening.
If we don't sell them the F sixteens that do that,
then they don't have the ability to do it, at
least not as much.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
And this is one way that we can connect struggles
and causes as well, because it's all the same companies
that are providing equipment to all of these states that
are doing this. You know, the targets are the same
for these kinds of campaigns. And look, you know all
of these governments, all of these corporations, they know that
they're on the same side. We don't always know that
(29:44):
we're on the same side too, And so I think
that getting together and pointing out the patterns and standing
against you know, these arms sales and security assistants in
the context of Kurdistan alongside many other contexts where they're
also very destructive, is an important way that we can
sort of amplify our efforts to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a very good, very good point.
Like I live in San Diego. Almost every single bomb
that has fallen on Palestine and many of the wads
a full on Kurdistan. Have you know the company that
sold that has an office here? Like if they're the
places where you can apply pressure in places where you
can hopefully make a change, Megan, where can people you
(30:24):
mentioned like emailing you, Where can people find you? How
can people keep up to date with what's happening? In Kurdistan.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, of course. So you can go to Kurdishpeace dot org.
That's the website of our institute. If you go to
our about page, my contact is on there. You can
always reach out to me whether you have a question
about Kurdistan, you want to read our research and analysis.
You know you're a journalist or an analyst and you
want to submit something yourself, we can help you there.
(30:51):
We're also on Twitter at Kurdish piece org. And yeah,
that's a great way for you to follow. In the
English language. If you're looking for resource is on the ground,
you can follow North Press Agency, which publishes in English,
the Roulejeva Information Center which publishes in English. And then
you know, get involved with your local Kurdish community in
(31:12):
a lot of major cities in the US. If you're
in New York, if you're in Boston, if you're in
the DMV area, if you're in California, like you know,
there are active Kurdish communities, and you know, go to
a cultural event, go to a demonstration, you'll find both
great ways to get connected and really get plugged into
solidarity efforts. But also you know, a wonderful community and
(31:34):
a wonderful culture that I think, you know, anyone would be.
I've certainly been, you know, very happy to have experienced.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
So yeah, yeah, great, Thank you so much, Megan. That
was great.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Thank you. It Could Happen year as a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website zonemedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen here,
updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Also media. Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast. It's me
today and I'm joined by Meghan Burdett, who is the
director of research at the Kurdish Peace Institute. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Meghan, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, thanks for joining us. So what we wanted to
talk about today was these local elections that have been
happening in Turkey in the last week or so. We're
recording in very early aprils that it happened I think
towards the end of March, right, yeah, March thirty. First, Yeah,
so can you explain to listeners first of all, Like
I mean, I've heard about these Turkish local elections almost
(00:38):
constantly for the past several months, because I hear about
them from Kurdish migrants leaving Turkey. Almost every time I'm
at the border. I meet people and they tell me.
Can you explain sort of the context of these elections,
the concerns going into them.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, of course. So first off, these are the first
elections in Turkey following the presidential and parliamentary vote last
year that was as a huge disappointment for the opposition
and also for a couple of separate reasons and a
couple of similar reasons for the pro Kurdish political movement
as well. The opposition underperformed last year. They were not
(01:13):
able to defeat Erdowan as the polling and the sentiment
in the country had suggested that they would, and the
pro Kurdish political movement also underperformed as well. They did
not win as many seats or as many votes as
they usually do, and a lot of that was attributed
to the very complex Alliance decisions they made, choosing not
(01:34):
to run their own presidential candidate and instead ask their
voters to vote for the CHP, which is the main
opposition party that has a history of being very nationalist
and violent and exclusionary towards Kurds. Though things have changed
in these past twenty years, voters didn't understand that. A
lot of voters weren't happy with that, and then there
were some local level issues with selections of candidates as well,
(01:55):
and then of course the climate of very severe political repression,
and had the Opposition one there was a lot of
hope that it would have started to change things on
the Kurdish issue in Turkey. You know, from what I'd
been hearing from people, there were prospects of political prisoners
(02:16):
being released of contacts between the state and of Dela
Ojealon being re established, which could have been the opening
of a new peace process. If you follow this, you
know the PKK declared a ceasefire prior to the elections.
