HELSINKI – The Kurdish community and the internationalist Apoyî joined the left-wing youth in the large May Day demonstration in Helsinki. The Kurdish bloc joined the youth and shouted “The streets are ours, the streets are ours, not the bourgeoisie!” to oppose the new right-wing government in Finland. In return, the youth joined the Apoyî and chanted “Bijî berxwedana PKK”. At the end of the demonstration, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin gave a speech along with others. The speech was interrupted by an internationalist waving the PKK flag. The protester called on Marin to keep Finland out of the imperialist alliance, NATO, which only brings war and terror to Kurdistan.
The pictures here are from the demonstration and one shows Sanna Marin, the Finnish Prime Minister, with the PKK flag in front of her.
In Helsinki, the apoist internationalists commemorated those who died in the Finnish Revolutionary War.
In the first parliament in Finland’s history in 1916, the Socialists pushed through changes to improve people’s lives, from the 8-hour day to women’s suffrage. Unable to tolerate a more democratic, gender-liberated society, the patriarchal capitalists broke up parliament with the help of the Russian elite. The people of Finland saw their historic responsibility to defend democratic society, and so on January 26, 1918 the red flag was raised over the Workers’ House in Helsinki as a call to take up arms against the fascist state. The revolution had begun.
The heroic resistance lasted for months and at the height of the revolution society dominated most of Finland’s major cities. Red Guards were organized in all cities and in many cities there were also women units who, armed only with their hunting rifles and their revolutionary mentality, fought against the Finnish fascists and the German artillery units. Ultimately, the revolution in Finland failed. “However, as internationalists, we know that the struggle is not over. It continues all over the world and especially in Kurdistan, the new frontline of the global revolution for democracy and equality in society.” declared the internationalist activists.
The internationalist Apoyî also gave a speech assessing the connection between the revolutionary Red Guard in Finland and the movement in Kurdistan:
“May Day is the festival of the internationalist labor movement. Today we want to commemorate the comrades who fell in this city in the struggle for democracy and equality as part of the global struggle against capitalism, but also to remind that the struggle is not over, only the fronts have shifted. As in Finland a hundred years ago, today in Kurdistan the youth are raising the red flag and taking up arms to defend society against the fascist state. As in the swamps of Finland, thousands of martyrs who gave their lives fighting for a free life for all rest in the mountains of Kurdistan.
In Kurdistan, the martyrs of the revolution are commemorated with the words “şehîd namirin”, the martyrs are immortal. We understand this in such a way that the death of our comrades does not call us to inaction and mourning, but to organize the struggle in our cities and to put ourselves on the front lines of the revolution in Kurdistan. in this way the martyrs of the revolutionary struggle in Finland will also become immortal in our memory and in our struggle.
şehid namirin”
