Armenian General Aid Union (UGAB), the Armenian Organizations Coordination Council (CCAF) in France and Armenian News held a seminar to discuss “the place of minorities in Southern Circassia and the Middle East”. 

Armenian Republic Embassy Representative in France Hovannes Kevorkian, former chairperson for Middle Eastern Christians Under Risk (Chredo) and Ile de France Regional Council Patrick Karam, journalist-writer Guillaum Perrier and Armenian News Reporter Marie-Aude Panossian and Kurdish Women’s Movement France (TJK-F) Spokeswoman Berivan Firat attended the organization held in the 5th Paris Municipal Building as speakers.

Firat spoke about a wide array of topics like Democratic Confederalism and Rojava and said Kurds, along with other peoples, have been fighting a difficult war to create conditions to live together under the framework of Democratic Confederalism.

Firat added: “And for this cause, tens of thousands of mostly young people have been martyred. We must learn to live together. We must pick at the wounds of the past, live with them, and to learn from past pain, massacres and genocides.”

Firat said even under war conditions, a project for a democratic commun life has sprouted in Rojava-Northern Syria and pointed to the significance the Kurds place on “common life” with the founding of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), which was followed by the founding of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Firat said: “For the first time in the history of the Republic of Turkey, an Armenian person, with Armenian identity and sensitivities, was elected to the Parliament with votes by Kurdish people.”

Firat also spoke about MPs from the Syriac and Yazidi peoples and said HDP is concrete proof for peoples governing themselves together and reproducing themselves.

Firat mentioned the pressure against the HDP, the elected officials under arrest, the cities that were destroyed, the severe war crimes and crimes against humanity that have been committed, and the hunger strikes against the isolation imposed upon Kurdish Peoples’ Leader Abdullah Ocalan.

When asked, “How will the Kurds fight, what will the future of Kurdish people be, are Kurdish people hopeful?” Firat said: “The Kurdish people have fought constantly for centuries, and arrived to this day through uninterrupted resistance. This has had a great cost. The bravest members of the Kurdish people have fallen martyr in this struggle. But the Kurdish people have marched on, without bowing down, without surrendering their will. And we Kurds have a saying: Nothing can stand against a people risen, no force can withstand.”

Armenian Embassy Representative in France Hovannes Kevorkian also gave a speech and said, “I salute your resisting people in your person.”

Firat added: “What we do best as a people is to resist. We repeat our promise once again that we will learn from our history, our struggle, the struggles of other peoples and their resistances, we will gather experience and continue on our path of struggle like we deem righteous.”