Progressive Historians: History For Our Future

by Gordon Taylor | 10/16/2007 02:54:00 AM

This is a photograph that breaks my heart. Her name is Aynur, which means "moonlight" in Turkish, and I am, I confess, totally in love with her. As you will see, I do not say that flippantly.

Here (in Turkish) are the bare facts about her, as posted in http://hpg-online.com, the website of Hazen Parastina Gel, the "People's Defense Forces," the latest name for what used to be the ARGK, the military arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK):

Kod: Devrim Siirt
Adı Soyadı: Aynur Evin
Doğum tarihi ve yeri: 1982 / Siirt
Katılım tarihi: 1 Ekim 2002 / İstanbul
Şahadet tarihi:
30 Eylül 2005 / Cudi

Her code name was "Devrim Siirt," or "Siirt Revolution," after the place of her birth, but her real name was Aynur Evin. She was recruited to the cause on 1 October 2002 in Istanbul. Almost exactly three years later, on 30 September 2005, she died on Cudi Dagi, or Mt. Judi, the imposing mountain (just east of the town of Cizre, on the Tigris) which has always been regarded by people of the region as the landing place of Noah's Ark. She was twenty-three years old.

Aynur's picture is the first of several posts that I plan to send out as I mine the "terrorist" website noted above. The picture above arouses in me a storm of conflicting emotions, emotions that I will attempt to enunciate as the days pass, the storm clouds gather, and the Turkish Army continues its "masturbation with artillery shells" on "suspected PKK positions." Stay tuned.

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5 Comments:

Gordon Taylor on 10/16/2007 12:03 PM:

Apologies for the misplaced Turkish on the first page. Something (probably the author) went wrong.

Unknown on 10/16/2007 12:12 PM:

You can edit it, if you like, by clicking on the pencil next to the permalink at the bottom of the post (if you're logged in), or else by logging in, going to your Dashboard, and clicking "posts" and then "edit posts."

I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this. One of the nice things about having a scaled-down site is that I can actuallyread more of the site than I used to be able to, and I'm just thrilled by the work you all are doing.

Anonymous on 10/16/2007 10:30 PM:

I look forward to the continuation of this story. Your first paragraph hooked me.

Anonymous on 10/29/2007 9:58 AM:

Please come to Turkiye let as show u the truth. You re always telling pkk lies to whole world. Aynur was a killer...just a simple killer.. nothin more..Stop tellin lies about those killer bandits..

Unknown on 10/29/2007 12:37 PM:

Anonymous #2, you're premature -- he hasn't even told the "lies" yet! Give him time to flesh out the story.