The Kurdish First News Agency (ANF) based in Holland reports that the Armenian translation of book written by Abdullah Öcalan, a founding member of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) who is serving a life sentence in Turkey, was “introduced” to students at Yerevan’s Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex (MSEC).

The ANF writes that the book, “Civilization: The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings”, was distributed to the students as gifts.

It’s the first of a five-volume work titled “The Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization” penned by Öcalan while imprisoned on İmralı island in the Sea of Marmara.

The book, according to one review, “clarifies what power and capitalist modernity entailed. Here, Öcalan presents his stunningly original thesis of democratic civilization, based on his criticism of capitalist modernity.”

The MSEC, says it’s “a state experimental non-profit public educational institution providing public alternative education.”

“Alternative” is the key word here given that Öcalan’s writings on the Kurdish struggle, let alone his vision for a democratic, confederative Middle East, is rarely, if ever, discussed in Armenian universities and even less so in high schools.

Whether the MSEC students will read the book, come back to class, and discuss it, remains to be seen.