A conference is taking place in Bilbao to discuss the situation of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan and the solidarity work done in the Basque Country with and for the Kurdish people. The conference is taking place at the UPV/EHU Paraninfoa-Oteiza Aretoa with the participation of İbrahim Bilmez, one of Öcalan’s lawyers, Pernando Barrena, MEP for EH Bildu, Koldo Saenz from LAB trade union, Kurdistan National Congress representative Adem Uzun as well as representatives of other trade unions and activists from the solidarity Basque groups.

KNK (Kurdistan National Congress) representative Adem Uzun spoke about the importance of Abdullah Öcalan’s paradigm and said that, “What the Kurdish leader is doing is providing us with tools to make us free. The system sees that and that's why it is so worried, because it knows that people empowered with those tools will represent a threat to it. "

Uzun added: "The capitalist modernity system is in a deep crisis and that's why it is creating new crises, new wars, new racism, new oppression. The system is now thinking about how to overcome its crisis, but it is short of ideas. They have no proposals to make, neither in the political field, nor in the scientific or cultural field. "

Uzun continued: "The system is actually creating precarious classes. Because they know that this system is not working anymore, they need time to find and create a new system. We are in a third world war since 1990, a hegemonic war and a war against society. And unfortunately, this war will continue and create new problems.”

Uzun said: "Öcalan's biggest strength is his thoughts. In the 60's, like everywhere in the world in Turkey too, the left tried to build conditions for a new order, but the left was defeated. Öcalan, too, was arrested and thought about how and which new way the left should pursue. Öcalan thought then about organizing a Kurdish way and, in the 80's, he proposed a guerrilla war, but then that too was stagnating, and then he thought of strengthening women's liberation and pushed for women to be everywhere, in every organization. This was in 1996. And then, of course, 1999 came, and he was abducted and once again in prison. He thought and took a radical step and said, 'we will give up the old ways and propose a new paradigm', and that was democratic confederalism which he had thought about in 1999 but was announced in 2006 after discussions all across society. "