NEWS CENTER – Thinking of self-defense as limited to military organization and armed struggle is a very erroneous and narrow approach. Self-defense is a phenomenon that encompasses the whole society, as it is the society’s awareness of self-preservation and collective resistance. Even taking a stand against or boycotting a practice, a political formation, a law, a press or economic activity that serves the colonial system requires awareness. Self-defense includes not only the conditions of foreign occupation and colonialism, but also the resistance of the society and the protection of communal values against fascism, oligarchic, totalitarian and despotic regimes, which are the internal reactionary extensions of the statist, ruling system. Since every reactionary and oppressive regime is exploitative, it is a form of occupation. The opposition of the occupied, exploited, oppressed, oppressed class, group, ethnic group, gender and nation, resistance and self-defense is a principle of modern democracy. Failure to use this principle is to submit, to be guilty before history. A democratic society can only exist, protect and sustain itself thanks to this principle.
Legitimate defense has gained continuity depending on social existence.
Legitimate defense is the guarantee of law and justice. No community without a legitimate defense power can establish its own justice and law. Every individual and community exercises their legitimate right to resist injustice. As long as the statist-governing system and its tyranny continue in the world, there will be injustice and injustice. Against this, the resistance and legitimate defense of the oppressed and exploited communities will always be on the agenda.
As the non-state-oriented Democratic Ecological Society develops, as Democratic Communalism spreads on the social plane, the power and domination area of the exploitative statist-authoritarian cliques will shrink and they will attack democracy, democratic rights and communal organizations. Self-defense tools will gain effectiveness in such processes. For this, every individual and community that has been wronged will have to resist and defend against attacks by gaining the mentality of self-defense, almost like an organization. A comprehensive level of self-defense cannot be developed without the people gaining the mentality of self-defense. That’s why the Leadership’s principle: “KNOW HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF”: It formulates self-defense at the level of CONSCIOUSNESS, ORGANIZATION and ACTION. Legitimate defense or self-defense will continue to exist tomorrow as it does today. Because the exploitative sovereign powers will not leave the areas of peaceful and political interests, exploitation and domination, and will limit democracy and even try to abolish it. For example, our legitimate defense force, the guerrilla, will not stay in the mountains forever, but it will not disappear either. It will change form-shape-style according to the conditions, but it will continue to exist with an organization that spreads to the society as a self-defense force in the countryside, in the city, in every area it is in. In this sense, the guerrilla will continue to play the same mission in returning to the heart of the people, just as it went to the mountains for a self-defense war. Because the security of the society is too sensitive to be left at the mercy of the ruling powers. The basic defense and security will be provided by the self-power and self-defense of the society. will not leave the areas of exploitation and domination, and will limit democracy and even try to abolish it. For example, our legitimate defense force, the guerrilla, will not stay in the mountains forever, but it will not disappear either. It will change form-shape-style according to the conditions, but it will continue to exist with an organization that spreads to the society as a self-defense force in the countryside, in the city, in every area it is in. In this sense, the guerrilla will continue to play the same mission in returning to the heart of the people, just as it went to the mountains for a self-defense war. Because the security of the society is too sensitive to be left at the mercy of the ruling powers. The basic defense and security will be provided by the self-power and self-defense of the society. will not leave the areas of exploitation and domination, and will limit democracy and even try to abolish it. For example, our legitimate defense force, the guerrilla, will not stay in the mountains forever, but it will not disappear either. It will change form-shape-style according to the conditions, but it will continue to exist with an organization that spreads to the society as a self-defense force in the countryside, in the city, in every area it is in. In this sense, the guerrilla will continue to play the same mission in returning to the heart of the people, just as it went to the mountains for a self-defense war. Because the security of the society is too sensitive to be left at the mercy of the ruling powers. The basic defense and security will be provided by the self-power and self-defense of the society. It will change form-shape-style according to the conditions, but it will continue to exist with an organization that spreads to the society as a self-defense force in the countryside, in the city, in every area it is in. In this sense, the guerrilla will continue to play the same mission in returning to the heart of the people, just as it went to the mountains for a self-defense war. Because the security of the society is too sensitive to be left at the mercy of the ruling powers. The basic defense and security will be provided by the self-power and self-defense of the society. It will change form-shape-style according to the conditions, but it will continue to exist with an organization that spreads to the society as a self-defense force in the countryside, in the city, in every area it is in. In this sense, the guerrilla will continue to play the same mission in returning to the heart of the people, just as it went to the mountains for a self-defense war. Because the security of the society is too sensitive to be left at the mercy of the ruling powers. The basic defense and security will be provided by the self-power and self-defense of the society.
Even if national and ethnic-cultural problems are resolved, since class and ideological conflicts and conflicts will continue, legitimate defense wars will always be on the agenda. As in the AKP-MHP fascist rule, as the profits of the dominant exploiting forces are closed, their systems are in danger and they cannot exercise their power as they wish, they will want to suppress, intimidate and dominate the society with reactionary force and state apparatuses and contra military organizations. The old traditional social institutions and the statist system will not accept the dysfunction, and will attack the Democratic Society, its Democratic Communal values and gains with all kinds of secret and open methods by going beyond the law and democratic process and aiming to distribute it. Therefore, the need for self-defense of peoples is a strategic issue. Whether in self-defense or in war,
“Apart from extraordinary situations, the problem of self-defense of peoples cannot be ignored under normal conditions. It cannot meet the need for self-security except for general security in crisis conditions. The seizure of state power by oligarchic and dictatorial powers also eliminates the limited legal guarantee. The state is almost parceled out. A large number of mafia and gangs arise, one end of which is connected to statist centers. They inflict a complete terror on the people. Crimes explode. Instead of legal remedies, subcontracted forces are used in seeking rights. The law is almost commodified. The state’s security forces themselves become a security issue. Self-defense becomes an inevitable necessity in the face of such security problems today in many countries in crisis processes. Self defense forces need to be established.” (A. Ocalan)
The truth of the PKK is the truth of Kurdistan and the self-defense of the oppressed peoples.
