If someone tried to assimilate you for years, if your language was forbidden, if the names of your hometown were changed, what would do you but revolt.

Osman Baydemir

Categorized in : Years Names Language

I have had it up to here with the prosecutions, the government's attitude, the judiciary, the media's stance and the majority of Turks who view the Kurdish people's justified cause through a nationalist lens.

government views attitude

In primary school, every day and especially on Fridays, I was supposed to say, 'I am Turkish, and I am righteous and hardworking,' But all those things did not actually turn us into Turks. This system is somehow creating fake personalities.

creating friday school

All of my life I have stayed away from violence and the instruments of violence, and have seen a legal, democratic struggle as the only means to achieve change.

violence struggle mean

I am at a crossroads; I have always been against armed opposition... I have chosen civil disobedience. But I will apologize to my people if there are funerals coming out of prisons. I will criticize myself and I won't be the mayor of Diyarbakir.

apologizing funeral people

In Turkey, we have lived almost everything that could be lived; war and torture... The war concept was consumed to its limits. But there is only one way we have not tried: negotiations, peace, and talking.

turkeys talking war