NEWS CENTER – It was four years ago when Şiyar Gabar fell in the north of Kurdistan, on July 09, 2018 at the age of just 23, nine years ago when he joined the ranks of the PKK freedom movement and turned to the military field, the People’s Defense Forces HPG, the armed struggle for the defense of the achievements of the resistance of the Kurdish people.
Şiyar Gabar comes from Hamburg, where his name was Jakob Riemer. The name Şiyar means “awake” or “awakened” and fits the energetic internationalist who was always committed and energetically involved in the work. Şiyar Gabar was a warm-hearted internationalist who had very natural qualities. Şiyar Gabar, by joining the ranks of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, showed that the struggle for the freedom of Kurdistan, the struggle of the Kurdish people is also the internationalist struggle for freedom. Because the success of the struggle for freedom in Kurdistan, will also exert its influence on all those who are oppressed and fighting against war, exploitation, oppression and violence.
The best example is and was the successful resistance in Kobanê, which has kept the peoples around the world in suspense and continues to exert a great influence on freedom-loving people worldwide. Şiyar Gabar who joined back in 2013 had already learned about the Kurdistan freedom struggle before Kobanê and went on a quest. He rebelled against the emptiness lived in the capitalist centers and criticized the “robotic type of society” the system had created. Şiyar Gabar himself said: “The essence of life consisted only in the material, in consumption, completely detached from any ideal values. I could not share such a life.”
It was important to him to fight against oblivion and to understand the revolutionary struggles as common struggles. The fact that he felt very much at home in the ranks of the freedom struggle is also shown by the fact that he had learned Kurdish in a very short time and preferred to be active in the most difficult areas. He loved the Zagros Mountains and wanted to fight against the Turkish occupying forces on the mountains that represent the cradle of humanity. Şiyar Gabar became a role model for international solidarity and joined the ranks of immortal internationalist martyrs such as Haki Karer, Kemal Pir and Andrea Wolf.
In one of the few video recordings of the fallen guerrilla, he said, “The youth of the world should strive for revolution. The youth in Europe should realize that you cannot live with the system. The system deceives society with its lies.”
He further reported, “After joining and seeing the life in PKK, after living on the free mountains, working, fighting, I felt the truth, understood the truth. The basis of PKK is freedom, life in PKK is freedom.”
Şiyar Gabar a bright young internationalist from Hamburg, Germany, who recognized the problems in the capitalist centers and took his place in the ranks of the guerrilla struggle of HPG in his search. After Şiyar fell with bourgeois name, called Jakob Riemer, the press center declared about his person: “Siyar believed that a just system without exploitation is possible” and “With his discipline, thoroughness, morality and modesty, he was loved and respected by his friends.”
But it was not only within the PKK that he left a lasting impression with his personality and struggle; the freedom fighter also left a lasting mark in the international arena, especially in Germany. After Şiyar Gabar, on July 9, 2018, was killed in Çarçella, a region of his beloved Zagros Mountains, by an air strike of the Turkish occupying army, the internationalist friends stood up for his memory.
In Hamburg, for example, a poster campaign was organized to commemorate the first anniversary of his death, and activists from the Berlin Resistance Committee created a mural in his memory. At Hein-Köllisch-Platz in Hamburg, St. Pauli a street was named after him in a night and fog action.
Tatort Kurdistan, Hamburg had after they erfuren the Şiyar Gabar had fallen, an obituary written, by them among other things the following words used:
“Because the war, which is forced on the population in Kurdistan, comes from the empire, from the metropolis, from Europe, from Germany, also from Hamburg! At the moment this can be seen again very vividly, when the Turkish government as a member of NATO, threatens the Kurdish revolution in the north of Syria: German tanks at the border and the silence of the FRG policy at all levels.
We will do everything to defend this revolution!
We think this is in the spirit of Jacob.
Hasta siempre, heval Şiyar Gabar!
Şêhid nâmirin! – The fallen remain alive!”
Many actions took place and still take place today to keep his memory alive in the resistance and struggle. To stand up for the fallen is to keep them alive, to follow in their footsteps, is not to leave their blood on the ground, to remember is to fight, because we know forgetting is betrayal.
In this sense, we commemorate the fallen hero who did not let himself be imprisoned by the capitalist modernity and followed his heart in the heart of Kurdistan, the cradle of civilization and resistance, started a new life, a life of immortality and created new values in the internationalist struggle.