They initially said that it was following the earthquake in
order to not allow the conflict to intervene with humanitarian efforts,
(02:37):
but they did very explicitly extend it through the elections,
and the discussions around that that I heard in Iraqi, Kurdistan,
in Northeast Syria and in Europe made it very clear
that that was an opening to hopefully be able to
leverage it into a larger piece process were there to
be a political change. But that change didn't happends. The
(03:01):
situation did not improve. Ardwan continued his crackdown and his
military aggression against Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and for
democracy in Turkey, for the condition of the opposition, for
the condition of all the groups oppressed under Aerowan's regime,
whether that's women, whether that's workers, whether that's the earthquake
victims that have been left behind. Things didn't get better.
(03:24):
So these elections were an opportunity for people to register
their disapproval in a way that I think many might
have wished that they could have a year ago, and
that disapproval was registered for the first time. Air Dowan's party,
the Justice and Development Party or the AKP, was not
the first place party in Turkey. The main opposition CHP
(03:48):
actually overtook them the pro Kurdish People's Equality and Democracy
Party or the DEM Party, which used to be the HDP.
So if I call it the HDP, I'm sorry. Went
Actually there was a el were much more in line
with what they had done in the past. They performed,
you know, right on standard. They actually won more municipalities
than they did in twenty nineteen, and there was a
(04:10):
lot of enthusiasm for change among Kurds, among supporters of
the opposition, you know, among people who I think had
wanted to see things start to move in a more
democratic direction last year. So that was a very big
deal for that reason, and it also shows the fact
that Airedwan is not necessarily as invincible in twenty twenty
(04:33):
eight as people feared he would be.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, So talking of invincibility, I think that's a good
kind of key into our next topic, which is that
the elections weren't exactly like a smooth kind of I
guess concession by Idowan and by his party. Right, can
you explain to people who aren't familiar with this what happened?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, So, to start, before the elections, over seventy five
percent of voters who supported six sucessful pro Kurdish mayoral
candidates had their elected representation taken away from them. The
government removed and imprisoned elected mayors and replaced them with
regime loyalist trustees who essentially ruled these municipalities on direct
(05:16):
orders from Erdowan in Ankarab. So this was on an
unfair playing field for the Kurdish political movement to begin with,
very unfair playing field for the main opposition as well.
Atkreme Mamuluh's, the very popular mayor of Istanbul, who just
won reelection by a very large margin, as a criminal
case against him that could have him banned from politics.
(05:37):
So this was very difficult in the Kurdish regions. There
were many many irregularities on election day. One that a
lot of people were discussing were these so called mobile voters,
where the government actually sent members of the security forces,
predominantly from Western Turkey into Kurdish cities to vote in
large groups for the ruling AKP. You know, there's a
(06:01):
lot of videos taken by local media, local politicians and
activists challenging these people, asking them where they're from, and
then videos of them all crowding into the airports and
back on their buses flying back to Western Turkey the
next day, so you know, they're not even making a
pretense of being local voters that shifted the results in
some districts in Schernock, which is a very heavily militarized
(06:23):
province where the government bases a lot of its military campaigns,
you know, into the occupied regions of Iraq and Syria
from the pro Kurdish political movement alleges that these voters
shifted the outcome. So you had that kind of outright
attempts at theft in addition to the context of repression.
