News Center– Artist Jülide Kural, who attended the PKK’s weapons-burning ceremony held on July 11, created a collective video project to call for peace.

The text in the video was written by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Süreyya Karacabey, edited by filmmaker and translator Sinem Bayraktar, and voiced by Jülide Kural. In the video, titled “I Have a Word for Peace”, there are images of the families of those who lost their lives during the conflict, peace marches, and white doves.

“I cannot remain silent, I have a word for to peace”

The text voiced by Jülide Kural in the video is as follows:

"Time will go on spinning like a blood mill if we don’t reach out our hand to stop it. Looking away will leave shame as the only witness of our lifetime. If we remain silent, those women who mistake even the rain for tears will keep clinging every night to pain, whispering ‘my children’ as they fall asleep. Now the country is an album of unfinished lives. If we cannot say anything while looking at pages we cannot turn without burning our hands, at letters never written or sent, at remnants of life delivered to homes in packages, if we cannot say a word, the accumulated meaning of humanity may vanish in a deep well. If we say nothing, language itself will be ashamed, and the letters that could save us will scatter against the shore in a storm. If we are silent. If I am silent. I cannot remain silent, I have a word for peace.

Humans can correct many things that have been wrongly built. They can create a place where only birds pass through the sky. They can reflect on what it means to be human. Beyond divisions and borders, life—and art—can imagine this. I have a word for peace. I have a word for peace. If we will it, we can recover everything lost on dark roads. Villages and cities made of graveyards will change. Grass will grow again where there was fire. Compassion long held within pain will heal us if we extend our hands to one another. I have a word for peace. I have a word for peace. I have a word for peace."