Europe’s Kurds stand up for ‘Kurdish Stalingrad’
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – The fate of Kobane, whose bitter struggle has been relayed live to television screens around the world, has spurred Europe’s Kurds to action in support of the besieged town.
The defenders of the small Syrian border town have, with forgivable hyperbole, dubbed it the “Kurdish Stalingrad”, and in rallies across Europe their fellow Kurds have sought to cast the outcome of the battle as a turning point in Kurdish history.
"This is the first time in 30 years that our fight drew so much positive attention from the European public,” Yüksel Koc of the German-Kurdish Federation told Firatnews. “It is thanks to Kobane’s resistance."
One element in the worldwide attention on Kobane is the fact that the town is hard by the Turkish border where international camera crews have lined up, alongside motionless Turkish tanks, to cover the nearby conflict.
The battle has included a daily and growing number of U.S.-backed coalition air strikes that have contributed to holding off what once looked like the town’s inevitable fall to its ISIS attackers.
Kurds in Europe also claim credit for having established Kobane internationally as a symbol of resistance.
Across Europe, Kurds have been staging protests at parliament buildings, announcing hunger strikes, and lobbying politicians to take action to save Kobane.
“At the rallies and demonstrations, the whole world stood up for the Kurds,” Jiyan Behrozy from Kermanshah in Iran, told Rudaw.
“The whole world saw in black and white who is right and who is wrong in this war,” said Behrozy, who now lives in Stockholm.
But she wants the world to do more. “I am here today to send the outside world a message that it should act tougher against the fundamentalists in ISIS, who opposes democracy and freedom,” she said during a rally in the Swedish capital.
With slogans such as "Stop IS Terror in Kurdistan", ”Save Kobane” and "Long live Chairman Apo", a reference to Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of Turkey’s banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the protesters called on the international community to arm Kobane’s defenders.
These are mainly the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), the armed militia of Syrian Kurdistan’s PYD, itself an offshoot of the PKK.
At a demonstration in the Swedish city of Goteborg, Shadiye Heydari, a Kurdish Social Democratic member of the Swedish Parliament, said she wanted to see a United Nationa mandate to provide humanitarian and military assistance to those fighting to halt ISIS.
“The UN Security Council has responsibility for international peace and security,” she said. “Sweden has provided humanitarian assistance and will continue to do so.”
In the Finnish capital Helsinki, Finns joined Kurds in a march to the foreign ministry to demand military support to the YPG. In London, protestors entered the lobby of Parliament and lay down to represent the dead of Kobane. In Paris, French, Armenian and Algerian protesters joined Kurds in a rally at the Place de la Bastille.