In this interview, Duran Kalkan, member of the KCK Executive Council, spoke about the importance of the PKK on the occasion of the 46th anniversary of its founding.

Kalkan talked about how the ability to change has enabled the PKK to continue to strengthen itself over the decades despite the most adverse circumstances.

We are approaching the 46th anniversary of the founding of the PKK. It emerged on the stage of history as a national liberation movement, but however, with the processes of change and transformation it has gone through, it has become a movement that transcends this definition. How would you define the PKK today?

As a movement and as a people, we are approaching the 46th anniversary of the PKK and are entering the 47th year of the freedom struggle. I salute all comrades, the women and the youth, our guerrilla forces, our people, our international friends, and particularly to the founder and leader of our party, Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan]. In the 47th year of the struggle, I wish outstanding success to all those waging the freedom struggle. At the same time, I commemorate with love, respect, and gratitude all our heroic martyrs, starting from the first great martyr of our party, comrade Haki Karer, to our most recent martyrs, comrades Asya and Rojger. I thereby reiterate our promise to achieve their goals and keep their memories alive.

In these past 46 years, the PKK has always been one of the most discussed topics in Kurdistan and Turkey. In fact, this is not limited to Kurdistan and Turkey; it has been one of the most discussed topics in the whole region and even in the world. This is something that still continues today. It shows the importance of the PKK for Kurds, for Turkey, for the Middle East and the world, and for humanity. It shows that it has a great meaning and value. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so much discussion. Although one doesn’t want to mention it too much, Suleyman Demirel, one of Turkey’s politicians, had a famous saying: ‘They stone the tree that bears fruit.’ The fact that it has been discussed so much shows that it has borne a lot of fruit. Because the discussions were multifaceted, they were both positive and negative. The most beautiful words, the most meaningful poems, and the most touching songs were written about the PKK, and at the same time, the harshest words, insults, and so-called criticisms were also made against the PKK. Everyone evaluated it according to themselves, and they continue to do so.

Rêber Apo has made the most beautiful, correct, and meaningful evaluations of the essence of the PKK. And first and foremost, it is our great martyrs who shaped it. It is comrades like Mazlum, Hayri, and Sara that have formed the definition of the PKK. They lived as the most beautiful PKK members and made the PKK meaningful and play a role.

At the time of the founding of the PKK, the world was different. Freedom struggles were also different. There was the Soviet Union, and national liberation movements – the independence and freedom movements of the colonized peoples – were developing all around the globe. Humanity was at such a point of the most revolutionary, radical, and libertarian thought of the period. That was what the PKK took as its basis. It developed and strengthened as a socialist-led national liberation movement. It defined itself in this way. And this was natural. But already then, it was still not exactly the same as other national liberation movements. For example, according to the understanding back then, it should have had a relationship with the Soviet Union, and it always defined the USSR as a strategic ally, but the Soviet Union did not recognize the PKK ideology and struggle. They didn’t accept it. It had already opposed Kurdish struggles in many periods before.

The difference came from this: Kurds were defined as a society under colonization and genocide, but the other colonies of the world are colonies of this or that state or several states. Kurdistan was a colony of the global hegemonic structure of the globalized hegemonic system of capitalist modernity, the global hegemonic structure of the ruling and statist system. As such, even if it envisioned a nation-state, it always found itself in contradiction and conflict with the unity of nation-states embodied, for example, in the UN. That is what made it different from the very beginning.

Again, its development was different. Marxists evaluate that capitalism develops national consciousness and organization. But in Kurdistan, as Rêber Apo stated, capitalism did not play such a role. Indeed, capitalism pushes nationalization here too, but this nationalization is not the nationalization of the Kurds; it is the nationalization of the states that establish sovereignty over the Kurds, of those states, of the nations that give them an identity, Turkish nationalization, Arab nationalization, Persian nationalization. For Kurds, this means national extinction.

As the struggle in Kurdistan continued and developed, and as the socialist and national liberation struggles in the world further developed, these differences increased and deepened. And Rêber Apo evaluated every development of this process and showed it to the world. As a result, the system united its different currents in order to be able to launch an international conspiracy attack for the annihilation of Rêber Apo on October 9, 1998. It gave no place to Rêber Apo, Kurdish freedom and independence. It became antagonistic and hostile to the Kurds. It launched an attack that envisioned the destruction of Kurdish existence and freedom. As such, no matter how much ideological and political work and how much of an armed struggle, the realization of a nation-state as a solution in Kurdistan was made impossible.

The struggle for it was met with the attack of the international conspiracy. While analyzing the conspiracy and defining the struggle against it, Rêber Apo evaluated the general situation in depth and developed what today is known as the paradigm shift. He broke away from the nation-statist ideology and turned the PKK into a party of the democratic nation. It ceased to be a party centered on power and the state and turned it into a democratic socialist party that is based on social ecology and women’s freedom. It changed its mentality, ideological line, politics, program, strategies, tactics, and style. Thereby, a new PKK was defined.

