You are cordially invited to the Kurdish Studies Seminar

Real Time On Line Direct Democracy

Speaker: Dr Fereydun Refiq Hilmi

Date and Time: 26.01. 2012 @19:00pm

Venue: Room 442 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organization (KSSO) and Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS)

Kurdish Studies seminars are open to interested students, academics and people who are interested in Kurdish matters

Turkey’s new constitution drafting process and human rights

Speakers:
Mr Altan Tan, Diyarbakır MP of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP

Mr Öztürk Türkdoğan, President of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) and lawyer

Date: 15 December 2011
Time: 19:00
Venue: Room B102, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London(SOAS)Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS), Britain Peace Council and Kurdish Studies and Students Organization (KSSO)

You are cordially invited to the forthcoming seminar

Turkey’s new Constitution drafting process and human rights

Speakers:
Mr Altan Tan, Diyarbakır MP of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP

Mr Öztürk Türkdoğan, President of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) and lawyer

Date: 15 December 2011
Time: 19:00
Venue: Room B102, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London(SOAS)Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Britain Peace Council, Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS) and Kurdish Studies and Students Organization (KSSO)

Seminar Abstract

To mark Human Rights Day we are holding an evening seminar on “Turkey’s new constitution drafting process and human rights”.

Despite the claims of the Turkish government and Prime Minister Erdogan to be implementing democratic reforms in Turkey and  highlighting the importance of democratic transition in the Middle East, human rights organizations,  PEN International, the worldwide association of writers and different bar associations and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have publicly highlighted their  concerns about politically motivated mass arrest of human rights activists, Kurdish politicians  and mayors, journalists, lawyers, children and now even a professor. Thousands of Kurdish politicians and human rights activists are being questioned since 2009 and about 4000 people are jailed including six of the pro-Kurdish party BDP’s deputies are currently in prison.

Both speakers will talk about the new form of political McCarthyism and the politics of fear in Turkey and responses of the civil organizations, oppositions to the ruling party’s policies

Kurdish Studies Seminar

ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND TURKEY: THE CASE OF DERSIM AS A TABOO SUBJECT FOR ACADEMIC RESEARCH
Speaker: Dr. Sukru ASLAN, Lecturer at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University/ Istanbul/Turkey
Chaired: Ms Filiz Celik, PhD candidate at Swansea University

Date and Time: 21.11. 2011 @19:00pm
Venue: SOAS’ Phillips Building, Room 116, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organization (KSSO) and Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS)

Kurdish Studies seminars are open to interested students, academics and people who are interested in Kurdish matters

Seminar abstract
ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND TURKEY: THE CASE OF DERSIM AS TABOO SUBJECT OF ACADIC RESEARCH

This extra ordinary seminar will focus on difficulties in doing research on ethnic and religious minorities in Turkey. As the case study, Dr. Sukru ASLAN will explore the issues related to people of Dersim who experienced the most organised Turkish state coercive violence at the end of 30s.

Seminar will be accompanied by a documentary film screening. The documentary film called “38″ ( by Cayan Demirel, 67min, 2006) provides eyewitness and defendant testimonies of the Dersim massacre which took place during the Turkish state nationalist and coercive policies in Dersim between 1937-1938 in order to “create a country speaking with one language, thinking in the same way and sharing the same sentiment…” (Law of Settlement 1934, TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre:IV, Cilt:23, İçtima:3, 14/06/1934, p. 141). This documentary film is related to the oral history of people of Dersim and it is also a good example of visualizing Oral History.

In this seminar, Turkey’s “nation-state” mentality, which to a degree still continues to be influential, will be discussed in terms of how it is interfering with bringing of certain studies into the academia such as discussion of some ethno/cultural matters. Dersim is on top of the list of such subjects. An academic researcher studied the topic for the first time in 1970’s merely from the perspective of “forced settlements/internal displacement” and how he has been treated since set up a typical example for illustrating the difficulties in researching the any subject related to Dersim. Today, taking it further from there to present time to show how the research regarding Dersim has progressed would not only shed a light into how such research influenced current circumstances of academia in Turkey but also would provide opportunity to bring the unique nature of the Dersim into light in terms of its history and culture.

