WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL, CA #328: The Kurdish diaspora, a major political issue (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The armed struggle of the Kurds and their allies in Rojava (1) has aroused

immense enthusiasm and solidarity. Paradoxically, while the Kurdish question
usually mobilized Marxist-Leninist-inspired political groups, the wider
libertarian galaxy became enthusiastic about Kurdish resistance against DAESH and
the Turkish state. From the testimonies of internationalist fighters to the works
of activists or amateur or confirmed geopoliticians, thousands of pages have been
written to discuss the policy implemented in the territories under Kurdish
control, perceived rightly or wrongly as the embryo of a self-managing society.
It would hardly be a caricature to say that some seemed to find there a new
Spanish war! Unfortunately, the usual shortcomings of anarchist and/or
libertarian groups, namely producing analyzes and political assessments of their
actions, have been repeated. To our knowledge, there is therefore very little
feedback from the solidarity campaigns initiated (with their successes or
failures). Today, the latter seem to be reduced to a fetishism of the Amazon with
a Kalashnikov (2)

How to explain it?
The difficulty obviously comes from the distance (Rojava is far away), the
circumstances (it is a conflict zone), the language barrier but also and above
all from the lack of knowledge of Kurdish society in general. Finally, it is the
result of the general lack of interest in questions of national liberation
struggles and anti-imperialism, themes that are little discussed among anarchist
militants.
It is clear that the Kurdish community has always been subject to continuous
pressure from the French state (arrests, expulsions, dissolution of its
representative organizations) and regular attacks from the Turkish services and
its associates. But it is only on the occasion of spectacular tragedies, such as
the attack last December on the Ahmet Kaya cultural center on rue d'Enghien in
Paris (3) that the "Kurdish problem" comes back into the news. .
However, it is through work and concrete solidarity with the Kurdish diaspora
that we could measure whether it carries in its political and community demands a
project that could be related to an egalitarian and libertarian society. It is in
the practice of this solidarity that we could forge links and understand how the
Kurdish diaspora mobilizes in France and in Europe, what relations it maintains
with the organization of the PKK. Finally, it is through this solidarity that we
could deploy our own criticisms against the policy of the French governments and
denounce the instrumentalization of which the Kurds are victims in the diplomatic
game between Turkey and the European Union.

The Kurdish Diaspora
There is no census of Kurds in Europe. The most common estimates state the
presence of approximately 1.5 to 1.7 million Kurds in Western Europe.
80% of European Kurds come from Turkey. But this rate has been changing
significantly since 2015. Iraqi Kurds form large communities in Great Britain,
the Netherlands, the United States and Sweden. Syrian Kurds are growing in number
in Germany, France and Sweden. This, due to a generous immigration policy
initiated by Olof Palme and material incentives for publishing and creation, was
able to attract a large part of the Kurdish intelligentsia. This is how the
largest Kurdish-language library in the world was opened in Sweden. In addition,
the Swedish multicultural model (one can follow school education in one's mother
tongue) is conducive to motivating immigration. But this policy is currently
being challenged. Indeed, in May 2022, Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO.
What seemed at first glance a mere formality turned into a real dilemma. Erdogan
vetoed these candidacies, as long as the countries did not fulfill his
requirements in terms of welcoming Kurdish populations whom he considers close to
the PKK. Sweden granted some of Erdogan's demands, including the expulsion of
Kurdish nationals from Turkey.
The formation of a diaspora in Europe is a recent phenomenon. In the 1960s, Kurds
from Turkey arrived first in Germany and then in the Benelux countries, Austria,
Switzerland and France as workers under the intergovernmental agreements on
immigrant labour. Thus, France signed an agreement with Turkey in 1965
facilitating immigration. The community now has 250,000 members in France.

The migratory movement, linked to work, is then perceived as temporary: it is the
work of single men, with a phenomenon that is called "mchery", that is to say the
fact of joining people from one's own region of origin. For example in Rennes,
more than half of the Kurds come from the same village! This practice obviously
strengthens the community link in both its positive (solidarity) and negative
(the weight of the community) points.
In the 1970s, the Kurdish migratory movement merges into that of Turkish worker
immigration, the Kurds unionize but do not question Turkish politics for two
reasons: the first is that the Turkish state sent them to the framework of work
agreements which represents an opportunity for them and the second is a strong
sense of national belonging.
The end of these agreements at the end of the 1970s led to the obtaining of
papers (the great clothing strike in the Sentier). And the emergence in Turkey in
the 1980s of the "Kurdish question" would strongly politicize the diaspora.

The military coups of 1971 and 1980 in Turkey will give rise to a real
"transnationalization" of Turkish political organizations. For the Kurds this
phenomenon is continuous and will increase throughout the following decades.
Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the long Iraq-Iran conflict and
the campaign of extermination of the Kurds (Anfal) launched by the Iraqi regime,
successive waves of Kurdish political refugees arrived in the countries of
Western Europe. The launch in 1992 of the campaign to evacuate and destroy
Kurdish villages, and, from 2011, the civil war in Syria maximized the Kurdish
exodus to Europe.
Millions of Kurds have therefore been forced into exile, first to large regional
cities such as Istanbul (3 million Kurds), Izmir, Adana in Turkey, Baghdad in
Iraq, Tehran and Tabriz in Iran, then to countries previously cited. Nearly a
third of Kurds therefore currently live outside Kurdistan.
It is therefore through migration that the (re)discovery of Kurdishness will be
played out. It is through the arrival of political refugees oppressed by the
negation of their culture in Turkey that the national identity of "expatriates"
will be redefined. The Kurdish diaspora therefore plays a major cultural and
political role. It was she who was able to give new impetus to the written
language, literature and Kurdish music, which are banned in Turkey, and to arouse
in this country a renewed interest in its culture. She has also played an
important political role in informing Western opinion of the fate of the Kurds in
the various countries where they are persecuted.
After a period of trial and error, the Kurdish diaspora is gradually setting up
its own institutions. This is the case of the Democratic Council of the Kurds of
France, target of the attack of January.

