The Peace in Kurdistan Campaign, Kurdistan National Congress UK, Kurdish People’s Assembly in Britain, and Freedom for Öcalan Campaign UK invite you to a discussion event to mark the release of Your Freedom and Mine: Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdish Question in Erdogan’s Turkey (edited by Thomas Jeffrey Miley and Federico Venturini).
The volume offers crucial insight into the dramatic history, reality, and prospects of the Kurdish question in Turkey by combining historical survey, human rights reports, interviews, personal accounts, geopolitical analysis, and political philosophy. It is the remarkable work of 25 contributors, including politicians, academics, journalists, Iceland’s former minister of justice, veteran war correspondent Jonathan Steele, and key leaders inside the movement.
The discussion will be led by
Dr Thomas Jeffrey Miley (Lecturer in Political Sociology, Cambridge; member of the executive board of the EU-Turkey Civic Commission),
Rohash Xelil (Kongra Star UK representative),
Simon Dubbins (Unite the Union, International Director),
Dr Felix Padel (Research Associate, Anthropology, Oxford).
Chair: Mohammed Elnaiem (MPhil, Cambridge; editor at The Region, activist in the Black Liberation Movement).
MONDAY 29 OCTOBER 2018
Lecture Room 6, New College, University of Oxford, at 6pm
The room is on the ground floor and fully accessible.
A small number of copies of the book will be available at a discounted price of £15 (paperback).
Solidarity donations are encouraged.
Speakers’ biographies:
Thomas Jeffrey Miley (PhD, Yale) is Lecturer of Political Sociology and Fellow of Darwin College at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely on the dynamics of nationalist conflict and accommodation in Spain and, increasingly, in Turkey. His current research project is on comparative struggles for self-determination in the twenty-first century. He has participated in several delegations to Turkey and different parts of Kurdistan, including to Rojava, and is a member of the executive board of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC).
Rohash Xelil is the UK representative of Kongra Star (Star Congress, founded 2005 as Yekîtiya Star), the confederation of women’s organisations in Rojava, and a member of the management committee of the London-based Roj Women Association (RWA). After studying journalism and media in Syria she worked as a journalist in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Simon Dubbins is the International Director at UNITE and Co-Convenor of the Freedom for Öcalan Campaign in the UK. He has worked for the Graphical, Paper and Media union, and served as the International Head of AMICUS.
Felix Padel (DPhil, Oxon) is a Research Associate at the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford. He recently returned to the UK after thirty years in India where he taught anthropology and was an activist for tribal and village community rights. He is the author of Sacrificing People: Invasions of a Tribal Landscape(1995/2010), Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel (with Samarendra Das, 2010), and Ecology, Economy: Quest for a Socially Informed Connection (with Ajay Dandekar and Jeemol Unni, 2013). He shares his passion for nature and justice with his great-great grandfather, Charles Darwin.
Mohammed Elnaiem (MPhil, Cantab) is the editor for the Gulf at The Region and an activist in the Black liberation movement. He completed a BA in history at Bucknell University and his second degree in sociology at Cambridge. He can be followed on Twitter at @m_elnaiem.
