NEWS CENTER – Like every Kurdish child, he grew up with the memory of the genocide, migration, oppression, life and resistance against it. YJA Star Commander Gamze Laçin (Ronahi Amara), whom her mother told with the words “My daughter grew up listening to the Dersim Massacre”, was martyred on August 18, 2022, as a result of the Turkish state’s invasion attacks against Southern Kurdistan with the support of the KDP.
Describing Gamze Laçin, who was born in Mersin in 1992, spent part of her childhood in Izmir and partly in Izmit, and finally gave her direction to the mountains of Kurdistan, her mother Sevim Sağlam said, “She was my savior. Despite growing up in the Turkish metropolis, he always yearned for Kurdistan.”
FIRST REVOLT AGAINST HER FATHER
During her youth, Laçin worked in the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement in Kocaeli. Laçin gave her first rebellion against her father’s violence against her mother. Laçin, who grew up listening to the 1938 Dersim Massacre, oppressions against Kurdish and Alevi identity and the resistances against them, which was spoken in the family as a child, became interested in the history of Kurdistan and continued her search for history.
‘IF I’M LIVING THANKS TO MY GAMZE’
Stating that she is from Dersim, her mother Sağlam said, “My family migrated to Varto during the Dersim Massacre. When I was 20, they got me married. I couldn’t resist then. Hell started after marriage. When Gamze was 3 years old, I saw violence from her fathers every day. As Gamze grew older, she resisted the violence her father inflicted on me,” she said. Stating that when Laçin turned 16, she appeared before her father and said, “After this time, I will not allow you to inflict violence on my mother,” mother Sağlam said, “Thanks to Gamze, I got rid of violence. Thanks to her, I learned that I am human, that I am a woman. Gamze was very different, she was very young, but her mind was very big. If I am alive today, it is thanks to my Dimple,” she stated.
‘Despite the difficulties, he did not give up’
Stating that Gamze reads on the history of Kurdistan and the Kurdish struggle, mother Sağlam said, “She was always interested in these subjects. She had only one friend, that was from Amedi. It was facing difficulties because it was a fascist city. Despite the difficulties, she did not give up. ‘You are Kurdish, you are Alevi, you cannot study here, you cannot join us,’ they told her. Despite this, she was not afraid of them and did not drop out of school. She used to come to my place of work after class and say, ‘you go home, I’ll work for you’. She was loved by those around her,” she said.
Sağlam described her daughter Laçin’s participation in the struggle with these words: “One day they called from school. They said that Gamze did not attend the classes, I asked her why. She told me that she started working in struggle, she. I didn’t say anything to her. Gamze joined the guerrilla ranks in 2011. I never saw her after joining. One day I heard your voice on TV. I recognized her by her voice. A very different feeling came over me. I wanted to see her, but he only had her voice.”
CONDENSED ON KURDISH AND WOMEN IDENTITY
Drawing attention to her daughter’s search for Kurdish and Kurdish identity, Sağlam said, “She was always in search, very curious. She was reading books about the Dersim Massacre, asking us. Sh focused a lot on the Dersim Massacre and had an impact on her. She was looking for her identity when she was 16 years old. What a woman is, how she gets stronger, was always in this investigation. The violence against me affected her very much. Questioning my woman identity saved me from that hell. Thanks to my daughter, I became very strong. She never thought of herself. She always said ‘my mother will be a lawyer and I will protect the rights of the Kurdish people’. This was her dream. Gamze was freedom for us. A free woman defined herself by her attitude. She really wanted to go to My Dersim. I don’t know if she went after she joined. I feel like I’m gone.”
CALL BEFORE THE MARTYRDOM
Gamze Laçin’s father Mehmet Laçin, who claimed that his children were abducted to the mountain and joined the families who were kept waiting in front of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Amed Provincial Organization building on September 3, 2019, had also made a call. Laçin stated that he joined the PKK of her own free will. Laçin also made the following call to his father:
“In the person of my father, they should not humiliate themselves and their children further in the face of the enemy. As I said at the beginning, my participation in the freedom struggle is based on the decision I made with great enthusiasm and awareness. Do not trample on your values and honor, and do not care. It fits neither morality nor Kurdishness. No member of the people will stand by the enemy against their own values, nor serve him. This is called betrayal. As an Alevi Kurd, I grew up with the awareness of the culture of justice, right and resistance. We are also those who turn their backs on their own race and faith, it means he has committed the greatest crime. Do not consider yourself worthy of this, do not put yourself in a situation where the enemy uses it for his own purposes in every sense.”