And then most brazenly, just one day after the election,
(06:45):
the local provincial election board denied a mandate of victory,
you know, essentially the documents certifying that a candidate has
won the elections and will be allowed to assume office
to the pro Kurdish candidate Bill A. Zaidon in the
province of Vaughan, which is a heavily Kurdish province, where
the dem Party won all fourteen district municipalities and the
(07:08):
metropolitan municipality as well. So the local election authority essentially said, no,
you can't run. There's been a last minute legal finding
that you're unfit to run for office, as there always is, right,
And then they tried to give the municipality to the
candidate from Erdowon's party, the AKP, who got less than
half of the number of votes.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Right, yeah, so kind of yeah, and validating the results, well,
you're going to break briefly for an advert here, and
then moved back. Right, we're back. So when they tried
(07:51):
to invalidate these results right into install representatives, I guess
you could call them that who didn't win the popular vote,
there was like a significant street response to that, right
can you talk us through that? And then the repression
of it and the results of it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Absolutely so. There were mass demonstrations in Vaughan in other
Kurdish provinces, and these are people coming out who not
ten years ago saw the military raising their cities to
the ground, killing civilians in the streets. This is a
very costly endeavor. For Kurdish people in these provinces to
go protest. That's why you haven't seen it to such
(08:27):
a degree as was seen in the nineties, in the
early two thousands, since the collapse of the peace process
and that violent military campaign in the cities. But last
night they were out in full force, and very notably,
they weren't alone. There were protests in Istanbul and solidarity
as well, you know, carried out by Kurds living there,
(08:48):
but also by leftist parties, by feminists, by Kurdish religious organizations,
by all the segments of civil society that have sort
of oriented around the pro Kurdish political movement. And there
was also a pretty significant reaction from the main opposition CHP,
which is not known for radicalism. You had the CHP
(09:09):
party leader Osgara Ozel saying that it was illegitimate for
the government to deny a candidate a mandate, and then
you had Imamulu in Istanbul also criticizing the decision, saying
it was illegitimate and calling on the government to respect
the popular will. So at the same time you had
this outcry across the Turkish political spectrum. You had tens
(09:30):
of thousands of people out protesting, braving police violence. You know,
there were armed pro government vigilantes caught on video shooting
into crowds. There was very, very harrowing videos of beatings
and torture of civilians. Journalists were attacked and prevented from
covering the protests. This was a very difficult situation to watch,
(09:52):
and a lot of people that I was speaking to
were worrying about a return to the level of violence
that was seen in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. Were
things to escalate, but you know, sometimes there's good news
in Turkey and Kurdistan. Not always, but sometimes, you know,
in Turkish you'd say d nae Kazlanachaz will win by resisting,
(10:14):
and in Kurdish you'd say berghludan Jiana, resistance is life
and that sort of Those are very famous protest slogans
that proved really accurate last night, because today Turkey's Supreme
Electoral Council actually reversed the attempt to give the election
to the losing pro government candidate and gave the Dun
party candidate his mandate back. So they've said that he
(10:36):
will be allowed to assume office. And I think they
looked at this huge street protest. They looked at this
opposition coming from not only the pro Kurdish political movement
but many different political forces in Turkey, and the state
decided to back down. They decided not to pick this
(10:57):
fight now. And you know, that's not to say that
voter suppression in other provinces wasn't an issue. That's not
to say that there are still outcomes that are being contested.
You know, the government's doing a lot of very unfair
things right now to try to take districts from the
CHP and from the pro Kurdish political movement. But what
this does show is that when people insist on a
(11:20):
democratic outcome, and when they are willing to stand up
for it in large numbers and face the consequences the
difficulty of doing that, that even regimes like air dons,
these very you know, autocratic, far right governments have a
point at which they will back down. And I think
(11:40):
that that display of resistance and solidarity getting a government
like that to back down is something that can be
very hopeful for people around the world.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Right now. Yeah, definitely. I mean we've seen like just
to the stuff we've cold or obviously the United States,
but also in Mianma, like increasingly it's becoming harder and
harder for states to people's right to be represented or
to be heard, and like that's a good thing Germany
for democracy. Yeah, I wanted to ask about you spoke
a little bit about the Turkish military's incursions into northern
(12:12):
Assyria and into Iraqi Curtistan Curdistan Autonomous Region. Can you
explain that there's a lot of like I think Turkey
is pretty clearly like telegraphed plants for increased military activity
in that region. So can you explain, like what's what's
being proposed and what that means.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So, I think because they have gone into this election
and found themselves weakened, this is something that could make
Aerdon very dangerous. One thing that the government has always
done when it's found itself weak is try to polarize
society by attacking the Kurds both domestically and internationally in Iraqi,
(12:53):
Kurdistan and in North East Syria. Of course, you have
the AKP government's loss of its majority in the twenty
fifteen elections during the peace process becoming the reason for
the government's abandonment of the peace process itself. Then in
twenty nineteen after the local elections where the government lost
control of Istanbul and Ancara for the first time. That
(13:14):
was very quickly followed with the appointment of state trustees
to Kurdish municipalities and then the invasion of North and
East Syria following Ardwan's agreement with Donald Trump about that.
