How and Why Sakine Cansiz Survived Torture, Led Women in Combat and Was Murdered for Kurdish Freedom

Authored by Hamma Mirwaisi, with Douglas M Brown

The life of Sakine Cansiz mirrors the history of the Kurdish People. To become known as an active champion of human rights, democracy and feminism, she had to be tortured, to receive more wounds as an active soldier in a vicious guerrilla war, ad to become an assassin’s target. For the Kurds to get any attention, they’ve had to be gassed by Saddam Hussein or invaded by ISIS. Now the world can see them as the only effective fighters against ISIS, and see their success in establishing truly democratic communities in a region that knows only oppressive rulers. Who are they? What do they want? Why can’t they have a country?

 

“Kurdish-American writer Hamma Mirwaisi uses the 2013 execution-style murder of Kurdish feminist activist Sakine Cansiz in Paris as a launching point to explain Kurdish history, Kurdish aspirations, and the Kurds’ insurgency against Turkey – a conflict measured not in decades but in centuries. Whatever one;s perspective, one thing is clear: neither the Kurds nor the PKK can be ignored any longer. The Accidental Martyr may infuriate Turkish nationalists and frustrate diplomats, but it is a must-read to understand where the PKK has been and where Syria and Turkey’s Kurds may be going”.
(Michael Rubin, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute).