Criminalizing Our People: Social Impacts of the PKK Ban
Sunday, 29 November 2015 00:00 By Dilar Dirik, teleSUR | Op-Ed
Kurdish PKK forces. The terror-listing of the PKK by Western states
criminalizes ordinary Kurds. However, its hypocrisy also created a
conscious, mobilized activist community. (Photo: Kurdishstruggle)
Last year, when Western mainstream media was confused about "PKK terrorists"
fighting "Islamic State group terrorists," this evoked a tired smile in the
faces of ordinary Kurds who, aside from oppression at home, are stigmatized
and criminalized throughout Europe.
Terror designations often demonize one side of a conflict, while immunizing
the other. This especially applies to the Turkey-PKK conflict, with the
second largest NATO-army on one side, and an armed national liberation
movement on the other. But in this case, a terrorist designation also
criminalizes an entire community of ordinary people, denying them
fundamental rights.
The on and off listings of groups and states, such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq,
according to the day's political situation, are examples of how
blacklistings are political, not moral, regardless of their pretensions. In
reality, listings strengthen state-sponsored violence by reinforcing the
state's monopoly on the use of force, ignoring the legitimacy of resistance
and making no moral distinction between groups like ISIS and movements
reacting to injustice.
Today, the Kurdish freedom movement around the PKK, especially with its
pioneering women's liberation paradigm, appeals not only to Kurds, but to
all oppressed peoples in the region.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was designated as a terrorist group by
the United States in 1997 and by the EU in 2002. While PKK-affiliates
committed violent acts in Germany in the 1990s, violence was not the reason
to justify the ban, but rather the PKK "disrupting NATO interests in the
Middle East." Still today, European officials state that as long as Turkey's
stance on the PKK remains, they will refrain from lifting the ban. Whenever
governments look like reconsidering the listing, it is due to tensions with
Turkey. While the listing appeases Turkey, it is also a wild card to signal
that the ban on their enemy could be removed if Turkey misbehaves.
One does not have to be a PKK-sympathizer to view the ban as an anachronism.
In an era in which the PKK not only shifted its political perspective,
announced several unilateral cease-fires, and initiated a two-year long
peace process, it is also the life guarantee for many ethnic and religious
communities in the Middle East as the strongest enemy of the Islamic State
group. Old arguments fail to hold.
But, legal and political arguments aside, what social implications does
black-listing have?
In Europe, Kurdish people constitute one of the most organized and political
communities. The concept of democratic autonomy is implemented in the form
of people's and women's assemblies in the diaspora. This democratic
potential itself is seen as a threat.
European governments aim to delegitimize organizations perceived as
terrorist by targeting and "disrupting" support bases through
criminalization in an attempt to depoliticize communities and break their
ties with politics at home.
But Western governments are often complicit in the oppression that forces
these communities abroad. The same states that label the PKK as terrorist
are the top arms providers of Turkey's war on the Kurds. Intelligence
provided by U.S. drones killed 34 Kurdish civilians in 2011, German tanks
destroyed 5,000 Kurdish villages in the 1990s in the hands of the Turkish
army. Ironically, while supporting Turkey's war on the Kurds, European
states also accepted thousands of Kurdish refugees due to political
persecution in the 1990s. The explicitly geopolitical nature of these lists
reinforces injustice; thus, for the Kurdish community, terror-listing is not
a standard for morality or legitimacy, as Kurds actively die under its
implications. What it is however is harassment and abuse to a community of
millions.
In Europe, people don't need to actually commit offenses to be arrested for
PKK-membership. In Germany, which pursues the most aggressive
criminalization due to the long tradition of German-Turkish political and
economic collaboration, the criteria for membership can be mere perceived
sympathy, which is answered with phone tapping, psychological and physical
violence at demonstrations, home raids, and closures of social and political
institutions. Participation in social and political events, which are
normally democratic rights protected under international agreements, suffice
as membership criteria. Legally registered offices, student organizations,
and community centers are under constant suspicion.
People are charged without seeing evidence against them due to the secretive
nature of counter-terrorism procedures. In the case of Adem Uzun, a
prominent Kurdish politician and activist, a reason to arrest him was
actively fabricated by French authorities.
Young Kurds in Germany, France and the U.K., without residence status or
citizenship, are targetted because of their vulnerability and coerced to
collaborate with authorities as spies against their own communities. They
face threats of deportation when they refuse. Nowadays, refugees from
Kurdistan who escaped the Islamic State group are threatened and harassed by
European police for joining political activities.
