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Kurdish PKK fighters offer guerrilla
feminism for the Mideast
28.11.2006 |
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THE QANDIL MOUNTAINS,
Kurdistan-Iraq, November 28, -- It took just a few
minutes inside the offices of the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) in the mountain village to figure out
who was their leader.
Ronahi Ahmed was in charge, and the men in the room
immediately deferred to the stern-faced woman with
long curly hair and an unexpectedly brilliant smile.
Although ostensibly a member of the civilian
political wing of the PKK, Ahmed still had a pistol
at her belt, a reminder of her days as a guerrilla
leader.
In a part of the world known for the subordination
of women, nowhere do females play a greater role
than in the ranks of this Kurdish movement in the
rugged mountains of Kurdistan (northern Iraq).
Once Marxist but now saying it is committed to
peaceful and democratic change, the PKK retains a
quasi-military structure that gives its own brand of
feminism a distinctly martial cast.
"When a woman leaves her home and picks up a rifle
it is no small thing -- it is a social revolution,"
said Arshem Kurman, a hardened guerrilla and
lecturer at one of the movement's schools where
women's rights are taught.
"We are opening the eyes of Kurdish society," she
added, explaining how female fighters in the PKK
symbolize women's empowerment among her people.
With their camps in the mountains and an emphasis on
education and equality, the PKK aims to offer an
alternative model for Kurdish and Middle Eastern
women. |
A PKK guerrilla fighter carrying a Kalashnikov
rifle. PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. About
half of all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live
in Turkey |
Their struggle is constant, admit the women
activists and guerrillas, not only in wider society
but also among their fellow fighters who themselves
do not always reflect the movement's progressive
attitudes.
"That is the importance of martyrdom -- it gives our
cause weight," said Kurman, adding that female
losses in battle and suicide bombings by women have
forced men in the movement to take them seriously.
"Women are dying every day, so what better way to
send a message?" she said, and described how one
Kurdish woman killed more than 50 Turkish soldiers
in a suicide attack in the 1990s.
During that decade the PKK launched 15 suicide
attacks -- 11 of them by women. But in 1999, after
Turkey jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, the
movement announced its commitment to a peaceful
solution.
In February this year an Iraqi Kurd from
Sulaimaniyah set herself on fire near the
Turkish-Iraqi border in protest at Turkish treatment
of the Kurds. Posters of Vian Jaf can now be found
in many of the movement's buildings.
PKK leader Cemil Bayik stressed that the leadership
did not want to encourage such actions, however.
"We are not saying the action was right and we
criticize it openly, but as you are aware, emotion
in the Kurdish people is running very high," he said
at his headquarters in the Qandil mountains. "The
Kurdish people respect her actions."
Bayik also displays a poster of Vian Jaf on the wall
of his room.
Gaining respect and equality in the male-dominated
societies of the Middle East is not easy, PKK women
said.
"A woman can't stand up and talk in such a society,"
said Reha Baran, an administrator at the school -- a
cluster of stone huts in the mountains.
"For example, in Kurdish society men are the only
ones allowed to speak. If a husband is not home,
then it is the eldest son, regardless of his age.
"Because of the backwardness of society, women have
been pushed to the margins," she added. "Our aim is
to return them to the center of daily life and
society."
Female activists and guerrilla leaders converge from
all over the Kurdish regions to study at this school
and learn how women were deprived of their rights
and what can be done to regain them.
They then take these ideas back to their villages
and units and spread them throughout Kurdish
society.
Cahide, who as a guerrilla goes by just the one
name, travels to Kurdish towns and villages to try
to present a different social model to these
traditional societies.
"They look at women as weak and when we go there
they don't take us seriously," she said. "But as
time passes, you stay and talk and start to put
across your ideas... they look at you more seriously
and start to listen."
Cahide admitted that they have to be careful not to
alienate her audience, however.
"When I go to a village I know there are red lines.
You have to know these people and their culture and
how much they can handle," she said.
The young female PKK guerrillas feel that their
lives, in which they carry weapons alongside men in
a struggle for Kurdish identity, are still vastly
superior to what they would have lived had they
stayed in their villages.
As the sun set on a hillside overlooked by the
towering snowcapped bulk of Mount Qandil, a dozen
female guerrillas aged between 15 and 21 sat in the
grass drinking tea.
They all laughed when asked if they had not
preferred to stay at home and bear children rather
than arms, universally shaking their heads.
"Women in these families are forbidden from
learning, forbidden from leaving," said Rojbin
Hajjar, a Kurd originally from Syria.
In some cases, especially in Iran, guerrillas have
helped unhappy girls run away from their families to
join the PKK, Hajjar added.
"We are not just an example for the women of the
Middle East but for women the world over," added
rebel commander Sozdar Serbiliz.
AFP
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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