And so this does look like the kind of context
in which he has lashed out against Kurds in Iraq
and Syria before. And given these threats that you mentioned
(13:35):
that he has been making, the diplomatic traffic between Turkey
and Iraq, Turkey and Iran, Turkey and the US and Europe,
they do appear to be preparing for something now. I
was just on the ground in North and East Syria
and in Iraqi Kurdistan, and I heard from many people
that they're concerned the threats that the government has been
(13:56):
making a peur to suggest that they might try to
go for a geographically larger military operation this time. There's
a chance that instead of only conducting their typical spring
offensive into Iraqi Kurdistan, which usually gets them nowhere, they
might also attempt to invade northern Syria as well. Of course,
(14:16):
that's very internationally contingent. They would need a green light
from the Americans and from the Russians to be able
to violate those ceasefires and go in there. But the
threat's very real. It's something that people are very concerned
about on the ground, and I think that it's worth
paying attention to, and particularly for those of US and
countries that are allied with the Turkish government making noise about,
(14:38):
you know, opposing trying to get onto the agenda, so
that permission is not given here and they're not incentivized
to do this.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, I think that's a very good point, because, like
Kurdish issues are ones that don't come up very much
in the press in the United States for the most part,
and people and their representatives don't hear about them very much.
But this is one of those like maybe right to
your rep that doesn't a lot of shit isn't going
to get changed with an email to your elected officials,
but especially like certain officials who are on you know,
(15:07):
foreign relations to committees or something, as well as as
like other forms of political activism could help here, right, like,
especially in an election year like that, that's a way
to stop that.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Now, this is something that needs to be made into
an issue. And one thing I hear time and time again,
whether I'm speaking to people from the Autonomous Administration, the
YPG and the YPG or pro Kurdish politicians in Turkey
is they know, you know, the weapons that are being
used against them, the tear gas canisters, you know, the
drone parts, the bombs, the equipment, the military training that
(15:41):
these personnel get. It all comes from Europe, the United States,
NATO countries that are allied with Turkey. There's a lot
of leverage and you know, pushing to end that military
support is something that could be done right now, that
could be very important. And really, you know, this is
something where one feels almost on one makes these calls
(16:01):
like once constantly asking you know, you should do this
for these people because they're being oppressed and your government
has a say in it. But we really benefit from
this too, Right if you look at what the Kurdish
people and their allies in Turkey have done and standing
up for democracy in getting the government to reverse this
attempt to steal an election, you know, that's one small
example of the very powerful democratic tradition that they have.
(16:24):
That is something that we can learn from. You know,
whether you're in the US or in Europe, in many
different countries around the world right now, the threat of
authoritarianism and the sort of far right politics of which
Airedwan is an example. It's an international threat, and you know,
standing with the people who've been able to resist it
is something that you know can benefit us all around
(16:46):
the world as well.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah, and like it presents a vision for a future
in which we all stand united against state violence around
the world, rather than being isolated and gradually destroyed by
various states and violent actives talking I guess of violent actors.
