 |
| Kurdish protest at La Hague |
The Fascist Islamist genocidal threat is reaching the streets of the besieged town of Kobane in Western Kurdistan (formally part of the Syrian state). The city is being attacked from the South by the Nazil-like forces of the Western-organized Islamic State and cut from its only possible support via the North by the Turkish Army and Police, which do not allow Kurds to cross the artificial border line on the railroad to join the fight.
As reaction, Kurdish emigrants in Western Europe have been holding major rallies in London and La Hague, among other places. In London they occupied the largest subway station, Oxford Circus, while in La Hague they took the gates of of the Dutch Parliament. They demand decided action against the Islamic State and in support of Kurdistan.
Meanwhile in Kobane the self-defenses have declared the town military zone and asked all civilians to leave, as it is well known that the Islamic State holds a genocidal policy against all those they consider their enemies. By the moment it seems that the presence of Fascists in the streets of Kobane is limited to a few outskirts buildings but the situation is dire in any case, with US air attacks (secretly approved by Damascus) shown to be nearly useless.
In this sense Kurdish forces demand mainly one thing: good weapons that can be used against the Fascists, whose equipment is excellent thanks to Western support and the takeover of large hoards from the Iraqi Army. As we have seen in Ukraine, this kind of technical advantage may not be enough against a decided popular resistance fighting for their lives, but, while the Ukrainian Christian-Fascists have only a very weak grasp on the populace and totally plays the Western Imperial game as subordinates, the Arab Islamo-Fascists seem to have a much better organization, capable to defy established stats like Syria and Iraq and co-opt large chunks of the Sunni Arab population, including expert soldiers, while their game is blurrier: with vague pretenses of establishing a supposedly anti-Western empire but clearly historical and present day support by Western Imperialist forces.
The most obvious one is Turkey. While Saudi Arabia, the USA and even Israel now pretend to be against the Islamic State, taking some formal and even military actions against it. Turkey is clearly playing in favor of their Arab Fascist allies by blocking any possibility of support from Northern Kurdistan (under Turkish occupation).
Naturally the USA is playing with two decks here: the IS is designed to be an excuse for the Empire to intervene in Syria and Iraq, weakening the influence of Iran, Russia and China in the area. By the moment the USA has conducted some air strikes, which seem to have no or very limited impact in the developments on the ground. The situation is in nearly all aspects a repetition of the Islamist uprising in Mali, which served the USA to gain some drone bases in the region and for France to return to its traditional role of post-colonial "protector" of the African regimes.
However West Asia is by all means much more geostrategical and volatile than West Africa. And the perilous game that the Western agents are playing there will have no doubt much greater consequences for all, including Europe.
Biden speaks out
US Vice-President Joe Biden has been saying a few truths as of late, even if he had to apologize for them and some imperialist press paint him as prone to the foot-in-mouth disease. The reality is that he's saying, very mildly, what needs to be said.
First of all, he accused Erdogan's Islamist Turkey of supporting the IS by allowing many of its members to enter Syria, what is true. Erdogan claimed to Heaven and Hell for his innocence and said that those fanatics crossed the border as unarmed tourists.
He also claimed that, as it is true that they kept the border way too open in the past, now they are keeping it tightly closed. What translated to plain English means: yes, we did allow the Fascist Islamists to enter Syria and provided all kind of help to them and now we won't allow the Kurdish militias to help the defense of Kobane.
A full confession in diplomatic slang. Still Biden had to apologize, what underlines the actual role that the USA and its allies in the region are playing regarding the IS: covert support and a mere pretense of indignation, mostly oriented to gain imperialist control.
Another interesting remark by Vice-President Biden was that the USA has embarrassed its European allies by forcing sanctions against Russia that mostly harm the EU.
Kurdistan as bastion of Humanism and Progress in West Asia
Kurdistan and the Kurdish People stand today as the main bastion of resistance against Islamism and Imperialism. But they are more than that: in the course of their struggle for self-determination, they have developed strong progressive and socialist ideals, even recently trying to overcome the burden of bourgeois nation-state cages by appealing to confederate democratic self-rule of the peoples and communities of the region.
It is not needed to mention that, among Kurds, and in spite of the deeply rooted historical burden of Muslim Patriarchy, women enjoy increasingly equal status, largely thanks to their own commitment in the guerrillas and militias that defend their country against their oppressors. Socialist ideals stand high among Kurds and definitely they hold better than anyone else the banner of Humanism in West Asia, being nearly impossible to defeat thanks to their numbers (the largest stateless nation on Earth) and the mountains that shelter them.
In this sense I can't but issue again another appeal for almost unconditional support for the Kurdish cause, because it is not different in essence to the cause of Humankind.
Long Live the Kurdish People!
Long Live Free Kurdistan!
Thank you for your kind words and your support for Kurdistan. I believe that the outcome of this struggle against IS will ultimately lead to independence in South-Kurdistan and maybe more.
ReplyDeleteOne think that I like to mention about IS: In the media you could get the impression that the IS is something revolutionary new, something nihilistic, something mystic.
This is not true.