The Revolutionary People’s War, developed by the PKK since its inception, is a freedom war waged against colonialism within the scope of self-defense. The self-defense war waged under the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party as a class was of universal character, since it was based on socialist ideology, not limited to the purely national problem, but became concrete in the form of a human war for all oppressed and exploited social segments. This universal socialist feature is the reason why the global and regional dominant powers are allied against the PKK and tend to conspiracy against the PKK Leadership. Despite all the reactionary attacks and conspiracies, the PKK Leadership brought itself into existence, enlarged its struggle by adapting it to new conditions and turned it into a social system. With the democratic liberation war, the PKK exposed its Kurdish existence and turned it into power and will. In a dark process where it was not possible to reveal its existence through political struggle, the Kurdish reality could only be revealed through a self-defense war. The Kurdistan revolution, which developed under the leadership of the PKK and turned into the reality of a democratic nation, developed on the basis of self-defense war. The 15 August Breakthrough refers to the declaration of the legitimate defense war and its spread to the whole country. Accordingly, the Rojava revolution developed in this context. The Kurdistan self-defense war, which developed under the leadership of the PKK, had an earthquake effect both in the countries concerned and in the region. He created a democratic struggle and living space for the peoples by breaking all the plans of the colonialist Turkish regime. He developed the Democratic Nation model, which expresses the free and democratic unity of the peoples, against the fascist Turkish nation-state model, which destroyed peoples with both physical and cultural genocide methods. It has resurrected the identities that Arab black fascism and White Turkish fascism tried to dissolve. For this reason, the colonial Turkish regime saw the PKK as a problem of survival that had to be destroyed at all costs, and evaluated it as a matter of “existence-non-existence”. It puts all its presence into the liquidation of the Rojava revolution and the achievement of the Kurdish genocide. The Turkish state itself carried out the Serêkanî, Kobanê wars and the invasion of Afrin over the gangs. Beneath the boundless hostility towards the PKK and its Leader is the coup and breaking of the Turkish genocidal system through self-defense warfare.
The self-defense war led by the PKK has shattered the five alliances of the regime that colonized Kurdistan. First; The denial and annihilation policy of the Turkish colonial system on Kurdistan has shattered it by blowing it. Latter; his left version deciphered and neutralized social chauvinism. Third; Its dominance was broken by struggling with the collaborative feudal comprador and Kurdish primitive nationalist mentality and class. The freedom movement waged its biggest struggle against these groups. Fourth; It has rendered the alliance formed by the colonizing states by dividing Kurdistan among themselves, to a large extent, inoperable. With the PKK’s self-defense war, it not only made the regime of destruction and denial dysfunctional, but also resurrected the Kurdish nation, raised its awareness, organized and brought it to the stage of obtaining status by making it an identity. White Turkish fascism, left social chauvinism and the PKK hostility of the collaborative Kurdish primitive nationalist and global capitalist powers stem from the coup d’etat in Kurdistan and the Middle East, and the failure of their systems. Most importantly, the PKK succeeded in creating the Free women’s resistance equipped with the awareness of self-defense, and the reality of the socialist free individual and society, with the alternative of Democratic Modernity. The PKK Leadership in general in Kurdish society: first; He placed the ideological and strategic Leadership institution, the second; developed a social organization that includes all Kurds with the consciousness of a democratic nation, third; he made his army with the consciousness of self-defense, the fourth; It provided ideological, political and social institutionalization. Today, it continues its self-defense war through these facts. Fifth is; By rendering meaningless the borders and status created by the imperialist system with the first world war, it united the Kurdish people with the Democratic Nation paradigm, made it a willpower and identity, and made it a force accepted by everyone.
Just as the PKK has brought itself to this day with its self-defense resistance, it will fight against colonialist systems with the same understanding and practice in order to secure its social existence from now on. Especially as the people of the country of Kurdistan at the center of the 3rd world war and the people in the grip of genocide, the Kurds need a self-defense mechanism more than ever. The assurance of the existence and freedom of the Kurds is the self-defense organization based on their own strength. The fate of the Kurds will be determined by their self-defense organization and war.
As a result: The central civilization, which is institutionalized and developed with the trio of private property, class, city and state, domination and power over society, the exploitation of power over women, the destruction of nature finds its representation in the capitalist modernity system. This system will be overcome and the society will govern itself with the philosophical, ideological principles and communal morality of Democratic Socialism; The reality of self-defense will continue to be the most fundamental protective and liberating power and agenda of peoples/societies until the construction of a Democratic, Ecological and Gender Libertarian world that is not state-power oriented.
Ari Flood
Kurdistan Center for Strategic Studies