The Kurds and the PKK
The Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers' Party) was founded in November
1978 in Turkey. Its structuring took place beforehand abroad, mainly in Europe,
but also in refugee camps such as those in Lebanon, Kurds will thus join
Palestinian organizations. This back and forth movement, one would be tempted to
write interior/exterior, is essential to understanding the dynamics at work in
the politicization and practices of the community. It greatly contributes to the
political culture of Kurdish militants.
 From the start, the PKK had an armed branch, the HRK, which would later become
the ARGK (Kurdish People's Liberation Army). At the time, the PKK was just one
more organization in the Kurdish political field and in the Turkish
Marxist-Leninist far left. It was the outbreak of the armed struggle in August
1984 (attack on military barracks and takeover of Kurdish villages) that won him
sympathy and respect among the Kurds of immigration. The PKK succeeds in the
passage of the discourse on the armed struggle to the military confrontation.
This is an essential point: the Kurds are now able to defend themselves. They
also find through support for the PKK a concrete outlet for their commitment
(support, solidarity network, funding, etc.). In 1985, the PKK built a cultural
and social front, the ERNK (National Liberation Movement of Kurdistan). In 1987,
the armed struggle intensified, it was the "Sedilhan" (the uprising).

Joining the PKK is a life choice, the militants are all executives (cadros),
celibacy is required and the commitment is for life. When you join the PKK, you
take on another identity and a nom de guerre. Going through prison and torture,
the culture of martyrdom (Shahid) adds to the mystique and contributes to the
powerful image (both positive and negative) that the PKK sends back to the
community. The PKK militants obviously play to the fullest on this mystique. It
is therefore very difficult for a Kurd to criticize the PKK, we will
systematically refer to him the sacrifice of the militants and the work carried
out by the latter.

Protest in Canada in Vancouver
In recent years the PKK has renovated its ideological framework, in its writings
and its positions, its leader Abdullah Ocalan, has developed a new doctrine of
democratic confederalism combining libertarian municipalism, ecology and
feminism, drawing inspiration in this from the work of the American Murray
Bookchin with whom he would have maintained extensive correspondence from his
place of incarceration.
In 1999, under pressure from the Turkish state, the PKK was added to the list of
terrorist organizations by the United States and the European Union.

France and the Kurdish community
It is estimated that one in five Kurds is "politicized", that is to say capable
of mobilizing on community issues. 160,000 voters went to the polls in the last
elections; the results gave the majority to Erdogan's party (60%), the
pro-Kurdish party HDP won 30% of the vote. If we cannot measure the vote, this
result nevertheless indicates that the Kurds are not spontaneously "progressive"
there is even a large base of "pro-Turkish" Kurds often from the rural world,
attached to order and to stability.

The French state has always blown hot and cold, turning a blind eye to the entry
of PKK cadets: it has been able to use the right of asylum to ensure them a
minimum of tranquility, and has not, however, deprived itself to use the
anti-terrorism map to ensure permanent control over militants, particularly on
the issue of funding. It is the indictment for extortion in relation to a
terrorist enterprise which is the preferred card of the services, it also makes
it possible to freeze the assets of Kurdish associations thus paralyzing their
actions. Thus in 1993, the FEYK, the first attempt at a Kurdish organization and
an association under the law of 1901, was dissolved. Remember that it was not
until 1999 that the PKK was declared terrorist. The expulsions of activists make
it possible to weigh on diplomacy with the Turkish state according to current
relations. Other times, the services can turn a blind eye to the actions of
Turkish nationalist groups or Turkish services in their repression against
activists, as in 2013 during the assassination of activists on rue Lafayette.

Second generation
The children of the first Kurdish immigrants are now taking up the torch, torn
between the weight of the heritage and the possibility of new victories. They
have advantages over the previous generation; the majority of young Kurds are no
longer confined to hard and arduous jobs. Their assimilation through mastery of
the French language and access to studies allowed them a certain social
elevation. Socializing with other activists during demonstrations and other
support initiatives gave them an opportunity to break out of the isolation that
community mobilization can sometimes entail and to open up their political
questioning. It is therefore with this new generation and on the strength of the
successes of the previous one that we will have to work to perhaps finally get
the Kurdish minority out of the systematic oppression in which it is locked up.

Jean Mouloud

Ratings
(1) Western Kurdistan (Rojava means west in Kurdish) has been a de facto
autonomous region since November 2013. It is home to 2.2 million Kurds,
representing 10% of the Syrian population. Rojava takes up all of northern Syria
and is made up of three cantons: Afrin (in the west), Kobané (in the center) and
Cizire (also called Jazira, in the east). The movement that controls Rojava is
the PYD (Democratic Union Party), a sister organization of the PKK.
(2) Do not be mistaken, it is not a question of distributing the good and the bad
points, we are just as responsible for this deficiency, by way of example, the
author of these lines participating from the first hour in the attempts to set up
a Parisian support group does not exonerate itself from this lack of results.
(3) Exactly 10 years after the assassination of three Kurdish activists by an
individual linked to the Turkish secret services and for which the French State
refuses to lift the defense secret on the elements of the investigation.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3637
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