BEHDINAN – Şerda Mazlum Gabar, one of the YJA Star Headquarters Commanders, wrote an evaluation on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the 15 August Resurrection Day.
Stating that the victory will be the guerrilla marching along the Egîd line, Şerda Mazlum Gabar said, “Today, we have a 40-year experience of struggle, thousands of martyrs, a guerrilla army fighting on the basis of the democratic nation paradigm and the principles of democratic modernity guerrillaism. “No one will be able to stop this guerrilla army,” he said.
Şerda Mazlum Gabar’s comments are as follows:
As we leave behind the 39th year of the historical and glorious 15 August Initiative and enter its 40th year, our valiant commander, Comrade Egîd (Mahsum Korkmaz), the genealogical veins of our struggle for freedom, which has turned into a continuous folk song, and the flowers of freedom of humanity bow respectfully before the memories of our martyrs, guerrilla On the occasion of today, I repeat once again the promise that our army will win the victory by marching along the lines of Egîd and Zîlan; I congratulate Leader Apo, our patriotic people, peoples, women and all our guerrilla forces on August 15 Guerrilla Day.
Actions are historical when they point to the most vital and vital problems of societies and are solutions to these problems in the time and place they are carried out. Not every action is a historical action. In order for an action to contain historical meanings as well as its current meaning, it must express a leap to a new stage. Historical actions, in which the right time, the right place, and social conclusiveness are integrated, differ from normal actions with these qualities; they become a spirit and a line. The freedom action carried out under the command of our valiant commander, Egîd, in the town of Dihê (Eruh), one of the most remote places in the country of Kurdistan, on 15 August 1984, which no one has even heard of, is a spirit, a line with these features.
Fighting for freedom, justice and a dignified life is a reality where life gains meaning and enlightenment by fighting. This reality is of great value in that a people like the Kurdish people, brought to the brink of extinction, can be reborn from its ashes and fight for its liberation and freedom. There is great devotion to freedom, resistance and life, and great hostility to murder of meaning and dishonor. It is possible to carry out such an act of freedom within the reality of a country and people that are under the grip of genocide, not even considered to be a colony, but with a great power of meaning, depth of emotion and unlimited faith. It is only possible to love what is beautiful and true, to own and grow it, only by making it strong. No phenomenon that is not experienced and whose meaning is not put strongly will lead a person to a great action. If there is a great action in a place, it should be known that there is a great depth of meaning and power of belief there. With these aspects, the glorious August 15 Initiative is also historical in terms of its great depth of meaning and strength of belief.
AUGUST 15 JURISDICTION IS THE BEGINNING OF GUERILLA FIGHTING IN KURDISTAN
Of course, the development of the August 15 Initiative was the result of intense research, examination and discussions on which method of struggle to achieve results in Kurdistan. The 15th of August Freedom Leap Forward, which we can also call the contract of arms, cannot be considered as the beginning of a mere armed action. It is the most correct answer to the question of existence. It has emerged as a result of the violence and exploitation in Kurdistan. The liberation struggles of other countries and peoples were examined and a decision was made on guerrilla warfare.
The concept of guerrilla was first encountered in written form in Karl Marx’s article ‘Guerrilla War in Spain’ written in the 1850s, and in Friedrich Engels’ work ‘On Guerrilla Warfare’ in 1852, in which he examined the war in general terms. Afterwards, it was seen that the concept of guerrilla was used in the war waged by the Spanish against Napoleon in 1856. The concept of guerrilla was first encountered in the war of independence waged by the Spanish against the Napoleonic armies in the early 1800s. In the 1850s, Karl Marx discussed this concept in his article ‘Guerrilla War in Spain’, and Friedrich Engels in his work ‘On Guerrilla War’, in which he examined the war in general terms. It has been concluded that guerrilla warfare can also be defined as a form of struggle by a small and weak power against a large enemy, and it has been observed that wherever there is a weak and uninstitutionalized power, a guerrilla-style struggle is carried out to defend itself against the attacks developed against it. Vietnam, Cuba, Angola and many more examples have been studied closely. Guerrilla warfare, conceptualized and institutionalized by Mao in the 20th century by bringing it into a political perspective, was chosen as an option since small unit warfare was defined as the war style waged by oppressed peoples against sovereigns and colonialism. Mao Zedong, who called the guerrilla theory as a long-term people’s war, combined Sun Tzu’s thoughts with Marxist ideas. He formulated the tradition of resistance existing in his own lands in line with a strategy, and named it the ‘Long-Term People’s War Strategy’. Since guerrilla warfare is the war waged by the oppressed peoples against the sovereigns, the weak against the powerful, and the less technically equipped against the more technically equipped, Kurdistan was determined as the most basic struggle strategy by the freedom fighters.
