Where is the PKK heading?
A Personal Reflection

Arez Renon
Arez_renon@hotmail.com

I was working in my office when I heard of the kidnapping of Abdullah Ocalan. I was
devastated by the news. I rushed out in the street, where I met a friend, a critic since long of
the PKK. We just broke down, crying openly in the street, neither could console the other.

At that moment, each and  every Kurd felt humiliated. The Ocalan case showed very clearly
that legal security even in Europe did not include the Kurds. It showed that a stateless people
does not have any rights anywhere in this world. Abdullah Ocalan did not even as ”a
terrorist” qualify for being  put before trial in Europe.

We were humiliated and scared because Ocalan was the embodiment of our people´s hope
and desire for freedom. We had hoped that Ocalan would lead us towards a better future for
our country and people. A future free from war, oppression, humiliation, discrimination, and
extreme poverty.

The Turks had calculated: after kidnapping Ocalan and broadcasting those humiliating
pictures, the Kurds would go home and cry for a few days and then everything would be
finished. They had assumed that  Ocalan would just become another sad song or lullaby
sung by Kurdish mothers. But the reaction was different. The Kurds all over the world  rose
against the century long Turkish oppression. All over Kurdistan, the Kurds were in uprising.
In Europe Kurdish youths not only showed their disgust of the Turks, but even of a
hypocritical Europe, which is an accessory to the brutal oppression against the Kurdish
people. Then the entire world realised that the kidnapping of Ocalan had made the Kurds
more determined to fight for their freedom.

Ocalan had accomplished his mission, making the Kurds a nation. The ”imagined
community” was there and the emotional barriers between the Kurds, caused by the physical
division of Kurdistan and exacerbated by the dominant autonomist movements were gone.
The Kurdish nation had practically united around the PKK and unequivocally accepted the
organisation as the sole legitimate representative of the Kurdish people¹ . More importantly,
the Kurdish middle class that was never attracted by the PKK had by then accepted the
authority of the organisation and very clearly had chosen side against the Turks.

Now the question was, how the PKK leadership would act? Would they act like the
Algerians,  and the East Timouris after the capture of Ben Bela and Xanana Gusmao, or
would they act differently? One thing is certain, the PKK leadership was immediately after
the abduction of Ocalan  paralysed by the news. But the upraising (Serhaldan) in Kurdistan
and the enormous support for the PKK among the Kurds in the Diaspora gave them strength.
By then, they realised that everything was not lost. The Kurdistan National Liberation Army
(ARGK) intensified the war of liberation against the Turks and the PKK gained more
popular support. The PKK was by then stronger than ever.

The Kurdish people did not have any doubts about the cruelty of the Turks. Ocalan in the
hands of the Turks was considered dead. For them it was impossible that Ocalan, however
great he might have been, in  solitary confinement in the prison island of Imrali could
continue to lead the national liberation movement. The Kurds were sad, angry, furious, but
their spirit of resistance was very much alive. They expected a clear statement of policy from
the PKK, and assumed that in the absence of Ocalan the leadership² was in charge. And the
Turks, who by then had been taken by surprise understood that all resistance could not
immediately be crushed. The Turks changed the strategy: firstly pacifying the population
and secondly crushing the popular Kurdish nationalism gradually.

The PKK did not act like the Algerians and the East Timouris. Ocalan remained the
unquestioned leader of the organisation. The PKK neither elected a new leader nor an acting
chairman in absence of Ocalan. They instead established a ”Council of Leaders”, composed
of seven senior commanders with a very unclear division of responsibility. The consequences
of such a policy were; firstly “ the Council of Leaders” became paralysed,  and secondly, as
a consequence of this policy or lack of policy, the  movement was stripped of any freedom of
action. This situation led to increased confusion and concern among the people and
perplexity within the ranks of the PKK.

In the following, we will more closely look into the Ocalan defence, the logical
inconsistencies in his ”democratic republic solution” to the Kurdish problem, the PKK
reaction, and the consequences for the Kurdish movement.

