BEHDINAN – Kalkan said that before the establishment of the PKK, the Kurdish people were turned into a people who concealed their identity. “We came to a world where humanity speaks Kurdish. All of this happened through struggle,” he said.
PKK Executive Committee Member Duran Kalkan answered ANF’s questions on the occasion of the PKK’s 45th anniversary. Here is the first part of the conversation:
The PKK is welcoming its 45th anniversary, and there is also a Leadership march that spans more than half a century. What is the reality of Leadership embodied in this half-century period?
The founder of the PKK and the one who brought it to the present is Leader Apo. First of all, I salute the historical resistance in Imrali and Leader Apo with respect. We are living the 50th year of leadership and party, and we are entering the 45th anniversary of the PKK. I congratulate the party holiday of all our comrades, our people, especially Leader Apo. In the person of Comrade Haki Karer, I commemorate the heroic martyrs of this party for 50 years with respect, love and gratitude. I salute our 45th anniversary of the party and wish success to all who are fighting for freedom and democracy.
We are entering the 45th anniversary of the party with great resistance. A resistance led by İmralı. There is a heroic resistance of the guerrilla. There is a heroic resistance of HPG and YJA Star guerrillas all over Kurdistan, especially in Zap, Avaşîn and Metina. We are entering its 45th year with a resistance worthy of the PKK reality. First of all, I salute our heroic guerrilla forces resisting on all four sides, especially Zap, Avaşîn and Metina, and our people, youth and women who are still resisting. I also commemorate the martyrs of the Zap, Avaşîn and Metina resistance with respect.
The PKK is a people’s movement, a women’s and youth movement. It is a great resistance movement, it is called the freedom movement as a whole. It is a movement created and developed by Leader Apo. Therefore, we call it the Leadership and Martyrs Movement. The 50-year history of resistance is also the 50-year history of the Leader’s march. There are traces of Leader Apo and the struggle he developed from every moment of these 50 years. When it comes to what has emerged in the 44-year PKK struggle, the first thing we will consider is the great Leadership realization.
I met Leader Apo in October 1973. Haki and Kemal were at the house in Bahçelievler where he was staying with friends. Of course, he held the meeting that laid the foundations of the PKK on Newroz in the spring. The Apoist group was taking shape. When I saw Leader Apo for the first time, he was reading a book, everyone in that house was already reading. We went on Friday with a friend. We were studying mathematics at the same faculty with my friend Haki. That’s when I met Önder Apo and Kemal Pir. We went to buy a book.
LEADER APO CONSCIOUSLY ASSUMED
In the early 1970s, there was a great resistance in Turkey and Kurdistan. The world was experiencing the youth revolution of 68, but the results were heading towards crushing. In many areas, the effects of the revolution were just reflecting. There was a revolutionary movement developing in Turkey as well, but its leaders were murdered in 1972 and 1973. In Kurdistan, all resistances were crushed in Bakur and Rojhilat, there was a resistance in Bashur, its influence was covering Kurdistan. With the Algiers Agreement at the beginning of 1975, the resistance in the South was crushed and defeated. There was a great resistance, there was hope, but the reactionary attacks killed the Leaders who created this hope in Turkey and Kurdistan, and the movements were liquidated. There was such a Leadership vacuum. Leader Apo consciously assumed duties and responsibilities in such an environment. He also took the weight. The leadership has successfully carried out this task and responsibility for 50 years. It is a rare occurrence, both in terms of conditions, values created, and an uninterrupted half-century.
This development was made possible by the efforts of Leader Apo. It was with a sense of responsibility, with his genius. The leadership was always reading and studying. He mostly read books about the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. How did the Kurdish problem arise, who created it, what kind of problem, how the global capitalist system was formed, what kind of system is this world system, why the Kurds and the peoples came to this situation, why the revolution happened in Russia in 1917 and it could not spread to other areas, how will it spread? ? He was trying to understand them. In other words, he was trying to absorb the experiences and knowledge of other peoples. He was trying to learn the writings and opinions of others, he wanted to learn from them and understand Turkey and Kurdistan according to him.
