The 27th Day-Mer Culture and Arts Festival hosted many inspirational and beneficial panels and discussions throughout its phase. Inviting Emek Party (Turkey) Leader Selma Gürkan and HDP Bitlis MP Mizgin Irgat and journalist Fehim Taştekin to the festival’s last panel, the duo tackled Kurdish issues and its international impact.
Discussing the agenda on Middle East and its relations with other countries, also had a part where the speakers discussed the latest terror attacks took place in Istanbul. Emek Party Leader Selma Gürkan, in her speech, tackled violence against women and said “We can see in Cizre, Nusaybin and Sur that there is a plain war declaration made by the government. The Turkish government is in a war with Kurdish”. And carried on saying “We can also see that currently many workers are going on strikes and the government is still stubborn on not seeing what’s happening”. Giving examples from Western countries’ historic events, Gürkan stated that workers’ awakening could be a dawn of hope and resistance.
“There is a pluralism-oriented approach in Turkey”
HDP MP Mizgin Irgat, in her speech, tackled the pluralist structure of the Turkish Parliament, meaning that the votes are bound to be biased as the government’s MPs are in a predominated position. MP Irgat, then continued saying “We strive to be a political party that resists injustice. No matter how much extremist forces come at us, we are bound to stand still and see where we are in the field of democracy”.
The final speaker, journalist Taştekin on the other hand came up with a speech on prospective events for Turkey, saying that the future is bleak and dark and we can expect more chaos and sad news. Tackling the structuring in Rojava, Taştekin also suggested that there may be a power union amongst Turkey, Europe and Northern Iraq.