The new PKK is conducting a revolution of truth. Rêber Apo made this clear in his prison writings and stated that the truth revolution is a revolution of mentality and of the approach to life; an ideological revolution. Paradigmatically, the PKK is no longer power-statist; it no longer envisions a nation-state solution. It is based on women’s freedom. It is a party of free women. From the beginning on, it gave importance to women’s liberation, but gradually it transformed itself into a women’s liberationist party that puts the women’s liberation revolution on the highest agenda. At the same time, it is also an ecologist party. It rejects the imperialist, capitalist attack that envisions the destruction of nature as well as society. It stands against the destruction and consumption of nature. Such an ecologist party, of course, envisions a moral and political society as its basis. Ideologically, it is based on the free individual and the democratic commune.

Another characteristic of the PKK is that it says what it does and does what it says. It does not leave the implementation of what it says for later. It applies it within the party, it applies it in the guerrilla, and within the women’s and youth struggle. The PKK puts its ideology and mentality into practice. It is a party that envisages unity of thought, action, and life. With the new paradigm, this characteristic became much more developed and embodied. The new PKK can be defined as a democratic-socialist party based on women’s freedom, social ecology, and moral and political society.

What has the PKK achieved throughout the past decades? What is the situation of Kurds in the context of the development and transformation of the PKK? What has the PKK changed and created in Kurdistan society? How has it affected the peoples of the region?

Something that I have already said on the occasion of previous anniversaries can be repeated here. These questions can also be asked the other way around. In other words, what would have happened in the past 46 years if the PKK had not existed? What would be the situation of Kurds and Kurdistan? Based on this question, one can try to come up with an evaluation. What would have happened then? The name of the Kurds would have been forgotten. Kurdishness would have been completely assimilated and disappeared. Kurdishness as a national identity, Kurdish society as a social structure, as one of the most ancient still existing societies, would have disappeared. This is not an exaggeration. These are not forced words to praise the PKK. The situation of the Kurds and the situation in Kurdistan at the time of the emergence of the PKK and of Rêber Apo are known.

Let’s go back to that time; let’s remember it. How organized was the Kurdish society? Was Kurdishness a value that was embraced, or was it a value that was hidden, avoided, rejected, and denied? It was the latter. The dominant, colonizing, and genocidal forces were denying it, insulting it, and doing everything to destroy it. The PKK put an end to all this. It revealed the historical identity of the Kurdish people, renewed and changed the people. It brought them together with free and democratic communal values and truly created a totally new situation for Kurdish society. It created the free Kurd, the free Kurdish society, the democratic system, and life, and it did this on the basis of women’s freedom.

It did it on the basis of social ecology. It did it on the basis of the free individual and the democratic commune, that is, a sharing society, a politics free from all forms of exploitation and oppression. It created such a structure and values. It made Kurds at peace with themselves, made them love themselves, and made them embrace their own identity. The PKK made them live their own truth with enthusiasm and without antagonization. This is an important aspect of the struggle. It made Kurds at peace with themselves; it made Kurds understand themselves. Without making enemies of others, it has brought them together to live together as brothers, side by side, together, under the umbrella of the democratic nation, within the system of democratic confederalism.

All developments in Kurdistan bear the stamp of the PKK. Kurdishness did not come into existence with the PKK, of course. It is one of the most ancient societies in history. Kurds did not resist only with the PKK. The entire history of the existence of this people is characterized by resistance. Life in Kurdistan, life in Mesopotamia, is all about resistance. Kurds have always resisted, but the resistance of the last 50 years has been through the PKK. In the last 50 years, it was the PKK that marked the resistance, represented it, and brought up all the achievements created through it. It pioneered resistance. It was the gradual systematization and transformation of Rêber Apo’s feelings, thoughts, and evaluations that turned to life. It started from one individual; from there it turned into a group, then into a party, became a guerrilla, and became a people. For decades, Kurdish society has been shouting the chant everywhere: ‘PKK is the people; the people are here.’ The PKK has gone beyond being a party. It went beyond being a freedom movement, a resistance movement. It has become the culture, language, history, lifestyle, and identity of a people. It has reached a structure that represents its past and future. There is a society that expresses itself through this party. This society finds its most beautiful values in the PKK and with Rêber Apo. Taking all this into account, if there had been no PKK, there would have been nothing left in the name of Kurdishness and Kurdistan.

The Kurdishness and the Kurdistan created by the PKK do not resemble any other people or country. It is a completely different reality of society. Today it is a center of attraction for everyone, particularly Rojava. It used to be said that this region was, particularly for women, the most oppressed and enslaved area in the Middle East. The Rojava Revolution was a women’s freedom revolution. Women took a great lead and gained will.

Rojava and the Euphrates basin was an area where so many different peoples are intertwined, where contradictions and conflicts were developed the most under the ruling, statist mentality, and politics. Now all of them live together under the roof of democratic confederalism and the democratic nation, as brothers and sisters. They have no problems, no contradictions, and no conflicts that they do not or cannot create solutions by themselves. It became like this in the shortest time. It has become a model in an exemplary position. A democratic society is being formed. There has been an exemplary life without power and state for ten or twelve years. A life that is currently unique in the world. Therefore, it is a center of attraction for everyone in search of a new life. And there are many such searches in the world, and they find the answer to their search in Rojava, in the paradigm of Rêber Apo.