Page 123 - America's Failure to Perceive the PKK

fact – as being highly suited to their own norms. Indeed, the French
writer Bernard-Henri Levy makes this very clear in his own statements
concerning the PKK: "... one finds a level of gender equality, a respect
for secularism and minorities, and a modern, moderate, and ecu-
menical conception of Islam that are, to say the least, rare in the
region." 45

Note that the three factors cited, women's rights, democracy and
a moderate concept of religion, are things that the West has always

wanted to see in the Middle East. These key and misleading factors
have been carefully selected and used by the PKK as part of a tactical
change. The West, on the other hand, fondly imagines that it has gained
an ally with just those characteristics in a region of great strategic impor-
tance, one that it can make excellent use of. The fact is, however, that
the PKK is simply deceiving the West.

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 iden-
tity oppressed under a majority". The reason for that is that these fac-
tors 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, how-
ever, 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:

Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya) 121