“BIJI SEROK OBAMA”
No pretext in Kobane can legitimise collaboration with imperialism
America is the enemy of the peoples! The Kurdish people cannot be liberated with US weapons! America cannot solve the problems of the peoples; it destroys and occupies for the sake of its own interests!
Recent developments in Kobane have clarified who is who when it comes to fighting… There is no place in the middle between imperialism and the peoples that are fighting and there is no room for neutrality…
There is no uncertainty that one must be against imperialism and engage in the appropriate behaviour. Undoubtedly this is so from the point of view of Marxism-Leninism. This is a viewpoint of those who are Marxist-Leninists… Certainly for those who are not there can be and are a wide range of viewpoints. But saying that there are does not mean these are correct… What only matters is what is the reality… The criterion is one of what is or is not the reality, and where it comes from and how it is perceived.
What is perceived is that in the latest developments the FSA (Free Syria Army) and Barzani’s peshmerga have gone to support Kobane… Actually the PYD-YPG (Translator’s note: Kurdish forces in Kobane) want neither of them. But after long discussion and talks, despite this they have had to accept them. Why? What does it mean that the PYD accepts them? Has the character of Barzani and the FSA changed, has the mind of the PYD changed that it is satisfied with these two forces and will fight alongside them?
While this is going on in Kobane on the PYD front, the AKP (TN: Turkish government) has started calling Kobane Ayn Al Arab and states that the FSA is on the soil of Syria and this is why it is there. Is it a coincidence that the AKP and the FSA who think alike should be there? Is it not natural and even necessary that an FSA nurtured by the AKP should be in Kobane?
In Kobane, who is resisting and for whom?
A week ago, it was stated that 1,300 FSA fighters would be sent to Kobane to help.
Later it was stated that a force of Barzani peshmerga would be sent and this force entered Kobane. It then came out that the 1,300 FSA fighters would be 400 or even less. About 150 peshmerga went to Kobane. It was said that these two forces would fight alongside the PYD-YPG. The PYD earlier said that it would be in command. Later it was said that each force would give commands to its own followers. Finally this raises questions about the character of the forces going there and what kind of war they will pursue.
For example, who is the FSA?
We constantly hear its name as a force that fights Assad’s government and is being made to fight, but who is it really and who is it fighting for? Up to now, how has the FSA fought its war?
When the FSA first arose, both the media of the imperialist countries and the AKP’s media presented it as a force that was in favour of freedom and would liberate the Syrian people. Later on, its structure showed signs of instability and it was clearly not making headway against Assad. Do you recall this force’s provocative actions inside Syria? Shall we recall how for a long time the imperialists said that Assad had used chemical weapons and after a UN inspection team was sent, what developments then resulted? Both in the vicinity of Damascus and in other cities of Syria, whose signature was it on the attacks, chemical and non-chemical, including on children?
Has the FSA come to Kobane to help the Kurdish people?
Nizar Al Khatib, commander of the Free Dawn Brigade connected to the FSA, said the following: “The reason for us fighting in Kobane is not Kurds or Arabs, the reason is that Kobane is part of Syria. We are also protecting the Syrians in Kobane.”
Barzani’s peshmerga are warriors for whom?
Who is training and arming Barzani’s peshmerga? What kind of statement is being made when a peshmerga was photographed with an American flag emblem attached to his uniform? Is this coincidence or a personal preference? Some media sources state that those peshmerga who went to Kobane had American or German citizenship and also received training from those quarters. Is this true? Could this situation explain the soldier’s emblem? Why do the peshmerga uniforms and behaviour patterns resemble those of the Americans, is this pure coincidence? What does it say that contra gangs trained in Turkey by the USA also look like this?
When the peshmerga passed through Urfa, crowds welcoming them shouted “Biji Serok Obama”. (TN: Kurdish for “long live leader Obama”. PKK supporters say “Biji Serok Ocalan”.) What does this mean? What is the meaning of the applause for Obama? Last week Ahmet Karaman, a writer for Ozgur Politika, a media organ of the Kurdish nationalists, wrote “Thank you America”.
