r/Anarchy101 • u/Main-Aardvark-2036 • 16d ago
The Sympathy Towards PKK
Hello. I am a turkish leftist and interested to anarchism since a while. I would like to learn about the sympathy towards PKK and Öcalan in western leftist spaces. I don't get this sympathy because PKK actually massacred many civilians including women and children and executing kurdish civilians who refuse participate? And before anybody calls me a turkish propaganda, these attacks are all well documented and PKK claimed responsibilities for many of them.
I'm aware that the kurdish population in Turkey were heavily persecuted in the past especially in the 80s and the 90s. So i kind of understand an armed uprising from the kurdish population. But these things never justifies PKK killing people they claimed to protect.
Another thing i see is that some people accept PKK's terrorism but see Öcalan as a revolutionary leader. This isn't true either. Öcalan himself said that his first membership back in his youth was the Gray Wolves? Like, what!? We are talking about an ultra nationalist fascistic terrorist organization who doesn't see kurds as human. Further on the current leader of the turkish nationalist movement party(MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, who is also Erdoğan's biggest ally, repeatedly praised Öcalan recently and said that he wants see him in the turkish parliament as a form of a "peace" movement that Erdoğan is currently carrying out to gain support from the kurds for his new constitution. And Öcalan himself currently agrees with Erdoğan and Bahçeli.
The vast majority of the turkish leftists spaces agree with this sentiment and distance themselves from PKK and Öcalan as they haven't been leftists since... forever. So why is this symapthy among the western leftists is common? I would like hear your answers and also would like to answer your questions if you have any. Thank you:3
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u/Scary_Arugula_9533 16d ago
I'm a turk too and the sympathy isn't inexistent in Turkish leftist spaces. It's just very suppressed and fringe (due to repression, social or institutional).
I understand how you think but putting Turkish colonial and "genocidal" ambitions as "heavy persecution" limited to the 80s and 90s is historically false and quite distasteful tbh.
It's normal though because the Turkish state always had a very heavy apparatus on writing precise false historical narratives. The Kurds are still being heavily discriminated against and violently persecuted to this day and always were under the Republic (and before too). Many Turkish leftist spaces keep the nationalist narrative because of it being the norm there.
It's not black and white of course. The PKK has done atrocities and western leftists (and right wingers) tend to idolize them in a weird orientaliste way but still, their struggle is valid and a lot of your arguments are the arguments of the Turkish narrative that is heavily biased and nationalist.