Fuat Önen
Awareness of history is perhaps more necessary for the Kurdistan Freedom Movement than anyone else. It is important that our freedom movement, which has spread over three centuries, understands the dialectic yesterday-today-tomorrow and puts its political struggle on this axis.
Given the current struggles and political demands of political organizations in northern Kurdistan, it is difficult to believe that the predecessors of these organizations were doing politics together with the Independent-United-Socialist Kurdistan shiar until twenty years ago. What this young generation doesn’t know is the fact of the recent past that most of our generational cadres are trying to forget and forget. Despite all the ideological and political differences between them, northern organisations agreed that the strategic goal in the coming is independent-unified-socialist Kurdistan. This was such a clear fact for us that every strategic demand under it would be seen as opportünism, primitive nationalism, a eagerness to cooperate with colonialists, condemned instantly and unequitily.
At the end of a process that began with the unraveling of Soviet socialism, all three objectives of this slogan were gradually abandoned. Capitalism, which was reassured by the dissisting of the Soviets, lost credibility to socialism in the world with the globalist attack, and the red color of the flag of rebellion turned orange, purple and green. At a time when the flag of rebellion was painted red all over the world, our Northern organizations, which took to the history scene and described their rebellion on the axis of patriotism as socialism, gave up the goal of socialism and the socialist leg of our tripart over, depending on the developments in the world, and those of us who remain socialists still renumed the socialist Kurdistan goal to the next strategic stage. From today, it is more clear that all three feet of our three motto are related, not lined up side by side, intertwined targets. Among other reasons, the goal of socialist Kurdistan has ceased to be a close target, first because of the emergence of the goal of united Kurdistan, and then the goal of independent Kurdistan.
At the time of the development of the fight against these strategic goals in the north of Kurdistan, the political strategy that we could call democratic autonomy in other parts was dominant. Iraq’s demands for autonomy for democracy, autonomy for Kurdistan, democracy for Iran, Kurdistan were the main political goals. There is a reversal here. The goal of independent unified-socialist Kurdistan in the north, federalism, autonomy is regressing, while in the South and East the goal of autonomous Kurdistan is being made to the goal of federal Kurdistan.
While the Manifesto of the Democratic Society Congress demanded Democratic Autonomous Kurdistan, in subsequent statements, this demand was expressed as a demand for reform of Turkey’s administrative regime, and the country was cut off from the basis of geography. It should be noted as a historical irony that those who have condemned past demands for autonomy as primitive nationalism define political objectives as strategic goals of their political struggles, behind the demand for autonomous Kurdistan.
UNIQUE DEVELOPMENT LAW
The fact that this brief entry highlights points to an uneely political development both within and between the pieces. When discussing the problems of fragmentation, we need to carefully examine the importance and functioning of the law of unely development.
The law on une e-ee- development is a law that has been debated a lot in the past within the left movement and is still being debated. The claim that this law was discovered by Lenin’s name is not true. It is true that Lenin further highlighted this law, at the center of the thought system. It is possible to see the effect of this law in both the weak link theory and the Bolshevik Party analysis. Then, in the discussions of socialism in one country, this law was referred to a lot, and in these discussions it was said that it was a law specific to monopoly capitalism, so it was not seen by Marx and Engels, it was discovered by Lenin, which is wrong. Marx’s analysis also points to this law, although not as far ahead as Lenin’s.
On the other hand, I think it is wrong that this law is unique to capitalism. The law of unecondisted development is a law that works in the development of all societies and can also be observed in the development of pre-capitalist socio-economic formations. The basis of this law is the fact that contradictions and the intensity of these contradictions in different geographies and different societies lead to uneely development between societies and geographies. This disparity did not begin with capitalism, but on the contrary, capitalism took this inequality as a point of action for itself. Capitalism’s own unepared development has been over the inequality it inherited. Unlike the social formations before it, capitalism has become a world system in the monopoly phase. Its transformation into a world system has also transformed uneely development into a unified development of the world. The level reached by globalization is the result of this combined development. However, as globalists claim, this has not eliminated the inequality of development or contradictions and conflicts. Trotski’s assessment that inequality in the historical development of different social, political and geographical units is uneely in him is also important. In today’s world, the measure of inequality and unity in the development of different units is still unepared.
