Q: Some Kurdish women from the PKK came to Barcelona last month. One of them recognized
herself as an anarchist. She was from Germany and she wanted to learn more about anarchist
history here in Spain. Do you think there are anarchists in the ranks of PKK? Do you have
contacts with them? Would it be possible to have a left libertarian current inside this
hierarchical movement? ---- Yes. Inside the PKK and PYD there are men and women with
anarchist ideas and thought. Some of these people have reached that through their own
struggles and experiences; the others have become anarchist and libertarian under the
influence of Abdullah ?calan. They have realized that anarchism is the most radical answer
to the capitalist system. We believe that those who have embraced the anarchist idea under
the influence of ?calan may not be as solid as the people who reached the same ideas
through their own struggles and experiences.
Obviously the reason for that is while ?calan is still at the top of a hierarchal
organization like the PKK, and has every power, if for some reason he orders the people
inside the PKK or PYD to change their direction, we are sure many of them are happy to do
it. If that happens there is a possibility for this group to change its principles and
direction. We think differently about those especially guerilla women who have become
anarchist through their own experiences as they are members of the groups and committees
in the villages and towns in society; we believe they are more stable and solid. We have
seen a few interviews that they have given and also seen a few films that show how they
live together and how do they manage their work and daily life together, like living in
communes. All these give us more hope, yet again because we do not live with them,
therefore we do not know how much of this is true. We must also say that among their
sister parties in Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, we unfortunately do not see these positive
changes and directions. These people almost look like the PKK of the early 1990s; they are
still nationalist and most of their leaders are very authoritarian. We think they do not
embrace the current ideas and thought of ?calan, like economic cooperatives, communes in
the towns and villages, people's self-rule, direct democracy, the system of federalism and
free confederation. We believe the parties' policies in Iranian/Iraqi Kurdistan are very
much in contradiction with the current policies the PKK and PYD: they are still insisting
on political changes rather than social changes, they are still competing with the other
bourgeois parties in gaining money, power and position.
The experiences of many of us have proved or at least shown that it is very, very hard for
a libertarian/anarchist idea and direction to grow and develop inside a hierarchal
organization. Not only this, it is impossible for such ideas and directions to remain or
stay and continue in an ideological nationalist organization. We can always separate or
distinguish between the social movement and the leftist political movement whatever form
they have because the leftists and politicians are always authoritarian and corrupt. We
can see in reality the leftists are always trying to tame and control struggles and the
movement of the mass people and use them to achieve their own political aims, making
political capital out of it. We are the witness of all the attempts that have been made by
leftists during the uprising which took place in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 and up to
present, how they have tried to change the direction of the mass movements, deceiving
them, disappointing them, compromising with the State and trying to plant the seeds of
naivety among people to believe in political parties, centralism, "the workers state",
"communist state" and "socialist state". This is all the propaganda that they have
produced since then.
Unfortunately, so far we have been unable to make a direct link or connection with the
anarchist people in the PKK and PYD. We have tried before to do so but we were not
successful. However, we are hoping to make that connection in the near future.
Read more at: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27520
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