Biography
Dr. Sukru ASLAN is a lecturer at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Literature and Sociology Department. His research interests are urban sociology, migration, and social movements. He is the author of several books and numerous articles. His books are;
May Day District (Turkish: 1 Mayıs Mahallesi) (2004), İletişim Yayınları, 2004
Sociological approaches on the City (Turkish: Kent Üzerine Sosyolojik Düşünceler) (2007) İnşaat Mühendisleri Odası.
The Secret Known By Everyone (Herkesin Bildiği Sır: Dersim) (2010) İletişim Yayınları,
Les Quartıers Populaıres Et La Vılle (2010) Sukru Aslan, Mustafa Poyraz ve Loic Gandais .L’Harmattan
Remebering Dersim 1938 (Turkish: Dersim 38’i Hatırlamak) ( 2011) Sukru Aslan, Bülent Bilmez ve Gülay Kayacan , Tarih Vakfı, 2011

Documentary film “38″, by Cayan Demirel, 67min, 2006

This Documentary film is the first film of director Çayan Demirel and it explores violent events that took place in Dersim in 1937-38. There are detailed eyewitness and defendant testimonies and expert accounts from historians regarding the circumstances that caused great traumatic events in the lives of people from Dersim. Çayan Demirel’s first and second documentary called “Prison nr 5/ 5 nolu cezaevi (2009)” have been screened widely at international festivals.

Speaker: Ms. Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman of Kurdistan Regional Government‘s High Representative to the UK

Chair: Dr. Konrad Hirschler, Senior Lecturer in the History of the Near and Middle East, SOAS

Date/time: 20^th March 2010 at 5:00pm

Venue: G2, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO) and Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS)

Seminar Abstract

In the 1980s, the people of Kurdistan in Iraq were under chemical bombardment, thousands of villages were being destroyed and the people were being massacred in their thousands by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Today the people of the Kurdistan Region live in a peaceful and stable environment, the number of universities has increased from one in 1991 to more than 10 today with more on the way, thousands of villages have been rebuilt and infrastructure projects undertaken. As well as having their own regional government, the Kurds hold key positions in the federal government in Baghdad. These achievements cannot be underestimated in the context of Iraq and the Middle East, however, the path has not been smooth and there are uncertainties that lie ahead of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s High Representative to the UK, will discuss the challenges ahead.

Kurdish Studies Seminar

You are kindly invited to our forthcoming seminar on

The Nudes and Their Master:

a Postmodern Re-conceptualisation of the Kurdish Issue

Speaker: Mr Sardar Aziz PhD Candidate Department of Government University College Cork/Ireland

Date and Time: 16.12. 2010 @ 7:00pm

Venue: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, Room B104 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organization (KSSO) and Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS)

Seminar abstract

The Nudes and Their Master: a Postmodern Re-conceptualisation of the Kurdish Issue

This seminar aims at analysing the Kurdish status within the discourse of modernity. It argues that modernity and local utilisation of modernity shaped and limited the Kurdish role and justified unjustified acts against them. The Kurdish problem in the Middle East, like the Middle East itself, is modernity’s product. It was made, through making them minorities, maintained by Westphalian model of sovereignty. This sovereign established state and fused with it, based on occidental modernity’s institutions, practices and ideas (Max Weber) legitimatised the monopoly violence and use it against the Kurds. Through the model of the Failed Modern State, I analyse the states in the Middle East from a different perspective.

My intention is neither to go through the history of the Kurds nor of the region. It is rather an exercise, based on Foucault’s methodology, to drive ‘thoughts’ from ‘ideas’. The notions of State, borders, sovereignty, people, citizen, nation, nationalism: civic and ethnic, minority, civil society, etc. are ideas belong to modernity. They urgently require to be transformed into thoughts, in order to analyse they become a problem for people, to paraphrase Foucault.

