The Sheikh Sait Rebellion, 1925, was suppressed with blood. The rebellion of Ağrı resulted in the massacre of 1930, the Dersim Genocide in 1938. Thus, when the state entered the 1940s, it thought that it had absolutely destroyed the Kurdish uprisings, which began about one hundred and fifty years ago, and that it had successfully made Kurdistan a colony. Thirty years later, history would be static, lifeless, for the Kurds at the hand of the Tunc Law that had been imposed. During this time not a single leaf would drift despite the storms breaking out.
Nobody had predicted that the new generation, raised by the people of a genocide during a deafening silence of thirty-years, would resurrect the Kurdish reality and even start an irrevocable end. The ignored fate of the Kurds would be reversed, and the unwritten history of the Kurdish would be rewritten. A generation would create the Kurdish Freedom Movement and its Leadership. That which would be the last rebellion, would be the fruit of a miracle.
The reality of sociality as described by leader Öcalan in his Urfa Defense, written in İmralı in 2001, “could not even help itself.” The only thing that society offered to this generation was that the preservation of essence. Although he remained in the remote corners of the struggle for socialist revolution, which had risen with the 1970s, leader Ocalan would play his role when the day came. This was because capitalist modernity had not managed to inflict itself; leader Ocalan was very traditional and came from the depths of history. But the effect of a period of lifelessness had spread throughout. Therefore, there was no circumstance to express any truth about Kurdistan apart from that which the leader knew in his mind. Yet the current world and the atmosphere in which he breathed did not allow for the truth to be expressed, he himself doubted whether or not to express this truth and existing reality.
But shouting the truth had been in the nature of leader Öcalan since his childhood, and this is what he did. This need to scream would gradually lead him to a great struggle, an unprecedented resistance; his organization and his party, and ultimately the creation of the guerrilla of Kurdistan, the power to win. In doing so, he believed in the people of Kurdistan before everything else and he trusted in himself and his friends he would walk on the same path with. He didn’t go one step further. He saw the interests of the peoples superior to his own life in every place and time.
All of this was related to the fact that one morning in Ankara, leader Öcalan would take the decision to walk the path of revolution. As he spoke the burdenous words “Kurdistan is a colony” to Haki Karer and Kemal Pir, the leader would pass out. And, among other things, this would take its place in the fundamental analysis of this truth.
What happened was that Kurd and Kurdistan had been revived. Despite all the massacres, he managed to preserve his essence, but he was in the grip of genocide. He wasn’t in a position to raise his head. He needed to be reunited and resurrected with the realities hidden in the depths of history. For this, invincible resistance was essential. He would be a pioneer of this resistance, which would begin to prevent history from repeating itself, and this would be organized by the guerrilla.
This is the shortest summary of the emergence of the PKK and the guerrilla of Kurdistan.
Even the attempt to prove Kurdistan was forbidden, the Kurdish reality was covered with dead soil. All kinds of practices were imposed on the dead state of Kurdishness. Tens of thousands of years of homeland as well as the Kurdish itself were exploited every day by a country which had colonization a people through genocide. Each fixation or diagnosis had a cure, in a sense, a treatment. It was to develop a revolutionary war strategy that would spread over a long period of time. This is what has happened since the early 70s. The essence, that is, the Kurdish self, the true self, sprouted in the modern world, like a flower flourishing through rocks. The seed was philosophical, ideological and political thoughts based on leader Öcalan. In this sense, he managed to become a Leadership. The water given to the seed was socialism. It could not be expected that this miracle would sprout without water. The biggest obstacle in the way was the integration of the existing system and like a fertilizer that strengthens the seed, the Kurdish reality is revealed and retaught every single day.
Leader Öcalan’s mental, emotional, philosophical, sociological, political, military, strategic and tactical struggle in search of freedom was not one-sided. International relations, politics, diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation, strategies and alliances have been an important part of this journey. The relationship between the actors of the two-bloc era, from the Soviet Union to the countries in conflict with the Turkish state, was developed. But the struggle was never made to rely solely on the forces involved. Although developing an advanced relationship with one or more of these countries, the leadership acknowledged the importance of strenghtening his own struggle.
The Turkish state believed that the PKK could not have such a mind or power, even the will to develop a relationship between the actors and the forces and to bring the struggle to the international level. As much as the Turkish state loves to claim that “the PKK is a tong of the external forces, the PKK is managed from outside,” the reality remains that PKK gets all of its strength from its leadership, people and party. The leadership taught that to rely on ones own power, and that nothing is more valuable than freedom. As in all fields of struggle, the essence was essential.
In this essence, surrender was never accepted. At the very beginning, many had said “do not fight, you can not defeat the state, you will die.” But even in the most difficult conditions, the struggle for freedom and resistance was insisted. In the mountains, in prison, in Turkey metropolises in the desert and in 21st century Europe; the Kurdish people have carried it everywhere. He did not step back from insistence on the path of freedom by paying great costs.
It has become a tradition that success cannot be achieved without struggling, and insisting on resisting and succeeding no matter how many difficulties one faces. The freedom movement of Kurdistan started with a human being and reached millions, and it became an organization and a great struggle in all areas where the Kurds live. This created confidence in the belief that self-power cannot be gained without resistance. A sociological, philosophical and strategic tradition, the reality that ‘the closer the subject is to its essence the more connected it is’ would make way for important results to be achieved.
Leader Öcalan’s self-esteem and self-power politics and relations is the product of this. Diplomacy was carried out on this basis. With national unity, brotherhood of peoples and belief in democratic unity, people were always based on diplomacy. When relations with states were developed, relations and diplomacy were developed based on this power. Of course, developing a relationship and gaining benefits in favor of the peoples would not be free of struggle. After all, there was no easy way to freedom. In this way, many gains have been achieved all over Kurdistan and abroad. These gains have become not only that of the Kurdish people, but also the freedoms and gains of all oppressed peoples.
We are in the most chaotic and narrowed period of World War 3. The genocide attack of the AKP-MHP fascism against the Rojava Revolution was expected by leader Öcalan. The continuing resistance of the peoples of North-East Syria under the leadership of the SDF was also directed towards preserving this achievement. Continuous resistance was based on leader Öcalan’s mastery in politics and relationship development. In this sense, one of the most important diplomats in the world’s political history, the former US foreign minister Henry Kissenger’in phrase “If the Guerrilla does not lose, it has won. If the traditional army does not win, it has lost.”
This describes the exact situation in Rojava. “I know the PKK well, it is invincible, it is a never ending novel,” leader Ocalan had said. “If the world is against you, if you fight to the end, you will succeed. If the world is with you, you will lose if you don’t fight your own war.”
As a result, this struggle created by leader Öcalan and all the intellectual and practical background on which it is based, has proved that in any case and at any cost, the results gained are nothing more than indicators of how much resistance and struggle has been sacrificed.
The fact that this resistance and struggle is carried out in the form of traditional resistance and struggle, in essence, shows that winning and victory is inevitable. Therefore, the new achievements against the genocide, the complete defeat of fascism and the achievement of the absolute victory are hidden in the leaders words.
