In the comments on our recent post about PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West), Mark Spahn asked about the flags being thrown in the trash by the stylized figure in PEGIDA’s logo.
The top and bottom ones were obvious — the Islamic State and the Nazi swastika, respectively — but Mr. Spahn was having trouble identifying the other two. The second from the top is the logo of the “anti-fascist” anarchists, but the third was not at all clear. It was evidently some sort of Communist icon, with the gold star and the red background. But what exactly was it?
After some diligent Internet sleuthing, I discovered a high-resolution PEGIDA image that solved the mystery. The identity of the third flag may surprise you:
Yes, that’s right: it was the flag of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party until 1995 — it took some four years after the demise of the Soviet Union for the party to abandon the hammer and sickle.
It’s an interesting choice for the logo. Was that the only commie flag the PEGIDA people had on hand when they designed their logo? Maybe there were a lot of Kurdish Communists in Saxony in the old days…
Ok. It’s the Kurdistan Workers’ Party logo as influenced by the DDR.
Not entirely sure as I’m not involved with PEGIDA’s organisation, and their team says of itself they’re not professional politicians and only beginning to educate themselves about communication to the public and the media. So far we’re also waiting for some clarification.
But an educated guess is that we’ve seen already multiple instances of Kurdish and Turkish groups carrying out their skirmishes on German soil, right on our streets with sometimes disrupting and costly effects. And they’re not the only ones. Since we’re taking in folks from pretty much every conflict region in the world indiscriminately and not choosing sides, all they do is continue their battles here where they meet again. We even have occurrences of Christian refugees getting roughed up by a majority of Muslims they are corralled together with in the asylum seekers’ home. So much for the idea of asylum and protection at all…
One of the main topics on PEGIDA’s position paper is “no religious battles on our streets”, which may require some refinement, as it actually means “no foreign battles”. There is considerable support for the Kurdish plight, but not for the means they choose, and the PKK is rightfully and officially labelled a terrorist organisation in Germany. The same line of thought applies to other conflict parties as well. I imagine the PKK flag was simply chosen as a placeholder for this sort of thing as it’s the widest known. If this turns out not good enough for transporting the message, we’ll probably see some revisions in the near future as PEGIDA grows and matures.
A few weeks ago, at the request of GoV contributor Peter, I attended a a talk/service at a Baptist church in SW London. The speaker was Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Fund*, which aids Christian victims of persecution (so mainly in Muslim nations).
He said that if Kobane (in northern Syria) falls to the IS, upwards of 200,000 Christians in the region would be in jeopardy. Turkey may not take them in, and refugee camps in, say, Jordan are not an option as many of the inhabitants are from Islamist families, and would attack them, like the Christian refugees in Germany you mention.
*This man was very impressive; he referred to meetings with Prince Charles, and with President Al-Sisi (who seems to want to end discrimination against the Copts); afterwards he told me he was shortly to meet Robert Spencer. If you’ve any spare cash after supporting GoV, check out info@barnabasfund.org (UK; I won’t list all the links here, and thank the Baron for his indulgence).
Kurds are currently under attack in Iraq and Syria by Isis. In Iraq, they’re known to be the most welcoming group towards the US army, as well as Christian and Yazidi minorities (one of the aims I recall stated by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces was to liberate the Yazidis from Isis). And their “communism” I would venture is very different to that in the USSR, or the trotskyist outfits in Western Europe. Over in dar-al-Islam, Communism may seem like the only feasible alternative to the Islamist headbangers. (if support for the US and its democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious freedom could be seen as an act of treason by many)
Given the above, I’m not sure it’s a wise move to dump the PKK and Isis flags in one bucket. Why alienate more groups than necessary?
Notice that’s the communist PKK flag, and went out of service nearly 20 years ago. It’s not the current PKK flag.
I’m still curious as to why PEGIDA chose that particular flag to represent communism. Why not the DDR flag? Or the flag of the German communist party?