We live in a bleak time. Even the words that the large media describe further horrors make the situation absurdly obscure. The US late adopted 59 South Africans with authoritative justification that they were fleeing “white genocide”. Meanwhile, real, full-sized genocide in Gaza He inactive has to qualify as Israel's self-defense—well, possibly a small over-reacting. In the black hour, the more valuable are the signs of hope.
This sign was a unanimous decision taken on 12 May by the Kurdistan Workers organization (PKK) to follow the call for 20 years in prison by Abdullah Öcalan's leader and to completely disband the group. PKK is simply a militant-political organization and armed guerrilla group, operating mainly in the mountainous regions of south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria, inhabited by the Kurdish majority. Founded in 1978, she engaged in an asymmetrical Kurdish-Turkish conflict, respective times interrupted by ceasefire in 1993–2015.
Although at first the PKK fought for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its authoritative program had already assumed the pursuit of autonomy and the extension of the political and cultural rights of the Kurds in Turkey. In fresh decades, the PKK has not only approached a peaceful solution – besides Öcalan himself, taking up studies in prison, led a deep reflection on feminism or philosophical problems. In short, PKK as a social movement has become a full part of the modern left.
The effects of this reorientation have besides come to light among the Kurds outside Turkey. Anti-government protests in Iran were applicable to the world's history. Demonstrations began in Tehran On 16 September 2022, in consequence to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-born woman, detained for a "inappropriate" headgear and fatally beaten by moral police officers. shortly the protests spread to dozens of cities and They connected things together. (against the oppression of women, opposition to spiritual oppression, conflict for political freedom from state terror) into an organic whole.
Iran does not belong to the developed West, which is why protests under the slogan "Zan, zendega, azadi" (Woman, life, freedom) differed importantly from the #MeToo movement. They mobilized millions of average women and straight affected the situation of all the people of the country, including men. They were deprived of the anti-male tone, which frequently resonates in Western feminism. In Iran, men and women had a common enemy: spiritual fundamentalism, supported by state terror.
Men who participated in the demonstrations knew that the fight under the slogan "Zan, zendega, azadi" for women's rights was besides a fight for their own freedom. Protesters who were not Kurds saw that repression of the Kurds besides constrained their own freedom – and solidarity with the Kurds was the only way to freedom in Iran. So the Iranian protests have made something that the Western Left can only dream of. They avoided the trap of Western middle-class feminism, straight linking the conflict for women's rights against women and men's conflict against cultural oppression, spiritual fundamentalism and state terror.
What about the allegation that PKK, however, was born as a side in the armed struggle? The organization simply followed the general rule of resistance: to be taken seriously, it is essential to start by threatening violence. erstwhile peaceful negotiations prevail over armed resistance, nevertheless there is possible force in them.
As examples of successful negotiated solutions, Western media like to announce the success of African National legislature in South Africa or peaceful protests by Martin Luther King in the US. However, in both cases it is apparent that the (relative) triumph of peaceful negotiations occurred only due to the fact that the establishment feared bloody opposition (both from the more extremist wing of the AKN and black Americans). In another words, the negotiations were successful due to the fact that they were accompanied by an ominous threat to the armed struggle.
The surprise (from our western perspective) is: how can something like this happen in Kurdistan? In the West, the region is inactive seen as a field of brutal tribal struggle, naive simplicity and a sense of honor, but besides superstition, betrayal and relentless cruel force – almost caricatural, barbaric indifference towards European civilization. But erstwhile we look at the Kurds today, it will surprise us how far they are from this cliché. In Turkey, whose situation I know rather well, I noticed that the Kurdish number is the most modern and secular section of society, far from all spiritual fundamentalism, but with a highly developed feminist awareness.
During the first word Trump tried to justify To betray the Kurds (when supported Turkey's attack on Rożawa, the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria) by saying that they are “not angels”. Of course they are not for him – Israel (especially Angels in Gaza and the West Bank) and Saudi Arabia (especially angelic in Yemen). Yet in a sense, the Kurds are angels.
The Kurds' destiny makes them a model victim of colonial geopolitical games. The Kurd region extends across the border between 4 neighbouring states (Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran), which is why their autonomy, although full worthy of it, is of no interest to anyone. The Kurds paid for it. Who else remembers Saddam Hussein bombed and poisoned with Kurd gas in northern Iraq in the early 1990s? Or that rather recently, erstwhile crucial areas of Syria and Iraq subjugated the muslim State, Turkey was playing a military-political game, officially fighting ISIS, and indeed bombing the Kurds who fought ISIS for real? And should we be amazed that much of the Kurdish militants – Peshmergs, “looking death in the eye” – were women, among them legendary snipers?
In fresh decades, Kurds' ability to organize a common life has been tested in almost clinically experimental conditions: as shortly as they were allowed to freely draw air outside the conflicts surrounding their countries, they amazed the full world. Following Saddam's fall, the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq became the only safe corner of that country where institutions functioned well and even regular flights to Europe were operated.
The Kurdish enclave in northern Syria, centered around Rozhava, was a unique place in today's geopolitical mess: erstwhile the Kurds got a minute of respite from their large neighbours, permanently threatening them, they efficiently built a society that is hard to call a reality, a working utopia. In my professional field, I noticed that an intellectual community flourished in Czarów, which regularly invited me to guest lectures. These plans violently broke the increasing military tension in the region.
However, I was peculiarly saddened by the reaction of any "left" colleagues, who were disturbed by the fact that the Kurds were besides relying on the protection of American troops. What were they expected to do in a trap of tension between Turkey, the civilian war in Syria, the mess in Iraq and Iran? Did they have a choice? Should they have sacrificed themselves on the altar of anti-imperialist solidarity?
It is so our work to give full support to the opposition of the Kurds and to powerfully condemn the dirty games played by Western powers. While sovereign states around Kurdistan gradually plunge into fresh barbarism, The Kurds stay the only spark of hope. This fight is not only about the Kurds but besides about ourselves. About what the fresh global order will be. If we abandon the Kurds, it will be a order where there is no place for the most valuable aspect of the European emancipation legacy. If Europe turns its eyes on the Kurds, it will betray itself. A Europe that compromises the Kurds will be a actual Eurostan!
Abdullah Öcalan is so nothing little than a Kurdish Nelson Mandela: his proposition that the PKK should resolve itself is simply a genuinely courageous act of commitment to peace efforts. (It is besides worth mentioning Marwan al-Barghusim, Mandela of Palestine, who has been in Israeli prison for 2 decades.) What will consequence from the self-solution of PKK will depend on the Turkish government. Will he accept the offer and sincerely return it? There is an urgent request for strong global force on Turkey. We all have a work to get involved.
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In English she translated Aleksandra Paszkowska.
