Activist Estella Schmid wrote a poem to Abdullah Öcalan to mark the 44th  anniversary of the PKK on 27 November 2022.

A poem to Abdullah Öcalan

You taught me 

what is inevitable in life

for new life to grow: it’s a tiny

sun whose roots I’ll have to water well

and encourage it to deploy

its own attack against the weeds.

Tiny, wretched bread of solidarity, a banner against the cold, fresh water for the blood;

maternal elements that should not stray far

from the heart.

Against melancholy, trust; against

despair,

the voice of the people

rattling the windows of the secret house.

To discover,

decipher

articulate,

set the motion:

the ancient duties of fighters and liberators

now become our obligations

and are out and about measuring our steps:

from breakfast to sleep,

from stealth to stealth,

from action to action

from life to life.

Background

Estella Schmid is a political activist.  Since the mid 1980s she has been active in campaigns in solidarity with the Kurdish people’s struggle for self-determination and worked in cooperation with the Kurdish freedom movement.

She is the Co-Founder of the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign (1994) and the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC, 2001).

She was also a co-founder of the first Kurdish solidarity campaign in the UK, the Kurdistan Solidarity Committee in 1989 and the Kurdistan Information Centre 1991; her other initiatives have included the Ilisu Dam Campaign (1997) and the Refugee Project (2003).

Estella studied philosophy, history and theatre at the university in Vienna. She has worked as a director, producer and playwright with theatre companies in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Dusseldorf, New York and London. She has lived in London since 1974.