As part of the project “New World Embassy: Kurdistan”, an “embassy” of Kurdistan will be opened in Lausanne for two days. The ideas and paradigms of democratic confederalism will be presented to a broad public.
The name Lausanne is inextricably linked to the partition of Kurdistan in 1923 and the subsequent policy of assimilation, annihilation and denial under four nation states. It is in this very city that the action “New World Embassy: Kurdistan” will take place from 23 to 24 September, one hundred years after the Treaty of Lausanne. The action at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne combines art and politics in a special way.
The appeal for the event says: “One hundred years ago, the signatories of the Treaty of Lausanne dissolved the Ottoman Empire and denied the Kurdish people a nation of their own, dividing their territory among the newly created entities that would later become Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Today, on the one hand, the Kurdish people are resisting ISIS and persecution, and on the other hand, they are building an experimental, extranational, local and feminist democracy in Rojava.” Behind this radical democratic paradigm is the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. His thinking and its significance for an alternative to capitalist modernity are therefore at the centre of the debates.
The project was prepared by the Kurdish politician and representative of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), Nilüfer Koç, and artist Jonas Staal. For two days, panel discussions, film presentations, concerts and open debates will take place. The action is supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and Progressive International, among others.
The two-day event will bring together politicians, artists and experts to debate the building of models of stateless democracies and the culture of solidarity. The event brings together participants from the four parts of Kurdistan as well as political figures from the international context.
“This message is dedicated to a future driven by development in Kurdistan and brings together politicians, experts and artists from Switzerland, Kurdistan and abroad for open workshops and discussions on the issues of democracy without a state and cultures of solidarity,” say the organizers.
These questions will be discussed along the paradigms of Abdullah Öcalan, the model of democratic confederalism and its implementation in Rojava. The importance of the Kurdish women’s movement’s struggle against the patriarchal, nationalist and capitalist states will also be discussed, and in this sense, the construction of a democratic, gender-free and ecological society will be handled.
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