Osman Baydemir Quotes

• In primary school, every day and especially on Fridays, I was supposed to say, 'I am Turkish, and I am righteous and hardworking,' But all those things did not actually turn us into Turks. This system is somehow creating fake personalities.

  Osman Baydemir

  Friday, School, Creating

  54 Copy quote

• If someone tried to assimilate you for years, if your language was forbidden, if the names of your hometown were changed, what would do you but revolt.

  Osman Baydemir

  Years, Names, Language

  5 Copy quote

• I have had it up to here with the prosecutions, the government's attitude, the judiciary, the media's stance and the majority of Turks who view the Kurdish people's justified cause through a nationalist lens.

  Osman Baydemir

  Attitude, Government, Views

  8 Copy quote

• All of my life I have stayed away from violence and the instruments of violence, and have seen a legal, democratic struggle as the only means to achieve change.

  Osman Baydemir

  Struggle, Mean, Violence

  5 Copy quote

• I am at a crossroads; I have always been against armed opposition... I have chosen civil disobedience. But I will apologize to my people if there are funerals coming out of prisons. I will criticize myself and I won't be the mayor of Diyarbakir.

  Osman Baydemir

  People, Funeral, Apologizing

  "After the Hunger Strike" by Jenna Krajeski, www.newyorker.com. November 27, 2012.

  8 Copy quote

• In Turkey, we have lived almost everything that could be lived; war and torture... The war concept was consumed to its limits. But there is only one way we have not tried: negotiations, peace, and talking.

  Osman Baydemir

  War, Talking, Turkeys

  4 Copy quote

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