Serhat, a Kurdish singer exiled in France for 32 years, in front of a Turkish hair salon, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, Friday, Feb. 28. (Credit: Amélie Zaccour)
Mert* was content, but not overly so. The day before, the historic leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, incarcerated in Turkey since 1999, explicitly called in a letter for his movement to "lay down arms" and disband itself. A request that, at least on paper, represented a victory for Ankara, which considers the PKK a terrorist organization – as do most Global North countries. But for this Turkish barber located in the heart of Little Turkey, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the shadows looming over this agreement clouded the period of appeasement it was meant to initiate. His salon, where Turks and Kurds come to pamper their beards, was located about a kilometer from where three PKK activists were murdered in 2013.In his statement, Öcalan said that the armed struggle had "run its...
Mert* was content, but not overly so. The day before, the historic leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, incarcerated in Turkey since 1999, explicitly called in a letter for his movement to "lay down arms" and disband itself. A request that, at least on paper, represented a victory for Ankara, which considers the PKK a terrorist organization – as do most Global North countries. But for this Turkish barber located in the heart of Little Turkey, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the shadows looming over this agreement clouded the period of appeasement it was meant to initiate. His salon, where Turks and Kurds come to pamper their beards, was located about a kilometer from where three PKK activists were murdered in 2013.In his statement, Öcalan said that the armed struggle had "run its...
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