SHATTERED
The 1639 Kasr-ı şirin agreement is taken as the beginning of the process of politically dividing and disintremanding Kurdistan, which is true. The border drawn by this agreement remained the Turkish-Iranian border with a partial change made on 23.1.1932. With this agreement, approximately 33% of Kurdistan was under the sovereignty of the Iranian state, and some of it was included in the Russian Empire, which was torn from this part at the end of the Russian-Iranian war in the 1820s. Although this agreement, which initiated and formalizes the process of division, is important in this respect, it is not wrong to say that the main destruction was in the process of division and fragmentation during the First World War, given the transition of borders, local division, and the level of nationalization. Kurdistan, which entered the war divided between iran, Russia and the Ottoman empires, is an important frontline country of the war. This country, where Russian, French, British, Italian, German soldiers roamed with Iranian and Ottoman soldiers, has no official place in the post-war equation not named in the history of the war. The Ottoman empire is a country where Russian, French and British occupations were added to the Iranian occupation. From Canakkale to Heiraz, From Sarikamis to Mosul, from Mus to Anteb, the Kurds, who took part in the war, had to live with the fold of their dismeasion after the war. The Kurds, who are in the accounts of all the warring parties, have paid a heavy price for not having a unified account. Sheikh Mahmoud’s local account was defeated by the regional accounts of imperial powers, the Kurds failed to take part in the system of newly established states in the world, and were left without divided, fragmented political status. Although there are many reasons for this result, it is not wrong to say that the most important is not having a unified national account inside, and outside, post-war, the new system of world order or states created by the victors. (We must see that these reasons remain valid today. Today, the world order has collapsed, and the world is fighting for a new order. In this war, it is vital that the Kurds have a unified political account, a project, covering all parts.)
It is known that one of the allies’ war goals is to bring down the Ottoman Empire and share its territory among themselves. Therefore, on 16.5.1916, during the war, the Territory of The Ottoman Empire in Asia was shared between Russia and England and France under the Sykes-Picot agreement. With this agreement, the Ottoman-dominated territory of Kurdistan is shared between Russia, England and France. The agreement, scheduled for February 1917 to discuss Italy’s objections that commitments made to him to join the war have not been fulfilled, cannot be done because Russia failed to participate at the prime minister’s level following the February revolution in Russia. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks announced secret imperialist agreements and gave up their rights arising from these agreements, even though the sharing of Kurdistan envisaged in the Sykes-Picot agreement could not be reached, the subsequent sharing has had an impact. After various changes, today’s dividing boundaries have become official with the 1923 Lausanne and 1926 Ankara agreement. It is possible to say that the TC, founded in 1923, was replaced in 1925-26 and found its place in the system of new states. (Some of the treaties signed during these years are: 18.10.1926-Bulgaria, 17.12.1925-Soviet Union, 22.04.1926-Iran, 30.05.1925- France (Syria and Lebanon), 05.06.1926-Great Britain (Iraq), 01.12.1926-Greece. Many of these treaties were made under the name of “friendship, security and cooperation”. However, especially in 1926, treaties with Britain, France, Iran, Iraq and Syria were treaties to break up Kurdistan and leave it unsymed.)
The system of post-war states is essentially dictated by the victorious states of war. The victors wanted to have the world accept their superiority in the war and register it by interstate law. The Society-i Akvam (league of Nations, Union of Nations by correct name) was founded with the 1919 Paris peace conference designed as the top body of this system. This organization, as the Comintern points out, is an imperialist organization. It is a Uk-French-dominated organization that legitimizes colonialism under the name of Mandacilik, legalizes the post-war sharing of the world, and is ‘observing’ the United States. In this sense, it is an imperialist project with Britain at the beginning of the splitting and dismantling of Kurdistan and leaving it unsupistible political status. Of the four colonial states in sight, the Syrian French buffalo is the one that made its way to the history scene as the buffalo of Iraq and England. All savings in Kurdistan are under the control of the owners. The Syrian nation, the Iraqi nation and its states are the ‘tangible historical realities’ that imperialist centers, such as the Turkish nation and the Turkish state, have designed and imposed on us. Contrary to what the Turkish official history thesis claims, TC was founded not in the fight against imperialism, but by the imposition of imperialism in cooperation with imperialism.
