15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An exemplary account of an urgent topic, September 23, 2007
The PKK is a poorly understood group that is currently one of the most sensitive topics in U.S. foreign relations. Based in Turkey and along the border of Iraq's Kurdistan region and Turkey, the PKK is one of the most vexing issues facing the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East, in particular its allies in Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey. How the PKK is dealt with will have a tremendous effect upon U.S. standing in the Middle East, the U.S. campaign in Iraq, the future of the Kurds, and the future of Turkey as a U.S. ally and Turkey's EU candidacy. Most writing on the PKK is tendentious and poorly sourced. Aliza Marcus's book is the opposite, carefully written, patiently researched and impressively sourced. She leads the reader through the twists and turns of PKK history with clarity and confidence. Anybody interested in international relations and the problem of terrorism, ethnic conflict and U.S. foreign policy should read this first class book.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence., January 17, 2008
Most writers on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, best known by its Kurdish language acronym, the PKK, substitute advocacy for accuracy, so their books about the PKK tend to have limited practical use for policymakers. But Marcus, a former international correspondent for The Boston Globe who spent several years covering the PKK, has done important work in Blood and Belief. While sympathetic to her subject--the substitution of "militant" for "terrorist" grates--she retains professional integrity and does not skip over inconvenient parts of the PKK narrative such as its predilection to target Kurdish and leftist competitors rather than the Turks; the patronage it has received from the Syrian government; and the important role of European states and the Kurdish diaspora in its funding.
Blood and Belief has four sections: on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's life and the PKK's beginnings, the PKK's consolidation of power, the civil war, and the aftermath of Öcalan's 1999 capture.
The Kurds inhabit a region that spans Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, and Marcus does not let national borders constrain her analysis. Events in Iraq--such as the squabbling between Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Jalal Talabani and Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masoud Barzani--influenced Öcalan, who concluded that he should tolerate no dissent. "We believed in socialism, and it was a Stalin-type of socialism we believed in," one early PKK member relates.
Steeped in Kurdish and Turkish history, Marcus provides better context than many of the other journalists who tackled this subject. The PKK took hold, she shows, largely because of the weakness of the Turkish state in the 1970s. Between 1975 and 1980, the Turkish government barely functioned. After the 1980 coup, the Turkish military restored order. But when Barzani offered the PKK shelter in northern Iraq, the group remained beyond reach, allowing it to plan and launch a full-scale guerilla war against Turkey. Marcus concludes that the group's continued survival in Turkey is because, at some level and among some constituents, it remains popular; its support is not all driven by intimidation as some Turkish analysts claim.
Marcus impressively covers the civil war years (1984-99), and her narrative, combining dialogue and context, is rich and accessible. While many journalists and authors satisfy themselves with a single round of interviews, Marcus concentrates not on active PKK members, who she realizes do not enjoy the freedom to speak, but rather on past members, villagers, and family members whose accounts she cross-checks. She also incorporates Turkish language press accounts and interviews with Turkish officials.
It is unfortunate, though, that her coverage of PKK resurgence, between 1999 and 2007, is just thirteen pages long. An exploration of how Öcalan has retained control while in prison and where he and his henchmen might take the PKK has seldom been more relevant. One hopes that this new chapter of PKK history will become the basis for a sequel.
Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2008
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellently written and researched, February 4, 2009
In "Blood and Belief", Marcus provides a thorough overview of the PKK from its origins in the chaos of 1970s Turkey through the capture of Öcalan in 1999. The next 8 years are much less thorough (fitting into one chapter), but the book nonetheless provides an excellent foundation for understanding the PKK and the relationship between Kurds in SE Anatolia and the Turkish state.
The strength of this book is its use of interviews with former PKK members. These interviews do not paint a positive picture of the PKK- in fact, they completely remove any of the romanticism that could be associated with 'freedom fighters' in the minds of some. The brutality of both the Turkish army and the PKK (including the latter group's general disregard for human life, even that of its own members) is portrayed in detail. Marcus does not need to label the PKK as a terrorist group; this is a political designation that creates black and white distinctions, when in reality the situation is far more complicated. By presenting the situation in all its brutality and presenting the facts impartially, Marcus allows the reader to make the moral judgement on the PKK- its origins, methods, and goals.
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