The IS is simply Saddam Hussein's former Baath party that uses Al-Qaida techniques to recruit and brainwash social losers from Europe and Northern Africa, that's all.
Thank to you, the Kurdish people, because you're putting the mark very high in all aspects for the oppressed peoples of the World, and particularly our West Eurasian region, to imitate, let alone surpass.
DeleteIn my country right now, most are looking to Catalonia, Scotland, Latin America or East Ukraine for inspiration. However I believe, from my limited knowledge, that Kurdistan actually should be much more a reference for us, both because your socio-political movements show often a very advanced ideological development and a very strong socio-political (and armed) praxis, and because the attitude (historical and present) of states like Spain and France is much more similar to that of Turkey particularly than to more open-minded states like Britain.
My admiration, respect and support are for your brave people, Palisto. I truly hope that this is the beginning of a Free Kurdistan. Stay strong, stay free.
As for the IS, I'm a bit perplex at the simplification you made: "The IS is simply Saddam Hussein's former Baath party".
DeleteThe Baath, with its lights and shadows, was in origin and development an Arab Nationalist party of secularist and loosely socialist ideas. I can well understand how Arab nationalism clashes with Kurdish or Berber even more legitimate nationalism but I can also see the reasons that many had to back its ideas, in the Arab countries particularly, as a semi-progressive tool against neo-colonialism.
Actually the Baath, or to be more precise its left wing, still rules in Syria, apparently with large popular support. So at least in Syria, the IS (which has absorbed by now nearly all other "opposition") is not at all the Baath but its enemy.
As for Iraq, it's surely true that the IS has absorbed the old Sunni-Arab ethnic core of Hussein's Baath under a "new" religious fundamentalist ideology, supported initially by Saudi Arabia, the USA, Israel and, very notably, Turkey, which sees it as tool for its neo-ottoman policy of intervention in the Fertile Crescent.
But for all I know, its roots are rather in the so-called Al Qaeda in Iraq, which, as all Al Qaeda and in general terrorist Fundamentalist Sunni groups, has been developed under protection and direction of the US Empire in order to provide a convenient double-edged weapon for indirect intervention against independent regimes (Lybia, Syria, Afghanistan earlier) and scare-mongering sock-puppet "enemy" providing a pretext for direct intervention (Afghanistan, Mali, etc.), as well as the implementation of a tyrannical police state in the USA and satellite states.
Of course, such a large movement with so many pieces has many subtleties going on, many semi-independent branches and many unclear, sometimes winding or double-faced, standings by the implicated accomplice states such as Saudi Arabia or the very USA themselves. All this is difficult to gauge properly unless one is an intelligence services' director or similar. But to over-simplify it as just being continuity of the Baath's right wing, seems a bit exaggerated to me.
Of course, I'm open to hear what you have to say. My knowledge is necessarily limited.
"Actually the Baath, or to be more precise its left wing, still rules in Syria, apparently with large popular support. So at least in Syria, the IS (which has absorbed by now nearly all other "opposition") is not at all the Baath but its enemy. "
ReplyDeleteMaybe I oversimplified the situation but please do not confuse the two Baath parties, even though they started as one party.
Baath party of Syria is in the hands of the Alawites, while the Baath of Iraq was in the hand of Sunnis. They hate each other, there is a strong rivalry between the two. Bashir Assad's father, leader of the Baath party of Syria tried to kill Saddam Hussein, leader of the Baath of Iraq. The Baath party of Syria worked and works with the Mullah-Regime of Iran, the enemy of the Baath party of Iraq. The first talks between Syria and Iraq (after two decades of silence) emerged AFTER the Baath party of Iraq was removed from power.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein and his Baath party in Iraq his army was removed, too, and got unemployed and/or imprisoned with Al-Qaida Islamists. This is the starting point of the so called insurgency in Iraq from 2003-2011, mostly Sunni Arabs from the Sunni triangle who wanted to regain the power in Iraq.
The IS is just present in the Sunni triangle of Iraq.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Iraq_ethno_2003.jpg
http://geocurrents.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Syria-Arabic-Language-Map.jpg
Yes, I understand we both see the situation in similar parameters.
DeleteIt is not without sad irony though that the forces that once supported a secular regime in Iraq, now support the most extremist of all possible fanatic religious ones.
On another note, I was just commenting in a Spanish-language blog discussion on the battle of Kobanê, that the situation in Northern Kurdistan and in general the Turkish State should be watched with great attention, as tensions have been growing very fast, largely around the issue of Kobanê's defense. I feel that one of the goals of the Western Imperial "humanitarian" bombing against the IS at Kobanê was to cool down these tensions.
I am also intrigued about and seduced by the apparently growing influence of the PKK-centered bloc in all Kurdistan but particularly in Southern Kurdistan (formally Iraqi State), worth a lengthy discussion even for such a conservative and rather Islamist medium as is Al Jazeera.
In any case, as always my best wishes, admiration and respect for your People. I truly hope, and to some extent expect, that freedom, dignity and hope can succeed even in the current circumstances. As I said before, your struggle is that of Humankind.