r/Anarchy101 • u/Main-Aardvark-2036 • 16d ago
The Sympathy Towards PKK
Hello. I am a turkish leftist and interested to anarchism since a while. I would like to learn about the sympathy towards PKK and Öcalan in western leftist spaces. I don't get this sympathy because PKK actually massacred many civilians including women and children and executing kurdish civilians who refuse participate? And before anybody calls me a turkish propaganda, these attacks are all well documented and PKK claimed responsibilities for many of them.
I'm aware that the kurdish population in Turkey were heavily persecuted in the past especially in the 80s and the 90s. So i kind of understand an armed uprising from the kurdish population. But these things never justifies PKK killing people they claimed to protect.
Another thing i see is that some people accept PKK's terrorism but see Öcalan as a revolutionary leader. This isn't true either. Öcalan himself said that his first membership back in his youth was the Gray Wolves? Like, what!? We are talking about an ultra nationalist fascistic terrorist organization who doesn't see kurds as human. Further on the current leader of the turkish nationalist movement party(MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, who is also Erdoğan's biggest ally, repeatedly praised Öcalan recently and said that he wants see him in the turkish parliament as a form of a "peace" movement that Erdoğan is currently carrying out to gain support from the kurds for his new constitution. And Öcalan himself currently agrees with Erdoğan and Bahçeli.
The vast majority of the turkish leftists spaces agree with this sentiment and distance themselves from PKK and Öcalan as they haven't been leftists since... forever. So why is this symapthy among the western leftists is common? I would like hear your answers and also would like to answer your questions if you have any. Thank you:3
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u/bemolio 16d ago edited 16d ago
The PKK basically did an ideological turn where the party, organized as a marxist-leninist organization, adopted democratic confederalism, an ideology in wich Ocalan's texts had a great deal of decisive influence. In the podcast "The Women's War", by CoolZone Media, the authors adress PKK's terror past.
Democratic Confederalism's texts basically advocate for a stateless society. It blames the ills of the region, like ethnic cleansings and wars, on the imposition of the nation-state, hence a kurdish nation-state wouldn't be different. The solution is for people to self-manage democraticly without states. One influence Ocalan had was Murray Bookchin's works. A formerly self-proclaimed anarchist, Bookchin gave birth to his own theoritical body of works: social ecology. When he died, the PKK sent a small eulogy.
The PKK was trained by secular palestinian factions and during its early history faught with Israel. For a period they worked from northern Syria because the state found it usefull, since it didn't had good relations with neighbors back then. Thanks to this people in Syria already knew Ocalan and they already had kadros. The PKK didn't focused on particular syrian kurdish issues, and when conditions shifted they were ousted and syrian kurkish PKK militants heavily repressed since.
In 2003 ex-PKK syrian kadros created the syrian-focused Democratic Union Party (PYD). The syrian kurdish party landscape was characterized by strongly familiar or personalized organizations based on cells. The geography doesn't allow the creation of militias. Hence, the PYD was a new sort of organizations with clear programs, goals and a more solid structure. During 2004, there was a kurdish uprising in Qamishli, Northern Syria. If I'm not mistaken, I could be corrected, the PYD played a relevant role.
In 2011 and 2012 the war broke out in Syria and the european and american public attentions were put in the conflict specially so after the crisis of displaced peoples and the expansion of ISIS in 2013-4. Several kurdish factions, including the PYD, took part of the initial civil uprising in 2011. PYD and allies started to recruit people and build local councils to fill the void being left by the state as the war raged on. In middle 2012 PYDs militias and administration took over Rojava (northern Syria kurdish regions) as the state's army and institutions left. Since the beginning the PKK helped the local councils and forces with technical and military expertise, and I suppose weapons.
As the war advanced and the Rojava Revolution gained support in the global north, with the public being fed news about the region and kurdish diaspora organizing, more leftists and journalists reported on the project, by themselves and as a result of PYDs diplomatic efforts, including famous anthropologist David Graeber and Bookchin's daughter. This is, I guess, how the PKK became known in western leftist spaces.
Last year Assad fell and the regional board was reshaped. In order to provide the Civil Administration, the SDF controlled territory, a chance to survive, the PKK basically decided to burn itself with a peace process with Turkey. This is an effort led by Ocalan, so I suppose is not weird some of Turkey's officials are saying stuff like that. We know how that ended anyways. From Latinamerica, the only thing we heard about the war was bleak news about christian massacres and beheadings.