The PKK emerged as a result of the semantic power of such a research and study effort. He read and had all the sources of information available. We also read, the most oppressed friend read. We went to libraries, tried to find where there are books. All sources in Turkish were examined. The theoretical knowledge, ideological strategic line, and level of consciousness that we call the PKK’s ideological-political line, expressed in the PKK’s program and manifesto, emerged as a result of this research-examination. This is how the PKK was founded. This is how the task of Leadership was undertaken in order to fill the Leadership vacuum in Kurdistan and to lead the society in the most unfavorable situation.
THE GREAT BIRTHDAY WAS REALIZED IN THE MOST DIFFICULT CONDITIONS
The second process is also known. We went abroad, to the Middle East, to the Lebanon-Palestine field since July 1979. The Middle East was boiling. The shah was destroyed in Iran, there was a revolution, there was a great movement in the Arab field under the leadership of the Palestinian resistance. There was a fascist military coup on September 12, 1980 in Turkey. Iraq attacked Iran, the war began. In other words, the Middle East was in a very active period militarily. At the beginning of this period, Leader Apo read and studied intensively to understand the process, but with what he had read before, he turned his strength into practice. He directed training, trained staff, command, warriors. He put all his strength into practice to develop the guerrilla in Kurdistan. While in such a great guerrilla resistance, Real Socialism was dissolved at the beginning of the 90’s. A new world situation has arisen. He sought to understand this new world situation, to run the PKK, and to develop the freedom resistance in Kurdistan. This time, more evaluations entered the process of concentration.
In such an environment, he declared a ceasefire on September 1, 1998 to put them into practice. Certainly, the Leader’s aim was to evaluate this knowledge and the new situation. According to him, change and transformation was living. The forces that created and carried out the Kurdish problem attacked the capitalist modernity system with an international conspiracy. The leadership went to Europe and got to know the European system by getting into it. After the February 15 conspiracy, the situation in Imrali emerged. In Imrali, the Leadership once again carried out research and analysis. He refreshed his knowledge, measured and weighed his thoughts accordingly. He questioned what was going on very deeply on a critical-self-critical basis. Leader Apo is one of the most prominent leaders in history who made such strong changes and transformations.
The result led Leader Apo to a great intellectual revolution, an intellectual revolution. This is what we call a paradigm shift. It is a great mentality revolution. He experienced such a revolution. He was actually living in the mid 90’s. In the middle of 80, a step was taken partially, in the middle of 90 certain steps were taken in the process of the 5th congress. With the 1 September 98 ceasefire, he wanted to create the ground for such a change and transformation, a mentality revolution. But this realization happened in İmralı. A new perspective and principles were developed for the liberation of all the oppressed, for the democratic and free life of humanity. Thus, a new paradigm was created on the basis of a truth revolution. In other words, a social life without power and state. Leadership realization, a power of thought that guides and teaches all humanity.
This is Leader Apo’s reality. Kurdishness, which tried to understand life by learning from others 50 years ago, has become a pioneering Kurdishness that guides everyone with the developments developed in Kurdistan today in the person of Leader Apo. Leadership development brought about such a level. A great birth took place in the most difficult conditions, in the weakest environment, where the opportunities were the least. This is the truth of leadership. The greatest value of the 50-year struggle, the greatest realization, is the Leadership for all peoples, for women and youth, for all humanity, as well as for the Kurds. The democratic, ecological, libertarian paradigm and democratic modernity theory put forward by Leader Apo is a new theory. At least, it is a theory that defines the reality of free living in the 21st century.
There is a 50-year-old Leadership and PKK struggle. What were the achievements of this 50-year struggle? On what basis were the means of self-organization of the Kurds built?