In these periods, the issue of whether to develop guerrilla warfare in the countryside or in the city was a long-debated issue by those who waged guerrilla warfare, and in particular by guerrilla theorists. This was one of the issues that the leftist organizations in Turkey discussed the most and could not agree on. While some of the left-socialist and revolutionary organizations said that ‘the guerrilla should start fighting from the city’, others argued that it was more correct to start from the countryside. Countries without mountains like Palestine created the reality of warring people and made the people mountains for themselves. Again, while Ireland was developing its guerrilla struggle against British colonialism, it was based on cities with the influence of geography.
Our movement, on the other hand, took the first step of resistance in the cities. Afterwards, on August 15, 1984, a revolutionary breakthrough was made and a guerrilla struggle was started in the countryside. In the following years, with the development and growth of the struggle, popular serhildans began to spread. Significant efforts were made and studies were carried out to develop guerrillaism in plains and cities with the people’s serhildans in accordance with the conditions of those geographies. In terms of our struggle for freedom, the resistance that started in the cities moved to the mountains and then to the plains and cities. The PKK movement itself emerged as a self-defense organization. By saying ‘Kurdistan is a colony’, a struggle against colonialism, denial, genocidal and fascist policies began. ARGK was the result, not the cause, of violence or war.
All living things in nature have three basic features: These are reproduction, defense and nutrition. Without these, the continuation of life, that is, life, is not possible. This reveals how self-defense is an existential reality. Living is not just breathing. It cannot be reduced to the biological continuation of life. To live is to realize, to begin to understand as you become aware. Leader Apo exemplifies this reality in a very plain and simple way in his evaluations, which he calls the ‘Rose Theory’, in the form that even a rose has thorns to protect its own beauty. A people without self-defense cannot claim their dignity, values, country, freedom or even their biological life.
KURDISTAN GUERILLA REVEALED ITS OWN STRATEGY
As I mentioned above, our history of armed struggle, which has entered its 40th year, has benefited from these experiences by drawing instructive conclusions from the struggle experiences of different peoples. However, it should be known that neither the reality of the people of Kurdistan nor the reality of our country’s enemies due to its geostrategic and geopolitical position is similar to the reality in any other country. The guerrilla struggle carried out for these reasons was developed in a way unlike any other, as much as benefiting from other experiences. Also, in war there is no repetition, and perhaps the area of greatest change is on the battlefield. The reality of war cannot be approached with dogmatic, monotonous, schematic and stereotypes. For this reason, tactics applied in one place cannot be applied in another. However, you can benefit from these experiences,
In terms of our struggle for freedom, it has made sense so far to examine the guerrilla experiences in Vietnam, China, Latin America, Mexico, Nicaragua. While our movement is trying to vitalize the true and permanent elements of the past as a legacy, it has tried to overcome the aspects that are the reflection of the dominant mentality or that are based on the conjuncture of the 20th century but do not appeal to the present. In the age we live in, when technological developments and their effects on wars are examined, it will be seen that we have overcome these experiences and are no longer as valid as before, considering the stage our guerrilla struggle has reached.
We have come to a period in which radical changes and innovations must be made in the strategy, style and tactical stances of the guerrilla struggle that has existed until now in terms of world reality as well as in Kurdistan. Fundamental innovations cannot be realized with limited changes, narrow and superficial renewal efforts, and changes that have been spoken over a long period of time and actually mean restoration. The current world conjuncture, the effects of artificial intelligence on the war and technological developments are the well-known guerrilla acts that took place in Asia, Africa, Europe, America, and in Kurdistan in the 1980s and in Turkey in the 1970s, which revolutionaries tried to break out. changed the conditions of execution with styles.
