When the foundations of democracy collide with the ghosts of the past, systems react by hardening. From Turkish prisons to Irish construction sites, power attempts to concrete over what is inconvenient.
The Prisoner Who Dictates Terms. Imprisoned on the island of İmralı, Abdullah Öcalan has broken his silence, challenging the Turkish raison d'état. The founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), held in isolation since 1999, has called for the enactment of „peace laws.” This is not a plea for mercy, but a political ultimatum issued by a man whose organization has waged an armed struggle since 1984.
The proposal from the Kurdish guerrilla leader involves a transition to „democratic integration” and the abandonment of violence in exchange for legislative guarantees. The DEM Party, acting as an intermediary in negotiations, points to the necessity of local government reform in southeastern Turkey. The stakes are high: the conflict has already claimed over 40,000 victims.
Turkish-Kurdish relations have for decades been based on a cycle of violence and repression. All attempts to resolve the Kurdish issue, including the so-called Oslo process or the talks of 2013-2015, ended in failure and a return to military action, often due to a lack of permanent legal anchoring for the agreements.
Ankara faces a dilemma: ignore the appeal of a „terrorist” or risk an alliance with an enemy in the face of instability in Syria and Iraq. Öcalan understands that without „solid guarantees,” any truce will be fragile. His demand exposes the weakness of a state that can imprison a leader for 27 years but cannot solve the problem that this leader represents.
40,000 victims — estimated number of people killed in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict since 1984Total Surveillance and Its Costs. While Turkey struggles with physical violence, the United Kingdom is testing the limits of digital violence. The case of Vincent Kearney, a former BBC correspondent, has revealed the inner workings of the British security apparatus. MI5 and the Northern Ireland police surveilled the journalist for eight years, treating him de facto as a terrorism suspect.
The scale of the abuse is staggering in its precision. In 2013 alone, the services stored data on 1,580 calls and messages from Kearney over a two-week period. The goal was to uncover journalistic sources, and the tool was anti-terrorism legislation. Lawyer Jude Bunting called it a „long and consistent campaign of unlawful interference.”
„„The concessions made reveal repeated and consistent illegality on the part of multiple public authorities over a period of many years. This was taking place on an almost annual basis between 2006 and 2014 while I worked as a correspondent for BBC Northern Ireland.”” — Vincent Kearney
The proceedings before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London are taking place partly behind closed doors. It is a paradox: a court investigating secret abuses must itself operate in the shadows. The British state admitted to errors, but only under the pressure of a lawsuit. The „national security” mechanism has once again served to erode the foundations of press freedom, creating a chilling effect for potential whistleblowers.Concreting Memory and Centralizing Profits. The conflict between power and the citizen also moves to local and historical ground. In Cork, Ireland, developer Estuary View Enterprises has obtained permission to build 140 apartments on the site of a former Mother and Baby Home in Bessborough. The decision was made despite the fact that hundreds of children lie in unmarked graves there.
According to the findings of the Commission of Investigation, 923 children died at the facility, and the location of most of their bodies remains unknown. The planning permission, though subject to 70 conditions and archaeological supervision, is a victory of pragmatism over memory. Planned amenities, such as co-working spaces, are to be built on a site of systemic trauma.
Parallelly, in Germany, a battle is being waged over the financial sovereignty of cities. The Mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter, has announced a constitutional complaint against the state of Bavaria. The dispute concerns the ban on collecting the so-called bed tax, which could bring the city over 100 million euros annually.
State authorities changed the law in 2023 to block the city council's initiative. Munich, citing examples like Berlin or Hamburg, is fighting for the right to financial self-determination. In both cases—the Irish and the German—local sensitivity or need clashes with a superior administrative decision that imposes its own rules of the game.
Estimated annual tourism tax revenue: Munich (potential): 100The Illusion of Control. Proponents of a strong hand argue that the overriding interest of the state requires sacrifices. Without MI5 surveillance, terrorism would spill onto the streets of London. Without new investment in Cork, the housing crisis will deepen. Without central tax control in Bavaria, fiscal chaos will ensue. This is the logic of an engineer who believes that a system can be designed perfectly, ignoring the human and historical factors.
However, the case of a farm in Ohio serves as a brutal memento for technocrats. A modern ventilation system, intended to optimize breeding, acted like a chimney during a fire, killing 6,000 pigs. Winds of 35 miles per hour utilized the technological channels to destroy the facility. This is a metaphor for political systems: the more closed and „efficient” they are, the more catastrophic the consequences of their failure.
The attempt to concrete over graves in Ireland or silence journalists in the UK is a short-term action. Abdullah Öcalan reminds us from prison that unresolved conflicts return with redoubled force. The ghosts of the past, whether in the form of political demands or lawsuits, will always find a crack in the wall.
True stability does not come from the strength of concrete poured over graves nor from the number of intercepted calls. It comes from the ability to include what has been repressed within the framework of the legal system. As long as states treat memory and privacy as obstacles to be removed, they will continue to build structures vulnerable to the first strong gust of wind.