The one more thing I wanted to cover with we're
jumping around a little bit was that, like, I think
people will probably have seen at least maybe their social
(17:11):
media timelines are different than mine, but there was a
lot of violence against Kurdish people in Northern Europe recently,
right in Belgium, I think, I think maybe in Germany
as well. Explain a little bit of that. Like it's
we get into a little bit of like like Turkish
fascist politics as well, but can you explain what was
going on there?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So this all began when some far right Turkish nationalists
started threatening a Kurdish family after returning from Neil Rose
or Kurdish New Year celebrations and escalated into you know,
essentially these far right vigilantes prowling the streets looking for
Kurds and Kurdish businesses to attack. And this is not
(17:50):
something new at all. The Turkish government has invested a
great deal in allowing these structures to operate in Europe.
You have the GRABLE, which are a fascist paramilitary actually
the paramilitary wing of the party with which Airdwon is
currently allied and with which he has a majority in parliament,
the National Action Party or the MHP. You know, this
(18:13):
is a group that's been responsible for murders and assassinations
and all kinds of attacks on Kurds, other minorities, dissidents,
and has been responsible for violence in Europe as well.
You have the government encouraging religious fundamentalism through its network
of religious institutions in Europe and trying to make that
(18:34):
very extreme and very politically instrumentalized vision of religion popular
amongst the Turkish community. And then you have you know,
Turkish intelligence assets able to freely operate and conduct all
kinds of attacks on Kurdish dissidents. You know, within the
(18:54):
very center of Europe. Right, we all remember in twenty
thirteen the assassination of Sakina Johnson in front of the
Kurdish Community Center in Paris. That murder was never solved.
The perpetrator, who they caught, very conveniently died in prison
before he was set to go to trial. Turkish responsibility
has never been proven in court, I think because there
(19:16):
are a lot of people who don't want a full
investigation of a case like that to come out. And then,
just I believe yesterday or maybe the day before, it
came out that a Belgian court found alleged Turkish operatives
responsible for planning attacks on two very senior Kurdish diplomats
in Belgium who are members of the Kurdistan National Congress,
(19:38):
which is sort of like the de facto foreign ministry
of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. You know, these individuals
had been spying on the Kurdistan National Congress building, They'd
been in contact with Turkish officials, They'd been planning assassinations
very senior politicians. This is a real problem. You know,
these groups and the state itself are able to freely
(20:01):
attack civilians, plot murders and do violence and really cause chaos,
and that's something that's very dangerous, not only for the
Kurdish community, but for really anybody living in their way.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah. Yeah, and there are a lot of people who
would rightly want that to stop. I think, so, like,
what's the current situation is a number of people were
like beaten. Was somebody kidnapped? Did I see what was that?
I didn't see any further reporting on that than one photo.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It was very serious. I mean, there were people were attacked.
I'm not exactly certain of the extent of kidnappings or
other instances like that, but this was some very serious violence.
And we know what these groups are capable of. They
have killed people and they have essentially gotten away with it.
So it may have dived down for now, which is
(20:50):
certainly good. And obviously, you know, we saw a lot
of calls for restraint, you know, from the Kurdish community,
a lot of calls for these European governments essentially to
do their job and prevent these groups from you know,
importing their nationalist campaigns against a persecuted minority to a
place where you know, these chords have fled to be
(21:10):
free from that sort of thing. So it stopped for now,
but it's very much not over, you know. I when
you see the Kurdish community in Europe and spend time
with them and look at the security precautions that they
have to take just to hold conferences and cultural festivals, Yeah,
it's really quite disheartening.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah. Yeah, especially like you say, in northern Europe, like
they're not in Turkey. They left Turkey to avoid that stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
We'll take a second outbreak here and then we'll be
back to finish up. So for the last part, do
you have anything you want to add that we haven't
got to yet.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I think that, you know, overall, looking at the situation
in Turkey following these elections, looking at the situation in Europe,
we're seeing that the Turkish government continues to be an
example of the danger of these kinds of far right nationalist,
religious fundamentalist regimes that are on the rise everywhere. These
(22:14):
are political trends that are growing around the world, and
Airdowan and his current Turkish government are a very clear
example of the danger that that causes not to just
the population of a country, but to neighboring countries, to
diaspora communities that have left that have gone elsewhere. That
(22:36):
maintain their culture and maintain their interest in political organizing.
