The Academy of Democratic Modernity (ADM) has organized a conference in the Slovenian cities of Ljubiljana and Koper. The conference started on Monday and is titled “Science for Society – The Revolutionary Political Thought of Kurdistan”. In decentralized events at universities, the paradigm of the Kurdish freedom movement is presented and methods for overcoming social problems are discussed. Speakers from different countries offer short lectures, in-depth seminars and round tables.
The ADM wrote in its presentation of the conference that the “Kurdish people live divided between four Middle Eastern countries whose borders were drawn by colonialism. Women’s protests in Iran, the revolution in Rojava (Syria), the movement for local self-government in Turkey are just some of the materializations of their political thought, which is based on community democracy, ecology, and the radical liberation of women, which the movement understands as the vanguard of the 21st century.”
“Abdullah Öcalan and the idea of liberating Kurdistan” was the title of the opening event on Monday evening. The leader of the Kurdish freedom movement, Abdullah Öcalan, has been held in solitary confinement on the prison island of Imrali in Turkey for 25 years and from there – in the form of court defenses – has published a new political paradigm that is not only aimed at the liberation of Kurdistan.
On Tuesday, Reimar Heider spoke at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana about “The need for science for social and intellectual revolutions: Öcalan’s sociology of freedom.” In the afternoon, Hesen Kocer was part of a round of discussions as a representative of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in the region of Northern and Eastern Syria about the current political situation in Kurdistan.
On Wednesday, a lecture by Sarah Marcha from the Jineolojî Center in Brussels took place at the Faculty of Philosophy on the content and methods of the “Science of Women” which emerged from the Kurdish movement.
The program for today and tomorrow is as follows:
Thursday, April 11, Ljubljana
9:00–12:00 – Series of short discussions: Dialogues with Öcalan
- Žiga Brdnik – Live science, think life: Liberation from scientistic dogmatism
- Peter Korošec – Beyond national liberation: A guide to internationalism in the 21st century
- Brina Jeretina & Lori Šramel Čebular – Radical love as rebellion
- Luka Hreščak – Perspectives of two socialist youth: PKK and ZKJ.
- Gaj Kolšek – Tasks of the youth
12.00–13.30 – Lunch
13:30 –14:15 – Lecture: Revolutionary time in survival spaces: Friendship and communal life among political refugees from Turkey and Northern Kurdistan in Greece – Beja Protner
14.15–16.00 – Round table: Closed political thought – Cirila Toplak, Andrej Kurnik, Žiga Vodovnik
17.00 – Talk/Workshop: Palestine, Kurdistan, Yugoslavia: Democratic Nation as a response to Balkanization / Lebanonization
- Academy of Democratic Modernity & Conference Organizing Committee
Friday, April 12, Ljubljana
18:00-20:00 – Discussion: Internationalism and the world political situation
21.00 – Concert: Below the Roots (Balkan folk) & Grunt (Ethno rock)