Simultaneous crackdowns are often coordinated across Europe and coincide
with developments in Kurdistan. Shortly after peace negotiations were
announced between the PKK and the Turkish state in 2013, crackdowns on
Kurdish activists took place most notably in Spain, Germany, and France.
Angela Merkel's visit to Turkish President Erdogan before November's snap
elections expressed support for his authoritarian-fascist rule and meant
that Europe would close its eyes to Turkish massacres if Erdogan keeps
refugees out of the EU. As besieged Kurdish cities like Silvan face massacre
by the Turkish army, Germany raids Kurdish houses and arrests activists, as
I write.
Simultaneously, after having spent most of the year in jail, Shilan Özcelik,
an 18-year-old Kurdish woman is being tried in a British court under
terrorism charges for allegedly wanting to join the fight against the
Islamic State group. Activists believe that the U.K., which criminalized
Kurds for more than a decade, wants to set precedence with Shilan's case,
especially after British volunteer Konstandinos Erik Scurfield died fighting
the Islamist terror group alongside Kurds in Syria, the funeral of whom was
received by crowds praising him as a hero. The British government is in
tacit alliance with Kurdish forces at the front, but criminalizes the same
struggle domestically.
Statistics about PKK-sympathizers in Europe are only based on wild guesses
by authorities because the mutual mistrust between ordinary Kurdish people
and European state authorities makes it impossible to express political
opinions openly. The UK, France, Germany, and Denmark made their point clear
when closing several Kurdish TV channels, charging them with heavy fines for
allegedly supporting the PKK. In the case of ROJ TV, the then prime minister
of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is believed to have banned the channel to
gain Turkey's favor for his post as NATO secretary-general in 2009,
according to leaked documents.
What message do those that pride themselves with press freedom and democracy
send to hundred thousands of diasporic Kurds who see these channels as their
only voice and connection to their homeland?
That nobody is immune against the constant Kafkaesque distress of
criminalization is exemplified by the case of Nicole Gohlke, Left Party
Member of the German Parliament. In November 2014, during the siege of the
Islamic State group on Kobane, she spoke at a demonstration in Munich. She
held up the PKK flag for 15 seconds, saying: "I urge the German government
to no longer criminalize symbols like these, because a fight for freedom,
human rights, and democracy is being led under this flag as we speak. Lift
the PKK ban!" She was detained, forced to pay a fine and had her
parliamentary immunity lifted. This happened in a political environment
where the PKK was internationally applauded after rescuing ten thousand of
Yezidis stranded on Mount Sinjar.
Clearly, the terror designation is a veil behind which Europe hides its own
wickedness. It is a tool of control to silence dissent and annihilate
political consciousness. But the PKK is legitimate in the eyes of millions
of Kurds; it is impossible to make any distinction between "organization"
and "social base." Whoever attended a Kurdish demonstration will have heard
the slogan: "PKK is the people - and the people are here." Kobane, the
bastion of resistance against the Islamic State group, was liberated with
the slogan "Long live Abdullah Öcalan."
Today, the Kurdish freedom movement around the PKK, especially with its
pioneering women's liberation paradigm, appeals not only to Kurds, but to
all oppressed peoples in the region. In Rojava and North Kurdistan, the idea
of democratic autonomy based on the co-existence of all ethnic compounds is
taking practical shape.
When Kobane was under siege last year, everyone saw the mobilization power
of the Kurdish community; hundreds of spontaneous demonstrations, hunger
strikes, occupations, and rallies were simultaneously organized across
Europe within hours. At the same time, Europe's own two-faced politics were
exposed when the PKK saved entire communities in the Middle East, while
NATO-member Turkey supported jihadist groups, wanting to see the Kurds fall
before the Islamic State group, thus becoming a major causal factor for the
refugee crisis, for which the EU now brown-noses Turkey.
Regardless of their moralistic pretensions, crackdowns by arms-selling
governments that support oppressive states like Turkey, which are realized
in the hope of assimilating especially young Kurds into uncritical, pacified
parts of the system by isolating and robbing them off their opinions,
democratic rights, media, and sense of community, reached quite the
opposite: a politically conscious, increasingly autonomous, critical
community that burned its bridges with the system and is willing to dedicate
itself fully to its legitimate struggle.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
DILAR DIRIK
Dilar Dirik, 23, is part of the Kurdish women's movement, a writer and PhD
student at the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge.