It is the USSR whose situation here is contradictory. While Tsarism Russia was the winner of the war, Soviet Russia was the target of its former allies who were the winners of the war, and it was ineffective in establishing a system of new states, a state that was being tried to be destroyed by this system. Acting with a defensive reflmus, the USSR has considered it a fundamental policy to try to keep the TC afloat, a continuation unlike Tsarlık Russia, which is trying to eradicate the Ottoman Empire. This is one reason why the Soviet Revolution, which was a hope for the oppressed peoples, and the UsSR’s indifference to the struggle for freedom of the Kurd people, perhaps the most oppressed people of the first world war, often in the face of this struggle.
ANTI-IMPERIALISM
As a result of the uneonable development itself, the issue of anti-imperialism has entered our agenda at a different level in the struggle for freedom in different parts of our country. In the same part, it has gained importance at different levels in different periods and has occupied our agenda in the North the most in the last forty years. This is mainly because Turkey is a NATO member, the TC project is a western imperialist project, it was established by westerners and protected by dozens, and the leftist, socialist thinking that dominated the movement in the North between 1968 and 1990. The relationship between anti-imperialism and socialism is also an issue in need of discussion and opening up both in the world and in our country. More importantly, the anti-imperialism of the Kurdistan freedom movement after 68 is a serious problem that they take from the Turkish ‘left’ and perceive it in Turkish form. The thought of fighting imperialism with independent Turkey, not independent Kurdistan, is the result of this disability.
Anti-imperialist struggle in the socialist struggle is a tactical issue that entered the agenda of socialism after the Soviet Revolution. This concept, which initially came into the agenda of socialism as a tactical issue, was perceived as a strategic issue, especially in Stalin and its aftermath. It is important to keep in sight that anti-imperialism has different concepts of fighting against imperialist states here. It is possible to fight against some imperialist states without being anti-imperialist or even with imperialist ambitions. After the October Revolution of 1917, the revolution of the Western proletaria, especially the Proletaria of Germany, was considered the main guarantee for Soviet rule. As the wave of revolutions in the West thmped, new possibilities were sought to sustain Soviet power, and the struggle for liberation of oppressed peoples gained importance in this sense. We need to determine this real-political reality before we forget that socialism is in principle a supporter of the struggle for freedom of the oppressed. Lenin’s revising of the slogan “Workers of all countries unite” to “Unite the workers and oppressed peoples of all countries” is also related to this real-political congestion in the 1920 First Eastern Peoples Assembly. As a matter of fact, the second congress of the Eastern Peoples could not be organized. The USSR, the founding component of the new world order created after The Second World War, has strategically reached this relationship, which was initially seen as a tactical issue, and has turned to overcoming the theoretical obstacles with the thesis of the ‘Non-Capitalist Development Path’. Anti-capitalist anti-imperialism was outdated by the unraveling of the Soviets. Even during the existence of the socialist system, the delivae of anti-capitalist anti-imperialism, which is controversial and wrong as evidenced by the developments, is completely meaningless in today’s world. One point that is remarkable is that this principle is remembered only when it comes to the Kurd world. The right of the Palestinian people to establish their own state is not conditional on the PLO being anti-imperialist. The new states established by the US-led imperialist world in the Balkans have not been opposed on the grounds of this principle. Just as the claim that the nation-state era is over is suggested only when it comes to the nationalisation of the Kurds, the anti-imperialist principle is imposed only on the Kurdistan Struggle for Freedom. I think the prevalence of this situation in the North is related to kemalism, which is drinking to the Turkish Left, again infiltrating the Kurd left through the Turkish Left. The Kurd people, divided and torn apart by the imperialists, do not need anyone’s advice on anti-imperialism. In a world where globalization is accelerating, what kind of ties our Freedom Movement will have with political actors outside of it should be considered a tactical issue of unified national account.