I argue that modern notions construct its own Other and refuse to reasoning it. For instance ‘Kurds have no language’ without ever taking in consideration the sine qua non relationship between the standard language and the emergence of the state or to analyse it comparatively. The Kurds portrayed within the discourse of modernity as people who their culture, identity, history and mode of life are pre-modern and for them in order to be modern have to abandon it. Hence, accordingly, one cannot be a Kurd and modern concurrently. As a result of the modernity’s ideas the Kurds are reduced to apolitical being, prohibited to use language (human), thus, they only have voice

In contrast to this, postmodern thoughts such as homo sacer (the one who may be killed yet not sacrificed), abandonment (positing of relation with the non-relational), exception (the ultimate configuration of facts), state of exception (emergency), potentiality (resisting actuality), people and People, will contribute in demystifying the reality and deconstructing the constructed discourses of modernity. Postmodern concepts are breaking the taboos and offer a new poetry of politics.

Sardar Aziz a Kurd from Iraqi (south) Kurdistan, final stage PhD (waiting for viva) at the Department of Government University College Cork/ Ireland. Columnist in a non-partisan Kurdish newspaper Awene: www/awene.com.

Further information

www.ksso.org.uk

mc@ksso.org.uk

University of Essex will be welcoming the Iraqi Foreign Minister, His Excellency Hoshyar Zebari, to the Colchester Campus.

Hoshyar Zebari graduated from Essex with an MA in Sociology in 1980. He then went on to become Spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Party and a leading figure in Iraqi opposition politics in the 1990s. He was appointed Foreign Minister in 2003.

Whilst he is on the campus, His Excellency will be giving a lecture on Iraq on 11 November at 2pm in  the Lecture Theatre Building, LTB6. The lecture is open to all and you would be welcome to attend.

For more information contact Ms Sarah Mills , e-mail events@essex.ac.uk
Sarah Mills
Events Officer
Communications and External Relations
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

T 01206 872807
E slmills@essex.ac.uk
www.essex.ac.uk

Invitation to seminar/workshop on Ethnic Minority Representation at Work

Help and representation for problems at work. What has happened to support networks and advice centres? A report on ethnic minority workers in London.

You are invited to this seminar/workshop which will report on the findings of a three-year ESRC research project conducted by Dr Jane Holgate, Janroj Keles and Leena Kumarappan Working Lives Research Institute at London Metropolitan University and Professor Anna Pollert from the Bristol Business School, University of the West of England. Research focuses on three different minority ethnic groups in London ; Kurds in Hackney, South Asian in Ealing and Caribbeans in Lambeth and it looks at where minority ethnic/migrant workers turned for help, support and representation when they had problems at work. It explores the linkages between minority ethnic/migrant workers and workplace community (managers, colleagues, trade unions), local community (e.g. CABx, law centres), ethnic communities (family, friends) and community organisations (e.g. faith, cultural, political, social). We interviewed a total of 185 workers – 100 individually and 88 in 16 focus groups and 64 interviews with ‘key respondents’ who were officials from trade unions, advice agencies and community groups.

Monday 13 September 2010 2pm to 6pm (with drinks and nibbles) TUC, Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS

Speakers will include;

• Dr Kalbir Shukra, Goldsmiths College

• Wilf Sullivan, TUC Race Relations Officer

• Professor Anna Pollert, research team

• Ibrahim Dogus, Kurdish Community

• Noleen Adams, Law Centres Federation

• Shelia Simpson, Lambeth Unison

• Alan Christie, Equality and Human Rights Commission

• Melanie Johnson, Legal Services Commission

• Don Flynn, Migrants Rights Network

There will be short presentations from the above speakers but also lots of time for discussion about the issues facing people who have problems at work and the extent to which they are able to access help and advice. On display will also be photographs taken as part of the research by members of the Kurdish Renk Art photography group, photojournalist Jim Hodson and photographers Santosh Chandran and Umit Avcu.