On whatever ground the leadership development took place, the change and development in Kurdish society took place on the same ground. The main feature of this ground is a development realized by the society with the least amount of opportunities. If we evaluate it in terms of material basis, possibilities and opportunities, it is the least. In such an environment, progress has taken place. This is the characteristic of the Kurdistan revolution anyway. The struggle was brought to this stage by overcoming obstacles and overcoming difficulties. It is necessary to see it well, to know it. Those who panic when there is little opportunity, and those who are pessimistic because this will not happen, mean that they do not understand anything about this development. They are far from this dialectic of development. They should be defined as petty-bourgeois moods and thoughts. A poverty is a misery. In fact, it is a state of misery that connects everything to materiality and opportunity, sees life there, and cannot produce anything from itself. Kurdistan’
What has this development created, what has changed? 50 years ago, Kurds did not have a name. It was not called Kurdistan, it was called the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia region. What does Anatolia have to do with Mesopotamia? Being Kurdish was an identity that was avoided and hidden. The Kurd did not want to express himself as a Kurd, he was ashamed of his identity. However, now Kurdishness is an identity that sheds light on humanity. Today the world says ‘Jin Jiyan Azadi’. Slogans are shouted in Kurdish, humanity is marching in Kurdish under the leadership of women. From the Kurds who fled their own language 50 years ago, we came to a world where the oppressed, humanity, speaks Kurdish. All this with struggle. PKK emerged as Kurdistan. When the PKK said “Kurdistan”, many said “provocateur”. It was said that they put pressure like this, they put pressure like that. There was fear there was anxiety. The PKK introduced the definition of South-North-East-West Kurdistan. The PKK gave the Kurds an identity, dignity, will, awareness, organization, and added value. It gives life and death with dignity. Let’s remember the last words of Şex Said and Seyid Rıza. They are not random words, they are words that shed light on history and impose responsibility on the future. These are important things.
Today, everyone knows the Kurds, knows Kurdistan, knows the Kurdish freedom struggle, knows the struggle of Kurdish women and youth. They are trying to learn how to fight from here. Leader Apo’s 50 years of the PKK have developed this, it has earned it. Some perceive development as a great dictatorship or state building, but there is no such thing. He could not establish large armies, he did not have much money, he did not give material life to anyone, but he revealed a humane, honorable, honorable, free life. So, free life, honorable life are not measured by materiality. Those who measure materially are those who move away from human values.
I would like to ask the same question in the context of culture and art. What was the situation 50 years ago? What has been gained in this field and what has been the role of culture and arts studies in social change?
Art and literature are decisive areas in shaping the principles and measures of individual and social life. But art and literature also have their foundations. They are not things that develop everywhere, at all times and under all circumstances. It is the person who develops them. Humans must also be at a level to develop them, as consciousness, as analysis, as gaining personality, as a measure… Again, values that will analyze the individual and society must have emerged. There was none of this in Kurdistan 50 years ago. Because the resistances were crushed in all four parts of Kurdistan, the colonial-genocidal domination had established full dominance. Cultural genocide and assimilation continued in every field. Let alone the development of Kurdish identity, personality and measures, there was an escape from being Kurdish. National extinction, national metamorphosis, Leader Apo and the PKK called it. There is no art and literature when there is genocide,
When the PKK was first established, it participated in artistic activities at the youth level and took an active part in it. The PKK did not emerge by immediately grabbing the gun, running to the mountain and fighting. The PKK’s resistance created both the personality that will develop the arts and literature, and the ground that will be the subject of art and literature. Especially when guerrilla resistance emerged, this ground was formed. 50 years ago, Kurdish art and literature could not exist. In 1994, they said that the PKK is being criticized for language studies; Leader Apo said, “Pass it, will the language of the people who are not free be free, how will their language be free”. Before you will be free yourself. He will fight for freedom for her. There was a literary debate, he criticized Yaşar Kemal. “Would it be a bandit’s novel? The guerilla creates the basis of the novel, we create it. Let him come to the mountains of Kurdistan and see how novels are written there. How do personalities dissolve, how do new human values emerge? See them,” he said.
