Understanding Kurdistan
Alternate Narratives by Nilüfer Koç and Neena Gopal

5:00pm – 6:00pm
16th July, 2023, Sunday
Bangalore International Centre, Domlur
Free Entry

RSVP here.

Multipolarity has become the essential character of our century. Intense power struggles between nation states characterize today’s world. Cyber, proxy and hybrid wars are increasing. Confrontation and cooperation alternate rapidly according to the interests of the different actors. International organizations from the last century are losing importance. More and more NGOs have to drop the N in order to survive. New regional and supra-regional coalitions and agreements are replacing traditional organizations like the UN.

No one can rule the world alone, although all wars and conflicts are about global hegemony. But real socialism, as a solution for the oppressed, has also failed. Humanity consequently finds itself in a huge chaos. Genocide, feminicide and ecocide constitute today’s major global challenges. The old paradigm based on power and capital accumulation no longer works while its alternative is still waiting to be born. A new paradigm has therefore become more urgent than ever.

In the center of the wars in the Middle East, the Kurds are fighting in Kurdistan for a new paradigm based on ecology, women’s freedom and radical democracy, a model they call Democratic Confederalism. This new social paradigm has much to offer for peoples way beyond Kurdistan itself.

In this session Nilüfer Koç, International Relations Spokesperson of Kurdistan National Congress, will deliver a talk followed by a conversation with Journalist and Author, Neena Gopal. There will be a Q&A with the audience post their discussion.

In collaboration with Bangalore International Centre (BIC)

The Speakers

Nilüfer Koç

International Relations Spokesperson, Kurdistan National Congress

Nilüfer Koç was born on March 10, 1969 in Ardahan, northern Kurdistan (Turkey). She is a member of the Executive Council and spokesperson for the Commission on Foreign Relations of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK). Her current primary political focus is the improvement of national dialogue amongst political parties and civil society organisations in Kurdistan, and she spent most of the period from 2013 to 2018 in southern Kurdistan (Kurdistan-Iraq) and Rojava/North East Syria. Parallel to national unity efforts, Ms. Koç is also active in the international arena in raising awareness of the right to self-determination for the Kurdish people and all ethnic and religious components of Kurdistan, and she is interested and engaged in the active and autonomous participation of women in all fields of society and politics. Ms. Koç came to Germany in 1976 as a child of Kurdish migrant workers and studied Biology and Political Science at the University of Bremen.

Neena Gopal

Journalist & Author

A journalist for over thirty years, Neena Gopal began her career in a Bangalore that was the hotbed of post-Emergency politics. Moving to the UAE in the 1980s, she worked for the Dubai-based daily Gulf News where, as foreign editor, she travelled the Middle East during and after Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War in 1990, covering war-torn Iraq and its neighbours through the Second Gulf War in 2003. Neena’s news-hunting ground however has been India and its immediate neighbourhood, both as a foreign affairs journalist and as a close observer of the life and times of many leaders in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. She is also the author of the tell all book, The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.