In a nation state, the state institutions produce and reproduce the national identity. In most
nation states, a single ethnic group dominates the state apparatus and public life. Although,
ethnic/national groups are not tolerated to the same extent in nation states as in
Multinational Empires, still different forms of  toleration in those states are not uncommon.
But the Turkish case is unlike any other case in the world.

In Turkey, the Turkish ethnic identity has been elevated to national identity. All other
identities have been denied and criminalized. The policy of denial has been guiding the
Turkish state since its inception in its striving for creating an ethnically homogeneous state.
The Turkish minister of Justice Mahmut Esat Bozhurt expressed the Turkish policy in
September 1930 very explicitly: ”We live in a country called Turkey, the freest country in
the World. As your deputy, I feel I can express my real convictions without reserve: I believe
that the Turk must be the only lord, the only master of this country. Those who are not of
pure Turkish stock can have only one right in this country, the right to be servants and
slaves”. As a consequence of this policy, the very existence of the Kurdish people has been
denied, and an extreme form of forced assimilation has been practised³ . Any expression for a
Kurdish identity has been criminalized and regarded as tantamount to a threat against ”the
territorial integrity” of Turkey. Consequently, the Kurdish question has been excluded from
the public sphere, and the  only way left to the Kurds for voicing their legitimate demands
has been resorting to armed struggle. That is the main reason why the Kurdish opposition
has always been clandestine and armed.

Considering the above mentioned facts, one could make the conclusion: The Kurds must
gain the means of reproduction in order to survive as a nation. It requires legal jurisdiction
over a territory, i.e. Kurdistan, and fellow Kurdish citizens. This legal jurisdiction would
enable the Kurds to control the means of reproduction, and provides the Kurds with a
necessary social space (outside the family), which is indispensable for the national survival.
Such a solution could only be achieved in  the form of independence or a very far reaching
self-government. Any other ”solution” will be stillborn and doomed to failure⁴.

At the beginning of the Ocalan Trial, things became more clear. It became clear that  Ocalan
was not going to turn the trial into a political one as he had intended to do in Italy. He
undermined the arguments of his very competent lawyers, practically forcing them to resign
one after another. He did not only criticize his organisation, but defamed the entire Kurdish
movement in the past without any regard or consideration for the national memory. He did
not stop there, he  questioned the Kurdish people´s right to self-determination and reduced
the Kurdish demands to mere a matter of  cultural rights and individual liberties.

Well aware of the fact that in the secular Republic of Turkey, the State (Devlet) is
sacrosanct, Abdullah Ocalan  offered his services to the Turkish State, if his life was spared.
Further in his ”scientific analysis” of the events, ending up with his abduction to Turkey, he
in accordance with Turkish history writing tried to undermine the arguments of the Kurdish
movement against the successive Kemalist regimes. In Ocalan´s view, the previous uprisings
in Kurdistan  have either been led by ”primitive intellectuals” or ”feudal lords”. According
to his ”scientific analysis”, the extreme  oppression against the Kurdish people  is not a
consequence of the Kemalist concept of  nation. A concept, which leaves no space for any
other identity other than the Turkish. A concept, which very clearly states: a country, a
nation, a people, a culture, a language, all of which is homogenous and Turkish. This
concept does not recognise any rights for the Kurds in Turkey, but being ”servants and
slaves”. Ocalan disregards these facts and states: ”… when the Kurds failed to unite with the
Republic, mainly because of ideological reasons and their leaders, separatism brought about
repression”. Accordingly, the conclusion will be: the Kurds have provoked the Turks and
this brutal oppression is a logical consequence of their provocation!