FRAGMENTEDNESS, UNIQUE DEVELOPMENT AND CURSED INSULABILITY
It is historically unfair that Kurdistan is divided and dismantled and held under the sovereignty of different political units, and it is one of the crimes against human beings. This historical injustice has been committed a lot in our patriotic literature, it has been identified as the most important obstacle to our struggle, it has been claimed, it has been challenged. Of course, the cursed silence shown by the earthliers who applauded the a lift of the border between East and West Germany in the name of freedom and turned it into a festive mood should of course be condemned. However, we should also see that this is not only a historical injustice, but a functioning, time-out injustice, a historical and up-to-date reality in this sense. It is also our duty to find ways to solve the problems caused by this situation in our Struggle for Freedom. Fragmentation, as in other societies of the world, has transformed the uneely development that has been in the Kurdish society into a geometric increase, paralyzed kurdistan’s internal dynamics and throbbed its internal fabric. This is due to both the borders drawn and the fact that Kurdistan colonists have different civilizations, religions, political paradigms. Britain and France, both imperialists and colonialists, are states with different sovereignty systems and colonial practices. The different practices of these states, which govern the central-southern and south-western parts of Kurdistan through their buffaloes and by their own people, have accelerated the unely development between these parts. When Iraq and Syria were turned into independent states, this time their different colonial paradigms continued to develop unely. The same applies both to the imperial Iranian and Ottoman states, and to the later Iranian and Turkish ‘republics’.
All over the world, colonialists are trying to make the internal dynamics of their colonies look like them, to articulate them to them. This process has been much heavier in Kurdistan, which has been abandoned to the sovereignty systems of different colonialists. The western invention in the north was occupied and ruled by the so-called secular, western, stateless coalition’s Turkish Sovereignty System, the pro-Western Pehlevi in the East, then the Eastern Islamic Iranian Sovereignty System, and the Pan-Arabist Baasist Arab sovereignty Systems in the South. On top of this, the picture became unbearable when it was added that the artificial borders imposed prevented the internal communication of the Kurd society.
Kürd society has become alienated and differentiated in the fields of politics, culture, language and social life. For this reason, The Kurds have written the same language in three different alphabets. While many nations read and write different languages in the same alphabet, we read and write the same language in three different alphabets, and therefore have difficulty understanding each other. For this reason, many different legal systems and legal norms are in place in Kurdistan. Western Turkish ‘civil’ law, Islamic Iranian ‘Sharia’ law, Baasist Arab law are the dominant official law in Kurdistan. In addition, the unofficial legal norms of the sovereign nations and the civil law of the Kurds’ own, although the influence dimmed, the ancient tribal law of the Kurds. There probably isn’t another people in the world who’s been in such a legal mess.
The same confusion reigns over religious beliefs. In the east, the Iranian Shia faith, the so-called secular Hanefi Turkish faith in the North, the mixed Arab Islamic faith in the Central South, Baasist laism, the Arab Alevi faith in the South West again after the Arab Islamic faith, the Arab Arid community’s religious belief systems were cluttered, caused a confusion of faith in society, and there was a process that was uneely and alienation in the field of religious belief. The most interesting example of this is the trauma experienced by the Kurdistan Alawe. Alevism, one of the ancient Kurd beliefs, was transformed into a kind of Central Asian belief by the Turkish sovereignty system, and alevis began to be identified as Thatch-playing Muslim Turks. However, in 1925, the report prepared by the delegation headed by Abdulhalik Renda found that “the Turkish tribes in my class accepted themselves as Kurd because they were flames”.
The economic habitat also contains profound disparities in this sense. It is possible to see many different production relations together in Kurdistan, from the socio-economic relations left over from the communal society to the monopoly capitalist production relations. At the entrance of the article, I mentioned unequid development in the field of political and political demands. Again, the need for the issue of anti-imperialism and external alliances to be handled differently in different parts is a reality dictated by the same situation. To put it simply, the une parity development in Kurdistan, caused by the law on unee-parity development in fragmentedness, is the fundamental problem of the Kurdistan Revolution, which had to consider kurdistan’s unemanding and independence a historical right.