Thank you to the ESRC for funding this research and to all people who took part in interviews.

Places are limited so please notify in advance if you wish to attend.

Please click below link to read our papers and reports

http://www.workinglives.org/research-themes/wlri-project-websites/$-emraw/reports.cfm

Images of working lives: Experiences of Kurdish migrants in London

Photo Exhibition

Organized by Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

Date: Friday 16th- 23rd July 2010 ( Exhibition opening reception 5pm on Friday 16th July 2010)

Venue: RenkArt Centre, 86 Stoke Newington High Street, Stoke Newington N16 7PA

Images of working lives is an exhibition held as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research project conducted by Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University to highlight the working conditions of an ‘invisible’ community, Kurdish Diaspora, in London.

The study focused on minority ethnic workers who experienced difficulties at work and how they developed strategies to solve work related problems including racism, discrimination, bullying, exclusion and isolation. We chose three different minority ethnic communities- locally based ethnic groups, Kurds in Hackney, South Asian in Ealing and Black Caribbeans in Lambeth- in London to enable us to compare and contrast a whole range of different issues. We interviewed total of 185 workers – 100 individually and 88 in 16 focus groups and 64 interviews with ‘key respondents’ who were officials from trade unions, advice agencies and community groups.

Our research team will give brief information on our research findings on the working condition of the Kurdish workers and their strategies to solve work related problems and difficulties.

The exhibition illustrates different experiences of the Kurdish Diaspora in the context of ethnicity, identity, belonging, community and working lives. The audience is invited to take a closer look at the migrants’ life experiences reflected to the lens of photo journalist Jim Hodson, Ümit Avcu and Kurdish photographers’ group RenkArt including Döndü Demir, Erdogan Guccuk, Bektaþ Arif, Alper Taþçý as well as locally based Kurdish photographer Ümit Avcu.

Research team: Dr Jane Holgate (Principal investigator), Janroj Keles, Dr Leena Kumarappan and Professor Anna Pollert.

For further information please contact Dr Jane Holgate or Janroj Keles

j.holgate@londonmet.ac.uk or j.keles@londonmet.ac.uk

This research project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and is being undertakeby the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University.
For further information about our research please visit our website
http://www.workinglives.org/research-themes/wlri-project-websites/$-emraw/emraw_home.cfm

Talk

Talk: Ms Milena Buyum, Campaigner on Turkey for Amnesty International and Mr Ali Has, Lawyer

Concert

Aygul Erce, singer-song writer

Film Screening

‘Taslanan Vicdanlar/Brutal Consciences’ by Cenk Örtülü & Zeynel Koç Turkish and Kurdish with English subtitles, Running time 50 minutes.

Date and time: 24 June 2010,@ 6:00

Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish society at SOAS(KSSOAS), Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation (KSSO) and Britain Peace Council (MECLISA AŞITIYA BRITANYA’YE – BRITANYA BARIŞ MECLISI)

Seminar abstract and program

We are deeply concerned about the routine and systematic beating, ill-treatment and imprisonment of Kurdish children in Turkey. According to Amnesty International’s newly published report, “since 2006, thousands of children in Turkey, some as young as 12, have been prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation solely for their alleged participation in demonstrations”.

Children aged 10-18 are being detained, interrogated and tried under the same conditions as adults. As a consequence, some are sentenced and jailed for 5  to 10  years under the anti-terror law. The children are accused of participating in street protests, doing the victory sign, shouting slogans, throwing stones at the Turkish police or singing Kurdish songs.

Children have been forced to make statements in adult courts without their lawyers or social workers present. They have been imprisoned in adult prisons and were deprived of their rights to education. Moreover children have been deported to other prisons far from their families so their families have difficulties regularly visiting them.

