AMED -  In his letter to Abdullah Öcalan, Irish philosopher John Patrick Holloway wrote: “Yours is a song of hope, the hope that we so desperately need in this darkening world.”

 

Irish philosopher John Patrick Holloway sent his letter to Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, titled “You are a hope for the world” to the İmralı Delegation. Addressing Abdullah Öcalan in his letter, Holloway wrote: “We read your books, now we want to see your face and hear your voice. Yours is a song of hope, the hope that we so desperately need in this darkening world.”

 

The letter written by Holloway and delivered to the İmralı Delegation reads as follows: 

 

“Dear Abdullah Öcalan,

 

Sing your song now, loud and clear. You have been singing beautifully for many years, but it has been the song of a caged bird. Now you must come out and sing from the treetops, from the rooftops, a song to fill all the world. We read your books, now we want to see your face and hear your voice.

 

Yours is a song of hope, the hope that we so desperately need in this darkening world. Hope for the Kurdish people, but much more than that. Hope for the Middle East, so tragically torn apart by its meaningless, barbarous division into states, when so much could be solved by letting life flow communally. Hope too for the world, opening up other ways of living, in which the slavery of women would be a bitter memory of the past, in which plants, animals and other forms of life would be treated with respect.

 

A song of hope is a song of refusal. Its theme is ‘no, we will not accept’. We will not accept the brutality of states, the empty viciousness of war, the destructive rule of money, the violence of sexism and racism. No, enough, we will accept no more.

 

A song of hope sings of the pain of the world. The pain of imprisonment, the pain of torture, of discrimination, of humiliation, of exploitation. The pain of so much frustration of what we could create, a world of richness in which we collectively, communally determine how life should be.

 

The power of your song is bending the bars of your cage. We, your admirers, want to see you free, want to hear your voice. We want to hear your song of freedom resound through all the world. A dengbej song, of course, blending hope and refusal and pain and communal self-determination.

 

In profound admiration, I hope that you will soon be free.”