The singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker from Munich accused the German government of hypocrisy in connection with Turkey’s war against the Kurds. Wecker said in a video message to the Kurdish press that Germany was partly to blame for the war of aggression against the people of Kurdistan, as the German government as well as corporations and the arms industry were supporting the “criminal and racist Erdogan regime”.

The message by Konstantin Wecker includes the following:

“Dear Kurds, dear friends, a just and peaceful solution for the people of Kurdistan requires the release of Abdullah Öcalan and the lifting of the ban on the PKK in Germany.

I wrote this together with the writer and Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek in solidarity with the Kurdish Cultural Festival on International Anti-War Day on 1 September 2023.

We will never stop dreaming of a world free of domination, wars, fascism, racism, patriarchy and the destructive exploitation of people and nature.

Our dreams cannot be banned by the warlords and politicians of this world, nor can they permanently prevent our attempts to realise them.

Neither in Ankara nor in Tehran, neither in Moscow, Washington, Beijing or Berlin.

It is our responsibility as intellectuals or simply as thoughtful people to at least try to think about what something better could look like.

And if there are people who are actually trying to create something better, it is our responsibility to help them.

And this is what the anthropologist,  anti-fascist David Graeber says about the importance of the real revolution in Rojava. And that speaks to me from the soul.

The fact that the German government, German companies and the German defence industry are still supporting the criminal and racist Erdogan regime is intolerable.

This makes the ruling politicians complicit in a war of aggression that violates international law, because the Turkish army is also committing war crimes with German weapons and German tanks.

Nothing about German foreign policy is feminist. It is dishonest and hypocritical.

The Turkish Erdogan regime’s war of aggression against the people of Rojava, northern Syria and southern Kurdistan in northern Iraq is illegal under international law and a crime against humanity. It must be stopped immediately.

Yet the German government remains silent, once again sealing its dirty deal with NATO partner Turkey against refugees.

This pact is deadly. Deadly for a great many people.

They are dying in the Mediterranean, on the outer borders of Fortress Europe and in the torture chambers of our allies.

Rojava and Kurdistan concern us all.

The people of Rojava need our global solidarity now.

And we need the utopia of Rojava.

This social experiment of a grassroots and democratic, feminist, ecological and socially just, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society in a region of patriarchal autocrats, violence and wars.

For years, the self-managed project in Rojava has been the only glimmer of hope for many people in the entire region, for peace and anti-racist solidarity against hatred and destruction.

And that is why we hope that many people around the world will get involved and take to the streets – for Rojava and against the wars.

We need a worldwide wave of civil disobedience to stop all arms shipments. The deadly EU-Turkey deal against all people fleeing war, hunger, hardship and destruction must finally be stopped.

It’s about people and humanity.

Let’s stop the wars now.

I hope my song “Shame on you, Europe”, which we have also produced in Kurdish, can encourage you on this path.”