What does it mean to thank America, the chief enemy of the peoples of the world, which has turned the whole world into a lake of blood, what state of mind, what mentality can say to the US president, “Biji Serok Obama”?
Cemil Bayik (TN: A PKK leader) in a statement on the “solution process” with Turkey said, “There is a need for vehicles and observers. We can accept Americans (as observers) and as far as we can see it is the correct approach.” Then he said, “Finally there is serious discussion of removing the PKK from the list of terrorist groups.” What does this mean?
Who controls the threads of the solution process?
America cannot determine the fate of the Kurdish people. If it should do so, the “fate” of the Kurdish people will not be one of liberation. All the hopes of the Kurdish nationalist movement are bound up with the imperialists.
Bayik says, “We believe that this war has shown the (true) image of the PKK.” He is trying to “put the squeeze” on the AKP with support from the USA.
Bayik is saying that the resistance to ISIL proves they are a force that can be used by the imperialists in the Middle East.
Who makes up the coalition against ISIL?
A coalition was put together under America’s leadership to struggle against ISIL. This coalition was set up in August and has been continuing since then. Together with the latest participants, there are in the coalition the USA at the head, the EU, Turkey, forces ranging from the FSA to the collaborationist Arab states, from the Barzani forces to the PYD-PKK who claim they are making a revolution in Rojava..
But what is the actual character of all these forces brought together under one roof to fight ISIL? On the one hand, almost all the imperialist forces of the world, on the other forces like the FSA, PYD, PKK which claim to be fighting for freedom… The ISIL, that brings all these forces together against it, is something we have written about many times already… While ISIL has its particular character, what is the reality that brings forces claiming to be for people’s liberation together with imperialism?
If we look at all periods of history, in what period have imperialists put ointment on the wounds of the people? What people have been freed by the imperialists and their collaborators?
Has it been forgotten what imperialist forces, above all America, did in Iraq? In the name of freeing Iraq, what resulted from the imperialists going into Iraq other than installing a collaborationist like Barzani in a kind of alternative Israel? What interests of the peoples were served by Barzani being a kind of willing watch dog for America from the first moments of the war?
How do we classify the experiences of people in Syria? On the one hand there is the FSA, whose character as a plaything of imperialism has been well established by now, on the other hand there is what is called ISIL, a monster created by imperialism. And there is the PYD-PKK, a force claiming to fight for its own people and to be making a “revolution” in the region. Who is fighting against whom?
In a situation that will be determined and directed by imperialism, though the character of ISIL is clear to all who have eyes, what interests are served by a coalition against ISIL created by imperialism and whose interests are these?
Does this coalition not create dreams for types like Barzani who set up their own governments while the people were having their throats cut in Iraq? Isn’t this coalition about sharing precisely the same interests as imperialism? And on what basis is there unity with it? Or, in other words, is the aim to establish a Kurdish government in Syria like the Barzani one in Iraq? A new force of imperialist collaborators like Israel… The words of Cemil Bayik – “If the Kurds do not take part, if the Kurds are not in it, the problems of the Middle East cannot be solved” – cannot these be evaluated as a readiness to offer the imperialists another springboard?
To line up with the murderous armies of the imperialists means nothing other than to be a wolf to your own people!
“Those who lie down with the blind wake up one-eyed” – being in such harmony with the imperialists means in the end thinking like them and acting in their interests. It is in the framework of classical Middle East politics which involves making approaches to others under the logic of offering to be useful and later being unable to escape from being used.
Let us remember what was written at the time when actions were carried out in Shengal in conjunction with US military forces.
Again, there is news in the media about two forces of murderers from America who are going to Kobane. There is DELTA FORCE, the name of a contra military force of America, and there is BLACKWATER, which is the name of an American mercenary force, and in Kobane they are all to fight together with the FSA, the peshmerga and the PYD-YPG, it has been stated… It is well known what happened when the USA used these two forces before. The organisation called Delta Force is a force of contras used for America’s secret military operations. It is an army of murderers.
As for the institution called Blackwater, it added the word Academy to its name, was this not a name change occasioned by the massacres it committed earlier in Iraq? How will this army of murderers be part of the liberation of the Kurdish people, how will it benefit the liberation of Kobane? Based on what this army of murderers did in Iraq, is it possible for it to behave otherwise in Kobane?
