6 March 2025

Öcalan's message | Friends speak bitterly

Mustafa Yalçıner

Mustafa Yalçıner

Öcalan's message | Friends speak bitterly

Fotoğraf: Dilan Temiz/ Evrensel

Let us say it from the beginning to avoid any misunderstanding. We are not against PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan's call to lay down arms. Moreover, we support this call.

Let us generalise: Not only today, but also yesterday, we considered it imperative that the self-determination right of the Kurds, not only of the Kurds, but of all oppressed nations, be respected unconditionally, and we behaved in this way. This behaviour of ours will continue tomorrow. This is a fundamental issue and responsibility.

This has been our basic approach and attitude at least a few years before Hüseyin İnan's "The Path of the Turkish Revolution" and Deniz Gezmiş's last words on his deathbed "Long live the struggle of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples for independence". Because the unity of the working class and the oppressed nations is a sine qua non of the international proletarian revolution and, as a part of it, of the proletarian revolution in Turkey, which our youth will witness.

Therefore, our slogan is "Long live the unity and struggle of the working class and oppressed nations"!

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Öcalan's call does not contain a clear call to fight. Although it reveals a political stance, we understand the call as a diplomatic statement. Can it not be? Of course it can be. There is a place for diplomacy in the class struggle.

The call came after and in response to MHP Leader Devlet Bahçeli's call, which was obviously preceded by a lot of work. And Bahçeli's call "Let Öcalan come to parliament...", which was made by Bahçeli as the most suitable person, as we said from the beginning, as the spokesman of the state's position, which he and President Tayyip Erdoğan had decided together, contained the content that "the state will not negotiate with terrorists", that "Öcalan wants his organisation to lay down arms and disband", that "terrorists should come and surrender to the state and wait for the decision to be made about them".

This was the starting point and it would go on from there if they wanted. Couldn't Bahçeli's call be considered as a basis and a way to move towards a solution of the Kurdish question? Öcalan thought it was possible. This cannot be denied and cannot be called wrong. After all, it cannot be opposed in the name of socialism! The Kurds have the right to determine their own destiny as they wish and they also have the right to determine a form of struggle that suits them.

It's all true. Now for the bitter words of a friend. Friendly warnings that the Kurds themselves will undoubtedly decide whether to heed or not.

Öcalan theoretically justifies the disbanding of his organisation by laying down arms with the "invalidation of socialism", which we do not agree with but do not consider important for our subject.

There are strong indications that the diplomatic attitude, the development of which in the call and the following statements cannot be objected to, could be politicised, or that it could become dominant by overpowering the decisive political approach and attitude and crushing it with its weight.

In the text of the call, there is no call for a struggle for the future, "democratic reconciliation is considered as the main method" and "integration with the state" is foreseen. It should have been foreseen that meeting the need for diplomacy would lead to the emphasis on "reconciliation" and "integration" with the absence of the call for struggle, and that putting these forward in the conditions of today's threats, arrests and trusteeships against the bourgeois opposition would lead to the disappointment of the Kurdish masses. As a matter of fact, those who had gathered in Diyarbakır as well as in Van evacuated quickly and with boredom. At least "like the trustees..." could have been added to "the channels of democratic politics are closed". On the contrary, while the blood of Sinan Ateş, among thousands of others, was not spared, the 'thank you' messages sent to Bahçeli after the call, even by those who spoke about the necessity of struggle, were just the icing on the cake!

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