After this ”analysis”, Ocalan proposes a ”Democratic Republic Solution” to the Kurdish
question. According to this , a solution to the Kurdish question requires an
institutionalisation of  democracy in Turkey. In his view, independence is out of question for
the Kurds and neither federation nor territorial autonomy can be applied.  By doing so,
Ocalan is trying to deterritorialize (separating Kurds from Kurdistan) the Kurdish issue. He
reduces the Kurdistan Question to a problem of  a ”scattered minority”, or an immigrant
community in Western Europe, whose demands can be met by respecting their individual
liberties and allowing them to teach their language in private schools

As I mentioned earlier, the Kurds must gain the means of reproduction in order to survive as
a nation.  The ”Ocalan solution” does not meet this requirement. In his solution, the Kurds
only as individuals are allowed to act in community with other Kurds. The collective identity
of the Kurds will still not be recognised. In absence of a recognised Kurdish identity and
necessary constitutional guarantees, which are vital for the survival of a national group, the
Kurdish identity will remain subordinated to the Turkish identity. Without a recognition of
the collective identity of the Kurds, they will not either be able to work politically, and
accordingly Kurdish politics will remain clandestine and armed.

Reading Ocalan´s ”scientific analysis”, one easily gets the impression that democracy per se
is the solution to the Kurdish question. A functioning democracy requires neither a
multiplicity of ethnic groups, nor the recognition of the national rights of these groups. The
single most important requirement for a functioning democracy is the existence of political
parties, not different ethnic groups. The problem arises when an ethnic group claims certain
rights based on its ethnic distinctiveness. In such a situation, the basis for  political
mobilisation is not ideological, but ethnic. When an ethnic group claims independence or
self-government, then it is more appropriate to use the term ”national group”.

The arena where democracy is practised is the nation state, so the constituent power in a
democracy, popular sovereignty, is in fact national sovereignty. The same is true about
multinational states. The situation will be problematic when a national group  does not
accept as legitimate a political power, which it regard as alien and imposed. In such a case
special constitutional arrangements have to be made in order to facilitate the development of
the culture of the concerned group and the protection of their economic interests, which in
turn requires a considerable degree of self-government. The self-government enables the
individual to participate in the decision making process within his or her own specific
national group. Then the concerned national group will regard itself as part of the people,
and can be a participant in the decision making process at a state level.

As mentioned earlier, the ”Ocalan solution” rules out self-government for the Kurdish
people. Kurdish  individuals, who are not allowed to participate in decisions concerning their
own national group can impossibly be participants in the decision making process at a state
level. So the political power in Turkey has no legitimacy whatsoever as far as the Kurds are
concerned.

Talking of democracy and individual liberties without recognising the collective identity of
the Kurds is nothing but empty phrases. The “Ocalan solution”  reminds of the French
revolutionaries, arguing 1791 for the “emancipation” of the Jews: “One must refuse
everything to the Jews as a nation, and give everything to the Jews as individuals”.
Jane–Paul Sartre´s opinion of the typical French democrat´s “defence” of the Jews clarifys
the issue further: ”His defence [the French democrat] of the Jews saves the latter as a man
and annihilates him as a Jew … leave[s] nothing in him … but the abstract subject of the
rights of man and the rights of the citizen”. Ocalan´s ”Democratic Republic Solution”
annihilate[s] the Kurds as a nation, and makes them “emancipated” Turkish citizens.

After the trial, it became obvious that Ocalan would get the PKK in line with the policy
declared in his “scientific analysis”. It would mean an unconditional abandonment of the
armed struggle and the objectives of the organisation. Ocalan gave first order to the
Kurdistan Liberation Army (ARGK) forces to withdraw from Northern Kurdistan, and later
declared that  they would abandon the armed struggle altogether. The PKK in its 7th
congress, in line with the Ocalan Policy dissolved ARGK,  changing the name to People´s
Defence Forces. Further the PKK dissolved The Kurdistan Liberation Front (ERNK),
changing the name to People´s Democratic Union. And  recently the name of the Kurdistan
Women Workers´ Party has been changed to the Free Women Party.