What kind of “resistance” will it be to have all these forces together under one roof? While “resisting” ISIL they are alongside the very forces that created it in the first place, and what is the meaning of this? Will it not be the imperialists who determine and guide the fighting in Kobane?
More than that, what benefit is it to the peoples to be alongside these armies of killers? It is still a very fresh memory in Iraq that American forces spilled the blood of the peoples and tortured them, so how can a force claiming to be a people’s movement be alongside them, is there not the slightest bit of shame about this?
The weapons of the imperialists who are the enemies of the people can guarantee liberation to nobody
Yes, there are dozens of questions and there will be dozens more, perhaps even hundreds. All must be answered but who will answer them? The Kurdish petit bourgeois nationalists and their satellites must have an answer.
Let us leave to one side their being on the same ground as imperialist forces, and the interests of the Kurdish people; they do not even heed the massacre of the Kurdish people and the complete darkening of its future… The line of conciliation has become a line of collaboration.
“We believe that the war has shown the (true) image of the PKK” – in saying this, Cemil Bayik showed how much he wanted to be appreciated by the imperialists, and this “true image” of collaboration will be a source of shame and concern for the Kurdish people. Shame, because being alongside the murderer of the peoples, being appreciated by it, being removed from a “terrorism list” it compiled is both significant and a source of shame. And concern, because if one of the major forces of the Kurdish people is fighting alongside the murderer of the peoples, any people is bound to feel concern at such a development.
Because the imperialists have brought no benefit to the peoples. All historical and social reality shows this in all its nakedness. The questions we have asked above find their answers in this reality. But both the Kurdish nationalist movement and those who tail it prefer not to go beyond dreams and do not ask questions. They dream of the “Rojava revolution” but close their eyes to reality and are doomed only to advance in imperialism’s wake.
For years imperialism has created dreams of “revolution” for these sections. “Orange” revolution, “velvet” revolution and so on in a world full of “revolutions”. We have all seen what became of an “Arab spring” full of “democracy”. While encouraging these dreams the imperialists went on to implement their own policies.
Those who have these dreams and do not see the reality of imperialism in their politics and enter into a coalition with imperialism on the basis of hostility to ISIL have to remember that if you give imperialism an inch it will take a mile.
Will they remember? We do not think so, so we will say it again. Because it is the truth that the imperialists who arm them and are alongside them have benefited no people in war, the Kurdish people included, and this remains the truth however blind they are to it. Despite this, it is necessary to ask what common interests the Kurdish nationalist movement and its satellites share with imperialism. Because despite it not being in the interests of the peoples, getting into partnership and collaboration with the murderer of the peoples is certainly the blindness produced by nationalism. But if there is a unity of interests arising from a Barzani-like mentality, and this is affecting how they act, isn’t this the most dangerous departure arising from all of this?
TO SUM UP:
1. What is being experienced in Kobane is a full linkage with imperialism and its collaborators. BIJI SEROK OBAMA has no meaning other than this.
2. While the AKP uses the FSA and the Barzani forces to oppose any Kurdish entity outside its control, imperialism seeks to boost its own control in Kobane.
3. The coalition against ISIL is about forces established to serve imperialism’s interests. This is the objective truth, whatever excuses may be put forward.
4. Being alongside America’s army of murderers is a shameful situation from the point of view of the peoples.
5. Those who travel in the wake of imperialism while saying they are guaranteeing their own people’s liberation by force of arms have gone from the point of conciliation to the point of collaboration, even if they do not want to wake up to the truth.
6. Once again we say to the Kurdish nationalists and their satellites: turn your faces to the peoples of the world. Turn your weapons on the imperialists and their collaborators. The road you are going down is the road of protecting and guarding imperialist interests. On this road liberation does not come in the form of weapons sent by imperialism in the form of “aid”. The weapons of the imperialists are the weapons for enslaving the peoples of the world. This has been true in all periods of history and will continue to be true. Do not deceive yourselves or the peoples with dreams about imperialism changing its character.
