Female Fighters of Kurdistan (Part 1/3)

Come with us to Northern Iraq for a springtime frolic with the lovely lady guerillas of the Kurdish Liberation Movement.

Part 1 of 3: http://bit.ly/Female-Fighters-1
Part 2 of 3: http://bit.ly/Female-Fighters-2
Part 3 of 3: http://bit.ly/Female-Fighters-3

From Boudica of the British Celts to Corporal Klinger, few things unsettle the male mind like a lady in arms. The Kurds of Northern Iraq have long recognized this principle and incorporated it into their quest to build a Kurdish homeland in the overlap between Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Fighting alongside their male comrades in a region not exactly known for its progressive stance on women's rights, the female Peshmerga guerillas of the Kurdish Liberation Movement built a reputation for themselves in the 70s and 80s as demure diaboliques with the deadly poise of Leila Khaled or Tania-era Patty Hearst.

Having secured the northern third of Iraq for themselves in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the Kurds have spent the last two decades divesting themselves of their guerilla jamjams, building up a stable and booming economy in their semi-autonomous little hamlet, and generally enjoying not being in the middle of the current Iraq War. Up in the hills abutting Iran and Turkey, however, the struggle for a Greater Kurdistan continues for boy and girl alike.

The successors to Iraqi Kurdistan's old rebel militias are a milk-besodden Alphabits bowl of various Maoist, quasi-Maoist, and won't-say-they're-Maoist-but-come-on guerilla armies. You've got the PKK, the PJAK, the KCK—all of whom have slightly different tactics, territories, and ideologies but the same ultimate goal and, secretly, a lot of the same personnel. More importantly, they are all completely gender-equal, just like Mao wanted it. From the highest command to the lowest potato peeler to the ghillie-suited sniper on the front lines, dudes and dames do it the same.

We picked the youngest of these new Kurdish guerilla groups, PJAK, the Free Life for Kurdistan party, and drove up to their outpost on the Iranian border to see how their female fighters are helping their people draft a definitive answer to the Kurdish Question that's vexed Middle-Eastern politics for the last century. And hopefully find an answer to our own Kurdish Question. Which is, What the fuck is the Kurdish Question?

Hosted by Thomas Morton | Originally aired in 2012 on http://VICE.com

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• Category

  News & Politics

[fiva didacon]

turkish people are a bunch of stupid - ugly donkeys

they look like a mixture of donkeys & monkeys !

your president is a good example of your arabian mongoloid racial origin

[anweringchristians1]

Kurds look like sell outs who will side with anyone as long as they get their "greater kurdistan" which will never happen. Iraqis killed each other whilst the jew kurds carved out a bit of iraq to call their own nation. Iraq+Turkey+Iran+Syria need to become allies to deal with these cockroaches once for all, you are gypsies and will never get your own country lest you be gassed again.

[KurdLorstani]

The Kurds are an aryan race, not like you the mongol turk race. The Kurds have never ever been slaves, the brave Kurds have always been the nightmare of their enemies the terorrists turks, arabs and persians the occupier of Kurdistan the land of the Kurds and fight them heroically day and night. Read something on Google about the "southeast anatolia syndrome".

[fiva didacon]

turkish people are a bunch of prostitutes & pikers