The graphic novel ‘Freedom Shall Prevail’, which is based on the life of Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been kept under aggravated isolation conditions for 25 years in İmralı Island, will be presented in Britain on 3 and 4 October. The event, which will be held on October 3 between 13.00-15.00 at the Cambridge University Sociology Department Seminar Hall, is organised by the Democratic Kurdish Center in Britan (Navenda Demokratik a Kurdên Britanya, NADEK), Jiyan Women's Assembly and PJAK.

The event will also be held on 4 October at 17:00 at the Kurdish Community Centre in London N4 1HU. Jiyan Women's Assembly, Tekojin, Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger will present the book at a joint event at the Kurdish Community Centre in London.

The award-winning Scottish author Sean Michael Wilson, who wrote the text, and the Kurdish illustrator Keko, who drew the drawings of the novel, will attend both events where the novel will be promoted, and Reimar Heidar, representative of the International Initiative.

After the introductory speeches, the events will continue with questions and answers.

Background

Freedom Shall Prevail is the first graphic novel exploring the life and struggle of Abdullah Öcalan, affectionately known as “Apo.”

Highly regarded around the world, Öcalan led the Kurdish freedom struggle as the head of the PKK from its foundation in 1978 until his abduction by the Turkish state in 1999. He has, so far, spent twenty-five years in captivity. In this graphic novel we learn, in his own words, what Öcalan’s childhood was like in the partially Kurdish areas of Eastern Turkey and how his political awareness and commitment grew as a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Through the personal struggle of Öcalan we also see the terrible devastation that Kurdish people have suffered and learn about the tumultuous and dramatic history of the relationship between the Kurds and the Turkish state.

The book also dives into the theories developed by Öcalan that continue to influence the ongoing struggle today. Expanding on these, the second part of the book gives us a wider consideration of the issues and policies around women's freedom, democratic confederalism and paints an inspiring picture of one of the most impressive attempts to build a genuinely grassroots democratic system anywhere in the world. The struggle going on in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, is one that is directly combatting gender and racial discrimination and the abuses of the capitalist economic system—in truly interconnected ways.

The wonderfully illustrated graphic novel is a collaboration between award-winning Scottish writer Sean Michael Wilson and Kurdish artist Keko, with backing and research help from the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and the International Initiative “Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan—Peace in Kurdistan,” groups with long-term and impassioned commitment to the cause of Öcalan and the Kurdish people’s freedom.