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population. This mass support allowed the PKK to ini­ tiate its own “Kurdish intifada” in the early 1990s, cul­ minating in a series of mass uprisings. Internationally, however, the PKK was often the subject of criticism from the left due to its authoritarian leadership style, which including the killing of internal opponents, and strong nationalist sentiments.

Öcalan himself was kidnapped by Turkish secret services (most likely with the assistance of the Moss­ ad) on 15 February 1999, and has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali ever since. In response to his arrest, tens of thousands of Kurds launched protests all over the world.

In Switzerland the army had to be called up to pro­ tect UN buildings from Kurdish demonstrators. In Germany, Kurdish demonstrators organized a whole series of marches and occupations of public buildings. An attempt to occupy the Israeli embassy ended in the fatal shooting of four Kurdish protesters, for which no Mossad agents were ever prosecuted.

The PKK ban in Germany By the time of Öcalan’s arrest the PKK had already been banned in Germany for six years. In the early 1990s the PKK with its 15,000 members constituted one of the strongest left-wing groups in Germany and organised numerous demonstrations and political ac­ tions against the brutal oppression faced by Kurds in Turkey and the continuing sales of German weaponry to its NATO partner.

PKK supporters engaged in militant actions like highway blockades, self-immolations and attacks on Turkish travel agencies and the offices of Turkish fascist groups based in Germany. The German state banned the PKK in 1993 with the intention of assist­ ing Turkey against one of its strongest opponents; equally significant, however, was the wave of racist and anti-immigrant hysteria gripping Germany at the time.

The campaign to ban the PKK, the so-called “TerrorKurds,” was much more significant than the legal ac­ tion taken against other left-wing groups by the Ger­ man state, for it amounted to a de facto ban on po­ litical activity for one of Germany’s largest immigrant communities. The U.S. and EU soon followed, placing the PKK on their respective “terror lists.” To this day, simply displaying a PKK symbol at a political demon­ stration is enough to provoke German police to attack and disperse it. There have been 4500 legal proceed­ ings related to PKK activities since 2004 alone. Since 1996, over 100 PKK functionaries have been penal­ ized, some sentenced to prison.

As late as October of this year, the German Foreign Ministry described the PKK as being equally as dan­ gerous as the Islamic state. In the same report, the ministry emphasised the continued mobilizational capacity of the PKK: according to the Foreign Minis­ try, the PKK has 14,000 members and a mobilizable periphery of roughly 50,000 additional Kurds and sympathizers.

This strength was reflected in the demonstrations in the first half of October, which saw thousands of Kurds take to the streets, demanding solidarity with Kobanê, an end to the PKK ban and Öcalan’s release. The changing nature of the PKK Öcalan’s arrest was followed by a phase of critical self-reflection and new perspectives within the Kurd­ ish movement. The PKK, animated by the realization that a state alone is no guarantee of democracy and freedom, abandoned demands for an independent state, advocating a form of “democratic confederal­ ism” in its place. This confederalism would, in prac­ tice, mean an association of local democratic struc­ tures of self-organization and self-governance within the existing states. Feminist and ecological demands began to receive more attention within the party. Öca­ lan’s recent political writings exhibit clear influences from both the Zapatistas as well as the North Ameri­ can anarchist Murray Bookchin.

Within Turkey itself, the PKK contributed to build­ ing a broad alliance with various Turkish left parties, as well as the women’s and LGBT movements. The al­ liance’s presidential candidate, Selahattin Demirtas, received nearly 10% of the vote in the August 2014 election, uniting the Kurdish Left, the “old” Turkish Left and the new generation of activists from the Gezi Park movement.

Led by the PKK and its sister organisations, Kurdis­ tan has witnessed the emergence of numerous grass­ roots movements for democracy, education, gender equality and social justice. These form the left-wing alternative within the Kurdish movement to the cor­ rupt and pro-imperialist KDP and PUK. These two parties seek an independent state in northern Iraq and enjoy Western backing; in return, the West ex­ pects unrestricted access to oil fields in the area as well as political marginalisation of the PKK and its allies.