Reports about this mistreatment of children have caused an outcry amongst Kurdish communities and the international public. Families of the children, Kurdish and Turkish civil organisations, human rights organisations and intellectuals have called on the Turkish government to release children and abandon discriminatory laws against the Kurdish ethnic minority, especially towards Kurdish children. The human rights group Justice for Children Initiative has begun a campaign to force the Turkish government to find a solution for the imprisoned children before the Turkish parliament goes on summer holiday.

Turkey is a signatory to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and has a duty to protect the rights of all children. Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child bans discrimination against children. It states that “Within the jurisdictions and authorities bestowed upon them, Signatory States of this convention recognise and guarantee the rights defined in this Convention to all children without any discrimination based on the children’s, their parents’ or guardians’ race, colour, gender, language, political or otherwise opinions, national, ethnic or social background, property, disability, birthright or any other status.”

We have invited Ms Milena Buyum, campaigner on Turkey for Amnesty International to talk about Amnesty International research and report on imprisoned Kurdish children. Ms Fatma Unsal, of from ‘Justice for Children Initiative’ (ÇİAÇ) will talk about ‘Justice for Children Initiative’ newly announced campaign to force the Turkish government to stop these policies towards Kurdish children.

Aygul Erge, singer-song writer who has composed a song titled “Dayê Min Bifiltîne/ My mum rescue me” on imprisoned Kurdish children will sing before starting the seminar.

We will screen the film ‘Taslanan Vicdanlar/Brutal Consciences’ by Cenk Örtülü & Zeynel Koç (running time 50 minutes). The film focuses on imprisoned Kurdish children who are subjected to the Turkish state’s physical and psychological violence.

Further information on www.ksso.org.uk , mc@ksso.org.uk or www.barismeclisi.com • britainpeacecouncil@googlemail.com

You are kindly invited to attend the forthcoming Kurdish Studies seminar and book launch

The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan

Speaker: Carol Prunhuber, journalist and author of the book “The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan”

Date/time: 7th June 2010, 18:00

Venue: G2, School of Oriental and African  Studies(SOAS) Nearest tube station: Russell Square, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, LondonWC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS) and Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO)

Seminar abstract

Ms Carol Prunhuber, a Venezuelan author and journalist explores the life of the legendary Kurdish leader, Dr Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in her book titled “The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan”. Dr Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou “was a visionary and cultivated leader of the Iranian Kurdish revolutionary movement and a respected interlocutor for the West. He brought the concepts of democracy to his country.  Educated in Paris and Prague with a PhD in Economy, he spoke eight languages. Beloved by his people, Ghassemlou was ahead of his time, leading a movement to oppose the theocratic regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini for ten years.” (from The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd ). Dr Ghassemlou was assassinated by the agents of Islamic Republic of Iran on July 13th 1989 in Vienna, Austria where Dr Ghassemlou was holding secret talks on negotiating a supposed peaceful solution of the Iran’s Kurdish question with Iranian envoys sent by then Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The Assassins were not punished for their terrorist crime by “Austrian democratic law state”. “Soon after his untimely murder, responsibility was directed towards Iran; yet no one was ever tried or punished for the crime. To this day, many unanswered questions remain” (from The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd )

The author states that “It was in Paris, in 1983, that I first met Dr Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou. We were introduced at the Kurdish Institute, where I was attending an exhibition with the Kurdish filmmaker Yilmaz Guney and his wife, Fatos Guney

After our meeting in Paris, Ghassemlou invited me to come to Kurdistan. Two years later, I arrived there alongside the French Gamma TV crew to film the Kurdish conflict in Iran. The seed for this book was planted at that time.”

Please join KSSO in this important seminar to hear the words of a journalist who actually witnessed the struggles of Kurds in the mountains of Kurdistan. Ms Carol Prunhuber has kindly accepted our invitation to come and talk about her journey to Kurdistan and her friendship with Dr Ghassemlou.

The book will be available on sale at the venue in English and Kurdish Sorani.

For further information click on www.ksso.org.uk or mc@ksso.org.uk