FRAGMENTEDNESS AND KURRD CONFERENCE
A joint Kurdish conference or congress attended by Kurdish organizations and patriotic figures from all parts should be the goal and dream of every Kurdistan revolutionary. This should be a conference where we who have to fight for freedom in different parts of a fragmented country will discuss the obstacles to the independence of our country, the freedom of our nation, we will look for solutions and methods, and we will try to coordinate the struggle together in different parts. The conference should be considered and organized on the axis of problems and solutions of fragmentedness. The conference is held in the east, west, north, south; be at home or abroad; it is a matter of possibilities and preferences to be open or confidential. It should be preferred if it is possible to do it in the south and in the open area. All Kurdistani, Kurdistan organizations, intellectuals and patriotic figures who are known and declarationd to the above goals should be able to participate in the conference. Only Kurdistans should attend the conference, we should be ‘us’ at the first conference. How we relate outside should be one of the main topics of the conference and, if necessary, our ‘outside’ friends should be invited to subsequent joint meetings. The conference should be targeted at the emergence of unity, or at least a coordinating body.
The Kurd Conference, which has been discussed in recent months, should be evaluated from this perspective. So far, the scope of this conference, which has not been officially disclosed about the guests, can only be commented on through information leaked or leaked to the press. As far as this information is concerned, this conference will be a conference between Southern executives, Turkish administrators, PKK-DTP executives in the direction of the United States. It is understood that a number of ‘independent’ Kurds from Turkey and the Turkish intellectual are involved in this work. It is reasoning to consider the participation of Turkish leaders, the colonists of kurdistan’s largest part (42%), as participants or observers. Of course, an organization that will form a delegation or conference that this conference will appoint can also talk to Turkish executives, but what can turkish administrators be doing at a conference where it will be decided?
From the reflected information, it is understood that the main agenda item of the conference is the disarmament of the PKK. Of course, such a conference will be attended by the PKK PKK, KOMELA, Iran KDP and other armed organizations, if any, the armed struggle can be discussed and a compromise is reached, if any, these organizations can be advised to stop the armed struggle. However, when it comes to weapons when all four sides of Kurdistan are under military occupation (including Kirkuk), the modest weapons at the hands of Kurdish partisans come to mind is another mind-boggling one.
If the reflected information is correct and the conference is held on this basis, the conference will be turkish and US conference, even though its name is Kurd. The conference, which will be held by the patriotic forces of a military, armed occupied country, should not look at weapons held by its own partisans.
Finally, considering the devastation and differentiation caused by the unely development of fragmentation, it may be asked how realistic the goal of national unity, national congress, inter-part unity is in these circumstances. In addition to the inequalities listed above when looking for answers to this question, we need to look at another reality just as important, the different integration processes in the parts. One of the main goals of the colonists in Kurdistan was to integrate the Kurdistan into the dominant society by destroying the characteristics of our people as Kurdish society. These integration mechanisms cover every area of life. In economic, political, cultural and social life areas, difficult-to-use mechanisms that have ceased to be us have been used for years. As a result of the development of both these iradi mechanisms and capitalism and the advancement of globalization, we need to see a great distance taken in integrating the Kurds into the dominant systems in the parts in which they are located, at different levels in different parts. It is here to evaluate the developments in Central-South Kurdistan separately. At the end of the developments that took a certain shape in 2003, which started in 1991, serious steps were made in this part of our country to create its own political society. These steps should be seen as the acquisition of all parts. On the other hand, the struggle for national freedom in this piece during the 20th century was more vibrant than in other parts, making the integration process further back in this piece.
The most dire case for integrating into the sovereign system is in the northern part of our country. The Turkish Sovereignty System has gained significant positions in its goal of transforming Northern Kurdistan into a region of Turkey through its unique mechanisms and transforming the Kurdistan people into turks or part of the Turkish nation. In the ekenomic, social and cultural field, it is a level of concern for patriots that the Kurds see themselves as part of Turkey and define them as such. This is one reason why the integrationalist trend has strengthened in the Kurd Freedom Struggle over the past decade. The domination of the politics of integrationalist ‘Turkishness’ in the north is the manifestation of this integration process. We know that there is a strong, serious integration process in the Eastern part of our country, if not to this extent. Integration in the south-west has been a bumpy process depending on the development of the system here.
Given all this, it is possible to say that the goals of national unity, national congress, inter-part unity are not very ‘realistic’ goals. The issue of realism in the political struggle is also a controversial issue. It’s a kind of bridge of order with real-politics on one side, dogmaticism on one side and apolitics on the other. We must not ignore this reality, nor should we surrender to it. My position on this issue, as I mentioned in an earlier article, is that, as I mentioned in an earlier article, “Let others steal the tin of realism, we will try to make our own dreams come to life”.
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