When Kenosha was burning, CNN was ridiculed for its 'fiery but mostly peaceful' caption as fires were raging in the background. Now, PKK are the tyrants and Paris is the city in flames
French anti-riot police worked overtime this weekend due to "utterly peaceful," pro-PKK protests all over Paris. "The fiery but mostly peaceful protests" saw cars being toppled and burned, storefront windows shattered and basically Paris becoming a hellhole but yeah, the protests were largely peaceful. Or at least that's what mainstream media, which tends to downplay any form of violence perpetrated by far-left groups, is telling you.
The protests were PKK sympathizers’ response to Friday’s incident at Ahmet Kaya Cultural Center, which saw three killed by an elderly French citizen who explicitly calls himself "racist" and works at French state-owned railway company SCNF.
Even though no form of violence can be justified, it is expected – at least from a psychological point of view – that such outrage turns into violence. I would have no right to draw any parallels between violent actions perpetrated by the sympathizers of a group globally recognized as terrorists and that of a group of people or an ethnicity truly oppressed.
Nevertheless, no matter what the causes were or whether they would be justified, violence is violence and it has no place to exist in a modern and civilized society. A very apt example of this phenomenon is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the United States. We all know that black people have had enough of the institutionalized racism in America and, unfortunately, resorted to violence in many cities. The most prominent of which might be Kenosha, a Wisconsin city that was hit hard by the skirmish. Ironically, this only harmed what the BLM movement purportedly strives to do.
That violence only tainted a just cause: to achieve equality of opportunity for black people and to ultimately end the racism they have been suffering for hundreds of years. It has been a crime against humanity that never truly vanished from society even after slavery and later segregation were officially abolished in the country.
According to an analysis by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), over 200 locations reported "violent demonstrations" in BLM protests, which were triggered by the tragic murder of George Floyd by a U.S. police officer. When compared to all demonstrations though, the number of violent protests makes up 7% of all BLM protests, the remaining 93% of which were reportedly free of violence.
Even so, violence took place in over a whopping 200 locations across the United States.
Oppression against a group of people, a minority or an ethnicity almost always leads to some sort of violent response and considering the weaknesses of human psychology, it is expected to a degree. Even though violence can never be justified.
Now, let’s figure out the irony here: Paris is burning with the fires lit up by PKK sympathizers and a French minister of Parliament, Sebastien Delogu, shared a photograph of himself walking under the shadow of actual PKK banners. They do not even pretend anymore and carry banners of PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the YPG, which the terrorists claim is a totally different group with no ties to the PKK.
A quick reminder is necessary here. The PKK is recognized as a terrorist group by the European Union, of which France is a proud member. So, the classical "But YPG is different than PKK" argument, which cannot be further from the truth, is not even valid here because the banners seen in the picture are literally PKK banners.
On the other hand, photos showing the interior of the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Center in Paris clearly demonstrate that portraits of the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan are hung on the wall too.
Ending the tweet with the sentence, "Far-right kills," Guedj is right in terms of the threats posed by right-wing extremism but also grossly ignorant of the dangers posed by the far-left.
Care to see why anti-Western tendencies, which have historically been high among Turkish society because of historical reasons, are at their highest in Türkiye now? And if you have any Turkish friends, please ask them, whose nation has suffered from over 40 years of PKK terrorism. They will tell you that violence is just a way of life for the group, and its actions can never be justified.
That’s not to say that the PKK just came to life out of the blue. There were reasons – not to say any of them would justify their terrorism – for their resort to violence back in the day, like the systematic racism against the Kurdish people by the government, but those reasons have largely been eliminated and there is no reason for them to resort to violence anymore.
Plus, the reconciliation process, which was meant to eliminate the remaining elements of oppression against Türkiye’s Kurdish citizens, was killed off by the PKK with their Ceylanpınar terrorist attack, which marked the return to violence against Turkish security forces. They later continued to bomb civilians and to burn forests as well.
Now, PKK terrorism has reared its ugly head in France and it’s the French people’s turn to understand that terrorism and violence can never be justified.
As Spanish American philosopher George Santayana famously said back in the day, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
If France fails to grasp once again the true nature of the PKK, as it failed with the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) until it actually killed French people on July 15, 1983, with the Orly Airport terrorist attack, it is condemned to repeat the past.
Before ASALA killed any of its citizens, France literally did nothing to stop them because of its close ties to Armenia and the fact that there is a sizable Armenian diaspora in the country. However, when the chickens came home to roost, they had to act and act fast.
If France repeats its inaction regarding the fight against ASALA back in the day, or its inertia and even alleged involvement regarding cement maker Lafarge’s hefty bribes to the Daesh terrorist group – which were in the ballpark of $777 million, chickens will come home to roost once again.
Now, please forgive the cliche, but France is truly at a crossroads. It will either continue to ignore terrorism that stems from the left of the political spectrum and lose its reputation once and for all; or apply the same principles it applies to terrorist groups that have far-right ideologies, or even Islamic communities that have no links to terrorism.
The funny part is, the mainstream media is also at a crossroads. It will either properly begin covering crimes perpetrated by far-left groups as well and stop sugarcoating them or leave its "liberal" bias behind (by the way, I hate how the word "liberal" has been perverted by U.S. politics, probably you do too) and lose its reputation – which is already being tarnished daily thanks to the rise of social media – once and for all.
The ball is in the courts of France and mainstream media now. You guys better act fast and act properly. The stakes are too high.