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Criminalizing Our People: Social Impacts of the PKK Ban
Sunday, 29 November 2015 00:00 By Dilar Dirik, teleSUR | Op-Ed
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reference not valid.
Kurdish PKK forces. The terror-listing of the PKK by Western states
criminalizes ordinary Kurds. However, its hypocrisy also created a
conscious, mobilized activist community. (Photo: Kurdishstruggle)
Last year, when Western mainstream media was confused about "PKK
terrorists" fighting "Islamic State group terrorists," this evoked a tired
smile in the faces of ordinary Kurds who, aside from oppression at home, are
stigmatized and criminalized throughout Europe.
Terror designations often demonize one side of a conflict, while immunizing
the other. This especially applies to the Turkey-PKK conflict, with the
second largest NATO-army on one side, and an armed national liberation
movement on the other. But in this case, a terrorist designation also
criminalizes an entire community of ordinary people, denying them
fundamental rights.
The on and off listings of groups and states, such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq,
according to the day's political situation, are examples of how
blacklistings are political, not moral, regardless of their pretensions. In
reality, listings strengthen state-sponsored violence by reinforcing the
state's monopoly on the use of force, ignoring the legitimacy of resistance
and making no moral distinction between groups like ISIS and movements
reacting to injustice.
Today, the Kurdish freedom movement around the PKK, especially with its
pioneering women's liberation paradigm, appeals not only to Kurds, but to
all oppressed peoples in the region.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was designated as a terrorist group by
the United States in 1997 and by the EU in 2002. While PKK-affiliates
committed violent acts in Germany in the 1990s, violence was not the reason
to justify the ban, but rather the PKK "disrupting NATO interests in the
Middle East." Still today, European officials state that as long as Turkey's
stance on the PKK remains, they will refrain from lifting the ban. Whenever
governments look like reconsidering the listing, it is due to tensions with
Turkey. While the listing appeases Turkey, it is also a wild card to signal
that the ban on their enemy could be removed if Turkey misbehaves.
One does not have to be a PKK-sympathizer to view the ban as an anachronism.
In an era in which the PKK not only shifted its political perspective,
announced several unilateral cease-fires, and initiated a two-year long
peace process, it is also the life guarantee for many ethnic and religious
communities in the Middle East as the strongest enemy of the Islamic State
group. Old arguments fail to hold.
But, legal and political arguments aside, what social implications does
black-listing have?
In Europe, Kurdish people constitute one of the most organized and political
communities. The concept of democratic autonomy is implemented in the form
of people's and women's assemblies in the diaspora. This democratic
potential itself is seen as a threat.
European governments aim to delegitimize organizations perceived as
terrorist by targeting and "disrupting" support bases through
criminalization in an attempt to depoliticize communities and break their
ties with politics at home.
But Western governments are often complicit in the oppression that forces
these communities abroad. The same states that label the PKK as terrorist
are the top arms providers of Turkey's war on the Kurds. Intelligence
provided by U.S. drones killed 34 Kurdish civilians in 2011, German tanks
destroyed 5,000 Kurdish villages in the 1990s in the hands of the Turkish
army. Ironically, while supporting Turkey's war on the Kurds, European
states also accepted thousands of Kurdish refugees due to political
persecution in the 1990s. The explicitly geopolitical nature of these lists
reinforces injustice; thus, for the Kurdish community, terror-listing is not
a standard for morality or legitimacy, as Kurds actively die under its
implications. What it is however is harassment and abuse to a community of
millions.
In Europe, people don't need to actually commit offenses to be arrested for
PKK-membership. In Germany, which pursues the most aggressive
criminalization due to the long tradition of German-Turkish political and
economic collaboration, the criteria for membership can be mere perceived
sympathy, which is answered with phone tapping, psychological and physical
violence at demonstrations, home raids, and closures of social and political
institutions. Participation in social and political events, which are
normally democratic rights protected under international agreements, suffice
as membership criteria. Legally registered offices, student organizations,
and community centers are under constant suspicion.
People are charged without seeing evidence against them due to the secretive
nature of counter-terrorism procedures. In the case of Adem Uzun, a
prominent Kurdish politician and activist, a reason to arrest him was
actively fabricated by French authorities.
Young Kurds in Germany, France and the U.K., without residence status or
citizenship, are targetted because of their vulnerability and coerced to
collaborate with authorities as spies against their own communities. They
face threats of deportation when they refuse. Nowadays, refugees from
Kurdistan who escaped the Islamic State group are threatened and harassed by
European police for joining political activities.