There is a 50-year Leadership and Party march. There is 40 years of uninterrupted guerrilla warfare. In fact, if the self-defense resistance is taken as a basis since 77, there is a 45-year self-defense resistance and tens of thousands of heroes. Tens of thousands of heroic acts took place in this process. Such difficulties have been passed, such obstacles have been overcome, such struggles have been fought that people and society have been eliminated. What are the human values, what are the values that make people human and society, what are the measures, what are the falsehoods mixed with these, power and state effects, male-dominated exploitation interests, these are separated and eliminated.
THE BIGGEST EXPLOSION WILL BE IN THE FIELD OF ART AND LITERATURE
A new free man, free woman, free man, free life, democratic society has emerged. The democratic nation society expresses this. This is exactly the development in Kurdistan. All this is a great development. In other words, the strongest ground for art and literature currently exists in Kurdistan. Each of these 50 years of struggle, each of these great heroisms, is a human resolution. What happens in every village, every neighborhood, every family is a social analysis. Currently, the strongest ground for art and literature in all societies of the world exists in Kurdistan, in Kurdish society. It exists as the values revealed by the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle. Other societies have values as well, but most of them date back 50 years, 100 years ago. It is happening in Kurdistan. Against chemical weapons, against nuclear weapons, in Zap, Avaşîn’
Freedom struggles everywhere have been tough, but Kurdistan is different from anywhere else. The genocide practiced in Kurdistan has no precedent anywhere else. So it is being fought against. If you can’t fight, you can’t win. With the freedom of women, with the freedom of society, national freedom is realized. The struggles are so intertwined. The groundwork for art and literature is much stronger. However, do art and literature develop at this level? No, it is very weak. There are many enemy attacks, there are difficulties in finding opportunities. In order to do some things, more partial opportunities are needed. But that is not the main thing. So there is a weakness in the position of a living human reality, the analysis made by the ideological military struggle. The field of art and literature has not fully entered such a line. It has not assimilated the guerrilla, it has not assimilated the Leader Apo line. How did the leadership live for 50 years, how did it work, how did it start from Ankara, how does it live and work in İmralı now? This is the true, free and righteous life. It’s far from that.
Those who call themselves an artist or a writer do not see this truth. How is the guerrilla in Zap resisting, fighting against chemical weapons and nuclear weapons, how is he resisting in those tunnels? This is real life, this is truth, this is free life. This is the human value, there is no reality of life other than this. They cannot be examined, heard or felt. Why? This means that there is still the influence of the colonial-genocidal mentality, emotion and politics. Self-analysis is weak, so self-criticism is low. There is a situation where the petty-bourgeois individualism of capitalist modernity cannot escape from the private material life. There’s a fixation there. There is an inability to socialize oneself. However, to be a writer or an artist means to overcome individualism. It expresses a complete socialization, popularization.
There is a certain level, it also makes great contributions to the struggle. I take this opportunity to greet the art and literature workers and wish them success. But it is an area that deserves attention and discussion. We believe that the next big boom will be in the field of art and literature. The revolution, as a great cultural revolution, will provide more development with art and literature.
One of the characteristics that made the PKK different from other organizations was that it saw armed struggle as indispensable. In this context, how were the creations and effects of the armed struggle carried out in the four parts of Kurdistan?
Armed struggle is an important area. It is a controversial area in Kurdistan from the very beginning. Some say the PKK equals weapons, there are those who think so. Some say it’s a big mistake, they made all kinds of attributions. They do it from the outside world, but they also do it on behalf of the Kurds. Those primitive nationalist, capitulationist, petty-bourgeois nationalist circles. We’ve seen these a lot. We had a great fight. Leader Apo’s assessments regarding the armed resistance were fully confirmed. The development and realization took place on the basis of Leader Apo’s thoughts. This is an obvious fact. What were Leader Apo’s thoughts? You have to know these too. It is necessary to discard the wrong information on this subject. Leader Apo put this as a principle in his last defenses, “Even if we have the power to defeat the world, we will not attack anyone,
Armed struggle was necessary for Kurdistan, we have to show it. Because there was cultural genocide. Language, history, culture, country, name, everything was being destroyed, assimilated. It is true that there was economic exploitation, there was political domination, but all of these were based on military force. It was enforced by military domination. So behind all of them, there was military domination, hard as the basis. It was not possible to overcome these, to liberate the language, to develop the culture, to protect history, to speak Kurdish, and to education in Kurdish before that military dominance was hit. The society could not be saved by this, and they would not allow it. It’s not possible. Look, they immediately arrested 9 journalists because it was said that chemical weapons are being used today. They put the professor in prison because he said that research should be done. What are they basing it on? Based on its hard strength, he puts it on the basis of his police-military. So, you can’t make progress in other areas, you won’t be able to survive without this military force hitting, smashing, destroying it.
