Trees planted in Rojava to mark Öcalan’s birthday
The Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan will turn 74 years old on 4 April. In Kurdistan, the population traditionally celebrates this day by planting trees.
On 4 April, the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held hostage in Turkey since 1999, turns 74. In Kurdistan, the people traditionally celebrate this day by planting trees under the motto "Every 4th of April, the hope for freedom will blossom anew".
In the autonomous region of Northern and Eastern Syria, tree planting campaigns are initiated every year around the birthday of the political representative of the Kurds. In Rojava, where Öcalan's paradigm of direct communal democracy with radical ecology and feminist emancipation is practised, people are convinced that ecological problems of our time can only be solved with a democratic society. Thus, the revolution of Rojava is also called an eco-revolution.
In Kobanê, the autonomous administration invited people to the village of Seftek on Sunday to plant a total of one hundred saplings of various tree species in the Öcalan Park there. "We celebrate the birthday of Abdullah Öcalan as an announcement of a free life - not only here in Rojava, but everywhere in the Near and Middle East," said Lutfiye Silêman, co-chair of the Shera district council, during a short march beforehand. Her greatest ideal, she said, was to make the struggle for the physical freedom of the influential theorist a success.
New trees were also planted in the women's village of Jinwar near Dirbêsiyê. The action was organised by a local group of the women's umbrella organisation Kongra Star. The activists planted about twenty peach, olive, pomegranate and almond trees and gave the villagers a photo of Öcalan. Jinwar is a magical attraction for people looking for a collective life. In the village built by women, an ecological economy, women's solidarity and a common and free life have been developed.
More trees were planted in Tirbespiyê, where women from Kongra Star initiated the action. They planted an area at the Şehîd Nezîr Êzidî Cemetery of Martyrs with various fruit trees and announced similar activities for the next few days in almost all regions of the north-eastern Syrian autonomous region.
