Charlie Kimber, representing SPOT, spoke on the “Importance of International Solidarity in Combating the Rise of Authoritarianism and the Far Right” at the 2024 National Education Union International Solidarity Conference:
First of all, thanks to the NEU, who has long been a good friend of Solidarity with the People of Turkey (SPOT) and works with Egitim-Sen, the Turkish Education and Science Workers Union, in a very productive manner.
And our solidarity with all the other struggles represented here today, and particularly that of the legitimate resistance at a time of genocide of the Palestinian people.
For 20 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, has headed an increasingly repressive regime.
Erdogan had an interesting take on democracy near the start of his political campaign. He said democracy is like a train journey. Once you reach your destination, you get off it.
And he reached his destination once he became Prime Minister and then President and has ruled in an increasingly repressive manner. Recently, in alliance with the MHP, the fascist organisation in Turkey, infamous for its youth wing, the Grey Wolves, which in the 1970s carried out a series of brutal assassinations against the left and the Turkish people.
Erdogan’s regime means repression of LGBT+ people, of the women’s movement, of the workers’ movement, of the democracy movement, so that, for example, Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of the HDP party, which many Kurdish people vote for, has been in prison now for nearly eight years simply for being successful in the elections, and environmental campaigners and the media.
Across the whole spectrum of Turkish society, repression is held down by Erdogan. I also need to stress, though, that there is also resistance by Turkish people. Turkey is a country of about 87 million people, the size of Germany or Iran, actually.
An important country. And it’s also always been a place in which workers’ and women’s resistance has been important. So that many of you may perhaps remember the Gezi Park movement of 2013, which saw over five thousand demonstrations in a matter of months against the regime.
And despite 22 people being murdered during that period of resistance, it was a huge threat against the government. And more recently a whole series of resistance by women as well. Particularly in the universities.
So that, if I think about in the last month, the murder of two women has seen protests against femicide in Istanbul University, in Bogaziçi University, in Yıldız Technical College and so on. Women who are saying, we will not die in silence anymore. We will stand up for our rights.
We are not going to allow our existence to be crushed by this femicidal regime. And it’s a very important element in terms that what’s going on is not simply about democracy, but it’s also about what sort of democracy that represents in Turkey.
Let me say something about the Turkish workers’ movement.
We have always believed that the organised workers’ movement is one of the crucial elements of the struggle. Potentially one of the most important. And we try to give a voice to workers who are fighting back.
For instance Ozak textile workers and their struggle is typical of many. It’s not illegal to be in a union in Turkey. The only problem is, if you are in a union, you may be sacked. You may be denied a job. You may be repressed. You may be imprisoned. And therefore it’s a very courageous thing, actively to organise as a trade union. The textile workers, the Agrobay agricultural workers and so on, have been important in raising the standard of resistance.
And one of the most important things you can do is to give your solidarity to those strikes and those campaigns. Because it’s a very important element of it.
I want to just say there are four reasons why you should be concerned about what’s happening in Turkey.
The first is the British government has bloody hands. It has always supported the Erdogan regime, welcoming Erdogan to London. It has had trade deals and it supplies arms to Turkey.It is not innocent in what happens in the repression in Turkey.
The second is, and this is very, very important for us, Turkey is a nightmarish vision of what could happen elsewhere. A far-right party in government supported by fascists. And if you want to imagine a Nigel Farage government supported by Tommy Robinson and his fascist ilk, that’s what Turkey is like.
And one of the crucial things about looking at places like Turkey is it is a call for action for us as well. Our sisters and brothers are the people across the world, the workers and poor across the world, not the elite in our own country. And therefore we stand with those in Turkey, partly because it’s important for us as well.
Thirdly, because we want to be part of preventing the same thing happening here. SPOT and other organisations call you to be part of things like the demonstration on 26 October in London against Tommy Robinson as part of this bringing together of solidarity abroad and also what’s happening in Britain at the same time.
And finally it matters because the liberation of Turkey, just as everywhere else, would be a liberation for all of us.
The deputy mayor of Istanbul’s 