So these are threats that people are going to be
looking at around the world, and I think it's very
important to be following the situation in Turkey for that reason.
But at the same time, looking at how the Kurdish
people and their allies in Turkey, you know, on the left,
in workers' movements, in feminist movements and all of these
(22:57):
sort of groups that have also been victed by Erdowan's regime.
We're seeing that resistance is possible, that people can stand
up for democracy and they can win, and that look right,
nobody's giving up on their work. You know, the KMK
doesn't stop advocating for Kurdish interests in a diplomatic capacity
(23:18):
because their members face threats. You know, these people go
to work every single day, you know, in Roosjeva, in
North and Eastsyria, in Iraqi, Kurdistan, Kurdish groups, you know,
Kurdish political organizations, Kurdish politicians and activists, they continue building
up their project. You know, I said, I was just
in northern Syria. It's extremely difficult right now. People don't
have electricity, people don't have water because Turkey bombed all
(23:40):
the infrastructure, but still they're celebrating Noil Rose. You know,
they're talking about their upcoming local elections that they want
to hold and how to hold them in the best way.
You know, They're talking about their new social contract and
how they can implement it. They're moving forward constantly despite
the threats that they're facing. And I think that that,
you know, many of you listening to this are people
(24:03):
who are probably looking to improve and change the society
that you live in. And so when we look at
what's going on in Turkey and in Kurdistan, we can
see both very clear examples of what it is that
people who want change are up against, but also what
they can accomplish even under those conditions.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, I think like one of the things I took
from going to Kurdistan was like how invested, like how
genuine the solidarity that those people have with other like
oppressed groups. It's like I spent as much time answering
questions about me and ma as I did like asking
questions about Kurdistan, which was surprising to me, but they
(24:42):
obviously happy to do it. But like it would be
nice to see some of that solidarity come back from
the us, right, so are they're like, I mean, I
guess you can come down to the border and help
Kurdish people literally any day of the week if you'd
like to do that all the time. But what concrete
actions can people take, especially with regard to like helping
(25:02):
your self administration in North and East Syria right, Like
they're facing constant attacks, power stations get bombed, Like all
my friends there are always struggling to have power, internet
or even like electricity, and they got flooded recently on
top of all that. Yeah, so like their concrete actions
people can take to help to be in solidarity.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Oh absolutely, I mean I think one thing, if you
have expertise on anything to do with, you know, power
grids that are resilient to these kinds of attacks, on
alternative clean energy sources, anything that could possibly help people
in a situation like this live they want expertise. There's
a lot of problems that they're facing that they simply
(25:43):
because of the war, don't have the capacity not only
to solve, but even to start thinking about how it
is that one solves a problem like this, because there
just aren't that many societies in the world going through it.
So any kind of expertise in addressing energy issues, environmental issues,
(26:03):
these kinds of problems, the second and third order effects
of the attacks on infrastructure, on oil and gas, on
power facilities, that would be very important. They really do
need that, and that's something you know, you can write
to us at the Kurdish Piece Institute. We can connect
you with people. If you have contacts on the ground there,
you can talk to them. That's one thing. Then at
(26:24):
the end of the day, you know, they have these
elections coming up. That is a big step for them.
They've just put out a new social contract. They're really
trying to listen to some of the internal criticisms that
they get and really build up the civil, social political
side of their system. You know, there's a belief among
many people there that I've talked to that because of
(26:45):
the existential nature of these wars that they're fighting, they
haven't been able to really pursue the political elements of
their revolution to the degree that they want to. And
they're trying to do that now. They have this new
social Contract. It's an incredible document. You can read it.