Simultaneous crackdowns are often coordinated across Europe and coincide
with developments in Kurdistan. Shortly after peace negotiations were
announced between the PKK and the Turkish state in 2013, crackdowns on
Kurdish activists took place most notably in Spain, Germany, and France.
Angela Merkel's visit to Turkish President Erdogan before November's snap
elections expressed support for his authoritarian-fascist rule and meant
that Europe would close its eyes to Turkish massacres if Erdogan keeps
refugees out of the EU. As besieged Kurdish cities like Silvan face massacre
by the Turkish army, Germany raids Kurdish houses and arrests activists, as
I write.
Simultaneously, after having spent most of the year in jail, Shilan Özcelik,
an 18-year-old Kurdish woman is being tried in a British court under
terrorism charges for allegedly wanting to join the fight against the
Islamic State group. Activists believe that the U.K., which criminalized
Kurds for more than a decade, wants to set precedence with Shilan's case,
especially after British volunteer Konstandinos Erik Scurfield died fighting
the Islamist terror group alongside Kurds in Syria, the funeral of whom was
received by crowds praising him as a hero. The British government is in
tacit alliance with Kurdish forces at the front, but criminalizes the same
struggle domestically.
Statistics about PKK-sympathizers in Europe are only based on wild guesses
by authorities because the mutual mistrust between ordinary Kurdish people
and European state authorities makes it impossible to express political
opinions openly. The UK, France, Germany, and Denmark made their point clear
when closing several Kurdish TV channels, charging them with heavy fines for
allegedly supporting the PKK. In the case of ROJ TV, the then prime minister
of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is believed to have banned the channel to
gain Turkey's favor for his post as NATO secretary-general in 2009,
according to leaked documents.
What message do those that pride themselves with press freedom and democracy
send to hundred thousands of diasporic Kurds who see these channels as their
only voice and connection to their homeland?
That nobody is immune against the constant Kafkaesque distress of
criminalization is exemplified by the case of Nicole Gohlke, Left Party
Member of the German Parliament. In November 2014, during the siege of the
Islamic State group on Kobane, she spoke at a demonstration in Munich. She
held up the PKK flag for 15 seconds, saying: "I urge the German government
to no longer criminalize symbols like these, because a fight for freedom,
human rights, and democracy is being led under this flag as we speak. Lift
the PKK ban!" She was detained, forced to pay a fine and had her
parliamentary immunity lifted. This happened in a political environment
where the PKK was internationally applauded after rescuing ten thousand of
Yezidis stranded on Mount Sinjar.
Clearly, the terror designation is a veil behind which Europe hides its own
wickedness. It is a tool of control to silence dissent and annihilate
political consciousness. But the PKK is legitimate in the eyes of millions
of Kurds; it is impossible to make any distinction between "organization"
and "social base." Whoever attended a Kurdish demonstration will have heard
the slogan: "PKK is the people - and the people are here." Kobane, the
bastion of resistance against the Islamic State group, was liberated with
the slogan "Long live Abdullah Öcalan."
Today, the Kurdish freedom movement around the PKK, especially with its
pioneering women's liberation paradigm, appeals not only to Kurds, but to
all oppressed peoples in the region. In Rojava and North Kurdistan, the idea
of democratic autonomy based on the co-existence of all ethnic compounds is
taking practical shape.
When Kobane was under siege last year, everyone saw the mobilization power
of the Kurdish community; hundreds of spontaneous demonstrations, hunger
strikes, occupations, and rallies were simultaneously organized across
Europe within hours. At the same time, Europe's own two-faced politics were
exposed when the PKK saved entire communities in the Middle East, while
NATO-member Turkey supported jihadist groups, wanting to see the Kurds fall
before the Islamic State group, thus becoming a major causal factor for the
refugee crisis, for which the EU now brown-noses Turkey.
Regardless of their moralistic pretensions, crackdowns by arms-selling
governments that support oppressive states like Turkey, which are realized
in the hope of assimilating especially young Kurds into uncritical, pacified
parts of the system by isolating and robbing them off their opinions,
democratic rights, media, and sense of community, reached quite the
opposite: a politically conscious, increasingly autonomous, critical
community that burned its bridges with the system and is willing to dedicate
itself fully to its legitimate struggle.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Dilar Dirik
Dilar Dirik, 23, is part of the Kurdish women's movement, a writer and PhD
student at the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge.
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Revolution a Source of Hope Among Horror
By Tony Iltis and Stuart Munckton, teleSUR | Op-Ed
Show Comments