A  clear pattern in the decisions made by the PKK after the Ocalan Trial can be
distinguished. The name Kurdistan will be erased and not mentioned at all. In all above
mentioned cases, not only the name Kurdistan has been wiped out, but even the name Kurd.
As is well known, in Turkey no political party is allowed to work politically if the names
Kurd and Kurdistan are part of the name of the party, or mentioned in its program.The PKK
policy is aimed at adjusting its program to the existing legal order in Turkey. The outcome
of such a policy is nothing, but an acceptance of the existing political order in Turkey.

The destiny of the Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan is intertwined. The Qarna and Qalatan
massacres, the Halabja tragedy, the Exodus after the Gulf war, the destruction of more than
4000 villages in Northern Kurdistan,  the kidnapping of Ocalan, the emigration  of a
relatively large number of Kurds to Western countries, the Modern Information
Technology... etc, have brought the Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan much closer together.
The massive protests in Eastern and Southern Kurdistan after the kidnapping of Ocalan were
evidence of that.

The common oppression has been the single most important factor in shaping Kurdish
identity. Based on their historical experiences, Halabja, the Exodus, the brutal Turkish
oppression, etc.. the Kurds have become convinced: Kurdistan must become independent in
order to be able to protect ourselves. The present PKK policy is working against this political
trend in Kurdistan. The short term objective of this policy is pacifying the Kurds in Northern
Kurdistan and preventing the emergence of a truly radical nationalist movement. And  the
long term objective is the prevention of highly possible future changes in the political
geography of the region in accordance with Turkish interests in the region.

Whether through torture, persuasion, or working on his weaknesses, the Turks have made
Ocalan defer all his previous demands. But why does the PKK Leadership obey him and
endorses this policy? Why are they not acting like the East Timouris? Why are they
defaming their own past and humiliating themselves? Why are they abandoning a just and
legitimate cause? My answer can only partially explain the irrational policy of the PKK. In
my view, three factors; Communism, lack of a Kurdish identity, and the Ocalan style of
leadership, are very important in analysing the current situation. A profound analysis of
these factors could possibly contribute to a better understanding of the PKK and an
apprehension of the present behaviour of the PKK Leadership.

After the collapse and bankruptcy of the Communist ideology, the PKK leadership sees no
ideological motivation to continue the struggle. The most senior members of the PKK neither
have a political nor a cultural Kurdish identity. Many of them do not even speak Kurdish,
and in  absence of a Kurdish identity, they do not either see any reason to fight for a free
Kurdistan. Further, the Ocalan style of leadership has not permitted any member of the
organisation to gain sufficient authority in order to shoulder the leadership responsibility.

As I mentioned earlier, Kurdish opposition has due to the politics of denial always been
clandestine and armed. The armed struggle has been the only way through which the Kurds
have been able to voice their demands. The guerrilla war was of an enormous importance to
the Kurds in the 1980´s.  It showed that the brutal Turks  could be challenged. The guerrilla
war contributed enormously to the strengthening of a national awareness among the Kurds in
Northern Kurdistan. It raised their self-esteem and self-respect.

The PKK policy will not take the Kurdish movement forward. On the contrary, it is an
obstacle towards national liberation. It only prolongs the suffering and agony of the long
tormented Kurdish nation. The new situation requires a more efficient warfare than the
classical guerrilla warfare and a new policy.
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1- No organization or person other than Ocalan had claimed leadership of the entire
Kurdistan nation.

2- In the PKK political conception refering to a collective, Abdollah Ocalan is always
refered to as the leadership(Serokati). When I use the concept leadershiphere I referto
a group of senior PKK leaders more know as "the Concil of Leaders".

3- As far as I know Turkey is the only country in the world where the very existence of
an entire people has been denied. Neither am I aware of any other case in the world
where speaking a certain language in private has been forbidden, which was the case
for the Kurdish language until 1991

4- In my view there is no Kurdish Problem, but a Kurdistan Problem. The Kurds are not
a "scattered minority", like the Armenians in Iran or Syria, but a territorially based nation,
and that is what makes the problem appear so insoluble. Any solution not concerning the
territory, i.e. Kurdistan, is doomed to failure.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

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