NO DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT CAN OCCUR IN KURDISTAN WITHOUT VIOLENCE
You cannot create your language, culture, history, economy, politics, they are all being destroyed by military force. However, when that colonial-genocidal force is broken, you will make progress in them. Indeed, it did. This is how democratic politics emerged at the beginning of the 90s, speaking Kurdish, making art and literature, opening courses, and creating self-government of the Kurdish society. All of these developed with guerrilla struggle. This was the understanding of the PKK, everyone should understand it correctly.
First, no national, revolutionary, democratic, libertarian development can take place and survive in Kurdistan unless this colonial force is broken by revolutionary struggle and violence.
Second, you break this fascist colonial force with self-defense resistance on the basis of self-defense. The armed struggle you will wage on this basis, the resistance must be on the basis of self-defense. In other words, it should be on the basis of defending its existence and freedom. It should not be about destroying, dominating or exploiting others. This is not the case in the PKK. The PKK’s armed approach is based on the words of Leader Apo, “Even if we have the power to defeat the world, we will not attack anyone, we will never give up our legitimate democratic rights if the world unites and comes against us”. This development of armed resistance on the basis of HRK, ARGK and HPG was entirely within such a scope. The armed struggle started with the murder and revenge of Haki Karer. After the murder of Haki Heval, the following decision was taken; Each staff will ensure their safety while working. For him, he will both pay attention to his course of action and, if possible, be equipped. The first use of organized violence was about to avenge Haki Karer. Then it happened on the revenge of Halil Çavgun. Hilvan resistance was about to avenge the people of Siverek and to realize their self-defense.
PKK TURNED THE KURDISH PEOPLE INTO AN ORGANIZED POWER
Finally, the fascist military coup of September 12, 1980 came. They attacked all parts of Kurdistan, all the values of the Kurdish people. They set out to completely massacre Kurdistan. On August 15, 1984, the guerrilla breakthrough developed to defend the Kurdish people and Kurdistan against this. This line of defense continues to this day. The guerrilla resistance that continues today in Zap, Avaşîn, Metîna and other areas of Kurdistan is a resistance on this basis. How true that turned out to be. It broke the enemy’s dominance, made the Kurdish society aware, educated, gave it an identity, gave it honor, honour, courage, self-sacrifice, and willpower. Organized power. She trained and organized Kurdish women. A female guerrilla was needed. No one can say anything different now.
AKP-MHP attacks are obvious. If there are people who say that this is not an armed struggle, let’s do politics, I would just say idiots. We have been hearing people saying this for 50 years, the PKK fought against it. The PKK has always created development, grown, Leader Apo and the PKK have been confirmed by history. Those who have been denied for 50 years, and those who have been found to be wrong, still continue to say the same things. It’s empty, you have to give up on them. In other words, the PKK’s armed struggle should be seen as a power to create a great freedom revolution, to reveal free people, democratic society, and to develop free women.
This struggle has already developed them. Let’s see, what did it reveal? Did it create a new state dictatorship, did it create a power that created oppression and exploitation over this or that, or did it establish a feudal lordship like the Barzanis did? No. What did it create? Free people, free women, democratic society, democratic nation developed democratic politics and paved the way for them. It has become clear how true and meaningful this is, how necessary and improving it is for societies and people.
