19 Kasım 2015 Perşembe

A religious mask well suited to an appearance of Kurdish nationalism

After the 1990s, the PKK changed its spots and began constantly speaking of “ethnic movements”, “local elements” and “crisis of identity oppressed under a majority”. The reason for that is that these factors have a permanent presence on the EU and U.S. human rights agenda. That is why the PKK is playing the Kurdish card. And in order to play that card right, they decided to use Islam – in their own twisted minds- which the Kurdish people are identified with. The fact is, however, that the PKK is a communist organization that has nothing to do with Kurdish nationalism. Indeed, it is always the Kurds that have been targeted by the organization, and organization carried out the real slaughter on the Kurds. As this book reiterates from time to time, it is important to properly distinguish between the PKK and the Kurds.
Burhan Semiz describes this change of guise in the PKK in order to better approach the local people as follows:
Religion, and specifically Islam, heads the list of the superstructural institutions that the PKK rejects, either directly or indirectly, depending on the circumstances, and that it regards as inimical. The PKK, identifying religion and Islam as an agent of colonialism, exhibited a hostile attitude to these values of society before and after its foundation... The PKK began realizing the importance of bearing societal values in mind, as of the early 1990s and in order to avoid a clash of values with the local people of the region, it adopted a new language concerning the family, women and cultural values, and particularly Islamic–religious values. The PKK’s failure to attract the desired level of grass root support in an organizational context, and the Kurds opposing the organization by tending to support other groups, such as Ilim, Menzil and Hizbollah, caused Öcalan to revise his classic language concerning Islam and religion in the 1990s and led to greater importance being attached to the subject.

Burhan Semiz, PKK ve KCK'nın Din Stratejisi (The Religious Strategy of the PKK and KCK), p. 101
Ibid., pp. 95-96
Ibid., pp. 125-126

Within this new guise, Öcalan explicitly stated that he could even regard radical religious movements as allies.
Friendship with opponents of the established order, especially religious movements, is desirable. A friendly approach to religious ideological movements based on Iran can be adopted. These should not be regarded as enemies, because they seek to overthrow pro-Western regimes by following a radical line. We must be in a state of competition and solidarity with them, particularly as we implement our own religious policy.

Ibid., p. 132

The religion, family values and spirituality that the communists seek
to destroy are values that the people of the Southeast Turkey will
never forego.
Öcalan sought to implement this change of language within the principle of gradual familiarization without an instantaneous and complete diversion from materialist elements. He sought to implement this through a strategy he dubbed “The Revolutionary Approach to the Problem of Religion”. Öcalan attempted to express his attitude toward religion in various forms, and began adopting a more moderate language in terms of Islam. Instead of his earlier language which completely excluded religion, he began concentrating on the social functions of religion, while still preserving his dialectical and materialist views.
This change of tactic has been included much more widely in general statements by the PKK in recent years. Various politicians and actors known for their religious natures have been employed, and the PKK has gradually began being associated with the concept of “moderate Islam”, in such a way as to influence the West. As a result of this false representation, the West imagined that it now had a group that would be effective against the growing numbers of radicals in the Middle East. The reality is very different, however. The PKK’s policy of drawing closer to Islam is merely tactical, as described by a former member of the organization, Demirkıran:
The day after I joined the organization I realized that it has no religious belief. Because, it had a Marxist-Leninist structuring. That really saddened me at first and caused me to be distressed for a long while. Yet they still tried to relieve me of my faith, as well. There was no question of my not rejecting religious belief when everyone else was doing so. Although I did not deny the faith internally, it was not possible to externalize my faith. Surely all of us were irreligious.
These comments concerning Hüseyin, a member of the organization aged in his mid-to-late 50's who had been an imam before joining the PKK for various reasons, are also noteworthy:
When Uncle Hüseyin first came to the camp he was performing his prayers as well. Then he saw that nobody else was praying, and that moreover everyone was against religion, and he gradually ceased praying. He explained this by saying, “Now we are at war. We can pray later”. This is how an imam became estranged to his religion in the PKK, which was funded on Marxist theory. Other people, like us, had already long since forgotten God.
The PKK, which has adopted a mask of religion in order to deceive our Kurdish brothers and the West, still dreams of establishing an atheistic, communal system from which the state and the family have been eliminated. Indeed, as we shall be seeing in detail in due course, the KCK state system established by the PKK under the rubric of urban organization exactly meets that communal description, and openly expresses it. For that reason, it is astonishing that the PKK’s religious talk is so deceiving to the West and even for some circles inside Turkey. These people describe a community that wishes to destroy all forms of religion as “moderately devout” and as a model for a Middle East, a region molded by religion.

Ibid., pp. 188-189
Ibid., pp. 189-190

Hiç yorum yok:

Yorum Gönder