There is strong evidence indicating that the leader­ ship of the northern Iraqi Kurds intentionally with­ drew its troops and abandoned the Yazidis to the IS in order to force the West’s hand to intervene and pro­ vide weaponry to the Kurdish resistance. Whether the abandonment was intentional or not, the desired ef­ fect was achieved, as the Peshmerga have now begun to receive weapons from the West.

What the conservative Kurdish groups did not ex­ pect, however, was the PKK’s determined interven­ tion on behalf of the Yazidis and the widespread sup­ port and sympathy this generated within the Kurdish population. Thousands of Yazidis joined the PKK and YPG and are now setting up their own self-defense units. These units desperately need modern weapon­ ry but will not be receiving it from the West, for whom the PKK and YPG remain little more than “terrorists”.

In response to this unanswered need, a host of Ger­ man radical left groups (Neue Antikapitalistische Or­ ganisation [NAO], Antifaschistische Revolutionäre Ak­ tion Berlin [ARAB] and Perspektive Kurdistan) have launched the “Weapons for the YPG” campaign. They managed to collect over €40,000 in a matter of weeks. A similar initiative started by the Danish left-wing party Eenhedslisten sent over €7,000 to the PYD. Against the PKK ban The desperate need for weapons notwithstanding, it would be wrong for the radical left to support the West’s arming of the Iraqi Kurdish organisations KPD and PUK. Western assistance to these Kurds is intend­ ed to stabilize and consolidate the influence of impe­ (Above) Demonstrators in Kurdish-held area of Syria hold photo of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

rialist powers in the region—precisely the imperialist powers that enabled the rise of the IS in the first place. It is highly possible that the same weapons currently being used against the IS will soon be turned against the PKK.

Rather than get caught up in a debate about the mer­ its of Western support, [*see footnote] the Western and the German left in particular should start a pow­ erful campaign against the PKK ban. A repeal of the ban would constitute direct assistance to the most im­ portant leftist formation in the Middle East and thus a blow against imperialist interests. Given the nearly 800,000 Kurds currently living in Germany, there is no question that the left could mobilize around the issue successfully.

Moreover, a repeal of the PKK ban is politically fea­ sible: even conservative media outlets are beginning to acknowledge the contradiction between the West’s fight against IS on the one hand, and its suppression of the PKK on the other. The radical left should orga­ nise demonstrations against the ban and openly dis­ play the banned flags and symbols of the PKK. These would be concrete, visible signs of anti-imperialist solidarity with the progressive and democratic move­ ments in the Middle East. n *FOOTNOTE: Socialist Action disagrees with the author on this point. We think that the issue of imperialism’s armed intervention in the area is of paramount impor­ tance. We stand opposed to any and all U.S. and EU im­ perialist intervention in all its forms. The inclusion of de­ mands like “U.S./EU Imperialism Out of the Middle East!” and “Stop the Imperialist Bombing!” are essential to build­ ing an international antiwar movement that best advances the right to self-determination of all oppressed nations and peoples.

GLOSSARY:

IS (Islamic State): reactionary Salafist organisa­ tion pursuing the establishment of a theocratic Is­ lamic state in Syria and Iraq via military means. The group was known as ISIS until June 2014.

Yazidis: religious minority in northern Iraq, north­ ern Syria and southeast Turkey. Most of the 800,000 adherents speak Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish).

KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party): Traditional­ ist and conservative Kurdish political party in Iraq, led by the Barzani clan.

Peshmerga: Armed forces of the Kurdistan Region­ al Government in semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.

PJAK (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan): Kurdish guerilla organisation based in Iran, sister organisa­ tion of the PKK.

PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party): Left-wing un­ derground Turkish organisation based in Turkey, listed as “terrorist organization” by the EU, USA, UK, Canada, Australia and others.

PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan): Social demo­ cratic Kurdish political party in Iraq, led by the Tala­ bani clan.

PYD (Democratic Union Party): Kurdish political party in Syria, sister party of the PKK. In the course of the Syrian civil war, the PYD established a self-or­ ganised democratic system of governance in a semiautonomous region of Kurdistan (“Rojava”).

YPG (People’s Protection Units): Kurdish militia in Syria with political ties to the PKK and PYD.

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website: http://socialistaction.ca And the context of intervention goes back much fur­ ther. In this centennial year of World War I it is timely to recall Canada’s contribution to the sad legacy of big power nationalism and imperialism as it continues to