As it must be disclaimed, the book ‘A revolutionary Approach to The Religion Problem’ is in its undeveloped, primitive form as self-criticized by the Peoples Leader, himself. These writings are not completely representative of the current stand of the PKK regarding the revolutionary approach to religion. There have been many developments released as part of defence writings ever since, due to constraints. Overall, the writings should be taken with a pinch of salt, as we continue to translate and analyse the topic.
Introduction
We have made detailed analyses, and are giving a great effort to clarify the basic concepts and corrections. The community of comrades is a community that knows how to debate.
Now, let’s not invent new religions or new Gods. We believe in the reality of scientific socialism, but we do not say that our religion is socialism. Scientific socialism is the overcoming of religion, even philosophy perhaps. However, one should never come to the conclusion that religion is nothing, completely outdated or ineffective to human life. The denial of religion under the name of communism, had a very dangerous effect, as per usual, but especially with the peoples of the Middle East.
Let us state that this approach leads to isolation from the people and, consequently, to the strengthening of ignorance. In fact, it is even possible to say that the denialist approach to the reality of religion, gives way to rational materialism and is one of the most important aspects of the development of Middle Eastern revolutions.
The classical communist parties have been in the Middle East for 70 years. But they are the most isolated community. One of the reasons for this is fundamentally, especially ideologically, the false approach to the religious truth; they portray wrong approaches such as the “communists are godless” or “religion equals ignorance”. Thus, as soon as it starts to work with these words, it has already defied the whole of society.
In doing so, the greatest deception to the beginning of scientific socialism is brought in the name of socialism. This was fully revealed in the practice of the existing classical communist parties; the Iranian Communist Party had an extensive history when Iran was developing the foundations of the Islamic Revolution Party. The communist party, which was strong at the time, maintained its power when the Islamic revolution developed. But it was so distorted in its approach to developing notions, that it becoming destroyed was inevitable.
We must not point the blaming finger to the Islamic revolution. The main problem is those who set out under the name of communism but have an approach of distortion and denial in the reality of their own society. It is common knowledge that the first talks on socialism started with blasphemy. When the introduction of socialism was made with the blasphemy of religion, an overwhelmingly popular majority of oppressive religious people were conditioned against socialism from the outset.
Socialists were branded as people who “do not know God, and do not know family”. The obscurantists provoked this and as a result, a senseless leftist image remained. The socialism which should be the ideology of salvation for the people, because of these approaches, reached a position of obstacle in the way of liberation.
In this regard, the TKP administration is useful. As if their task was to prevent and not to develop; the movement functioned as if religion was an obstacle, and still continues to do so. It seems that the approach on Religion is an existential, determinating factor.
In short, the wrong approach on this issue leads to defeat from the very beginning. The influence of communist parties in Arab societies are almost non-existent; in contrast, the influence of Islam on these societies is very strong.
The fact that those bearing the title of ‘communist’ did not approach Islam correctly and acted as an officer of real socialism, equivalating their absence to their existence.
Some time ago, we read the CIA’s assessment of the communist parties in a newspaper. It holds information on the numbers and effects of communist parties, from the Cyprus Communist Party to the Communist parties in many countries of the world. But when it came to the Communist Parties of Turkey, it stated “not worth voicing”; emphasizing how ineffective they are.
This is correct for the rest of the parties in the Middle East. Is scientific socialism generally a solution that denies the impact of religious principles, especially in the formation of communities in the middle east, and is it helpless that it cannot analyze the Islamic reality and yield results from this? Of course not. To impose this on socialism means denying that socialism is the leading guide for action in our century.
Hence, it is not right to deem it unsolved; the correct approach is a fundamental and scientific approach to the values of society including, but not limited to, the reality of religion, its formation, and its current social impact, in the light of the socialist ideology. For this, just as we can not be in a denialist manner, we also cannot deviate from the way of socialism by claiming that it is equal to Islam or Islamic socialism, as this will deny the independence and the scientificness of socialism.
The solution is scientific socialism; the unique science that gives the laws of development of society and can portray it as close as possible to its reality. So, as a social phenomenon, the closest solutions to this issue can be shown. Based on this belief, we will try to approach the reality of religion, and create a draft of the discussion that surrounds it.
