Speech of the representative of the Marxist Forum

Comrade Michael Hicks,

Dear Comrades and friends,

I am honoured to say a few words in celebration the life of comrade Dursun.

He was the general secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey until 1999. I knew him and I met him several times.

It is hard for us in Britain to imagine the experience of a communist living under a repressive right wing government and then going into exile.

And those years of exile for comrade Dursun were not wasted for nostalgia and self pity. He used this time to further study Marxism and the situation that developed in Turkey, and the international working class. And he analysed all these very specifically which is not easy task for anybody.

I shared with him the vision of a socialist society where need replaced greed, where racism was replaced by one race, the human race. That vision still holds true today and his contribution lives on.

The best tribute you can pay to comrade Dursun is to continue the struggle and follow this example, in developing the Marxist method to analyse the concrete situation that exist in the world today.

Comrades, the truth may not always be revolutionary, but it is the starting point for any true Marxist analysis. This, comrades, is what comrade Dursun done, and his legacy to us.

We extent our sympathy to the Turkish Communist Party, The Union of Turkish Progressives in Britain, to his friends and family, but above all at this moment in time, to his wife and daughter.

Thank you.