Going to hold municipal elections on May thirtieth, I believe
is the date that was announced. So any if you
(27:07):
know a lot about electoral systems, if you have done
election observation before, if you want to help them do
that right and get international attention for what it is
that they're doing. That's another way that people have been
telling me that you can help. And then finally, you know,
if you're here listening in the US, Airdowan is coming
to the White House on May ninth. According to reports
(27:30):
from Turkish and international media, there is going to be
a demonstration. There will probably be a lot of campaigns
around that demonstration as well, on things like conditioning and
ending arm sales and security assistants, on calls for peace,
on calls for the US to end its support for
(27:52):
and enablement of Turkey's occupation of Iraq and Syria, It's
repression of its Kurdish people at home, and so anything
that you can do to join those actions in those
campaigns would be very helpful. You know, this is going
to be an opportunity to let both Airdowan and the
White House hear what the American people think about US
support for what the Turkish government is doing. So be there,
(28:16):
get involved. That's one way that we can, you know,
make our voices heard and try to push for a
change in policy.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, I think that's great. I think people should like
if you want an example of I guess the US complicity.
Like while I was in Kurdistan, there was a bombing
that killed thirty nine SI like internal security forces, and
that was like a plane that your tax dollars if
you live in the US developed, right, like an F
sixteen with munitions that you probably sold to them, and
(28:47):
the US is selling has sold more F sixteen since then, right, yes, yeah,
so like that is a thing that we could stop,
and that would concretely stop. Like I spoke to a
mother who lost her son. I think it was like
fourteen fifteen little football player. They had pictures of him
all over the house, right, Like it was really heartbreaking stuff.
(29:07):
And I know that this happens a lot in other
parts of the world. I'm not saying that's one important too,
but yeah, it's it's always hard to talk to parents
who have lost their kids, and you can stop that happening.
If we don't sell them the F sixteens that do that,
then they don't have the ability to do it, at
least not as much.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
And this is one way that we can connect struggles
and causes as well, because it's all the same companies
that are providing equipment to all of these states that
are doing this. You know, the targets are the same
for these kinds of campaigns. And look, you know all
of these governments, all of these corporations, they know that
they're on the same side. We don't always know that
(29:44):
we're on the same side too, And so I think
that getting together and pointing out the patterns and standing
against you know, these arms sales and security assistants in
the context of Kurdistan alongside many other contexts where they're
also very destructive, is an important way that we can
sort of amplify our efforts to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a very good, very good point.
Like I live in San Diego. Almost every single bomb
that has fallen on Palestine and many of the wads
a full on Kurdistan. Have you know the company that
sold that has an office here? Like if they're the
places where you can apply pressure in places where you
can hopefully make a change, Megan, where can people you
(30:24):
mentioned like emailing you, Where can people find you? How
can people keep up to date with what's happening? In Kurdistan.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, of course. So you can go to Kurdishpeace dot org.
That's the website of our institute. If you go to
our about page, my contact is on there. You can
always reach out to me whether you have a question
about Kurdistan, you want to read our research and analysis.
You know you're a journalist or an analyst and you
want to submit something yourself, we can help you there.
(30:51):
We're also on Twitter at Kurdish piece org. And yeah,
that's a great way for you to follow. In the
English language. If you're looking for resource is on the ground,
you can follow North Press Agency, which publishes in English,
the Roulejeva Information Center which publishes in English. And then
you know, get involved with your local Kurdish community in
(31:12):
a lot of major cities in the US. If you're
in New York, if you're in Boston, if you're in
the DMV area, if you're in California, like you know,
there are active Kurdish communities, and you know, go to
a cultural event, go to a demonstration, you'll find both
great ways to get connected and really get plugged into
solidarity efforts. But also you know, a wonderful community and
(31:34):
a wonderful culture that I think, you know, anyone would be.
I've certainly been, you know, very happy to have experienced.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
So yeah, yeah, great, Thank you so much, Megan. That
was great.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Thank you. It Could Happen year as a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website zonemedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen here,
updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.