The main strategy that has guided our war tactic for the past 40 years has been the strategy of protracted people’s war. This strategy, which emerged as a way of dealing with the fundamental contradictions of the 20th century, became a basic strategy for our movement, which began to take shape in the early 1970s. In this direction, the war of existence was carried out with the guerrilla warfare. It has ceased to be a people who was denied and wanted to be destroyed, and has become a people with an identity. However, the changing world balances with the 1990s made it necessary to change the struggle strategy, which should also be developed in the freedom struggle of the peoples, with the concepts of democracy, equality and freedom, which came to the fore as a result of both the struggle of the oppressed and scientific technological developments. In this context, our movement, albeit belatedly, entered into such a strategic change as Leader Apo envisioned. The guerrilla determined its positioning according to the changing strategy, its tactical targets, its field of action, and its new course according to the political solution target it had set before it.
Of course, this change itself was not a change that developed through alienation or denial of its original essence, but on the contrary, it was a change that developed through the purification of some aspects of this essence that prevented its development and flourishing. The change experienced here came to the fore not as a denial, but with an approach that gave more fluid, continuity and depth to the essence of the guerrilla. This was the most fundamental reason that real socialism and other guerrilla organizations failed to do and led to repetition. Our movement, on the other hand, showed the power to develop it in its own historical development. It developed as a very important experience in terms of the socialist and democratic struggle of these peoples.
Every phenomenon in nature that shows life force goes through phases of change with an internal consistency in its own life purpose and line. This dialectic of change is also valid in terms of human societies and the institutions and concepts they create. The one who does not change is the one who can no longer reveal his life force, who dies or who is close to death. Our freedom movement, which developed in Kurdistan by revealing its ideological goals, also entered a process of change by staying true to this dialectic of change of nature and society. As we tried to express at the beginning, our movement, which from the very beginning connected its national identity development to the line of freedom in absolute terms, took this as a basis in all its development processes. For this reason, for us, the problem has never been limited to the Kurdish national struggle, but the Kurdish identity, which has been denied and invested in annihilation, is completely free, Its development was based on the principles of justice, namely the ideology of socialism. The development of the struggle around these principles brought a very important development to both world national struggles and socialist struggles, and created a brand new experience.
OUR GUERILLA STRUGGLE HAS A PLACE IN THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
The basic pillars of this experience and development that emerged in our party were based on the society and personality analyzes developed to create the new life and new human being, woman and man. Throughout our history of armed struggle, a great civil war has developed in terms of creating the new man. Of course, the fact that the PKK experience can emerge as a very different and original experience from the Middle East geography and historical cultural formation is primarily due to the Leadership and its character of constant inner movement, questioning and creation, and the fact of the martyrs who sacrificedly invested themselves in this line. The Kurdish identity in Kurdistan was condemned to be swept away from its historical roots and drowned in the vortex of slavery by the genocidal policies of thousands of years. All concepts were emptied of their essence and reversed.
The PKK struggle itself required, first of all, a great civil war, a personality struggle. The struggle for freedom, which was initially set with some basic lines, began to deepen as the process progressed and practical internal obstacles were encountered. This classic was not a struggle carried out with the usual styles and methods that transcend all its meanings. By realizing the biggest revolution in our geography, men, women, politics, war, state, culture, morality, tradition, family, love, love, behavior, personality and the facts that concern all human life were put forward as a reason for struggle in the development of this understanding of free life. He developed a new and free moral understanding that will fight against the classical and feudal understandings that suffocate our people from the heart and mind, which is itself the new man, the new woman, the new woman. it is nothing but the new male and social formation. Due to this character, our freedom movement became a guerrilla struggle that took a place in the heart and brain of the individual and society, not on the surface.
THE SUCCESS OF THE KURDISTAN GUERILLA HAS INSTALLED OTHER GUERILLA ORGANIZATIONS
Of course, this struggle was not such a smooth and comfortable struggle. On the one hand, there was a fierce struggle against the enemy, on the other hand, there was a fierce struggle against the class, national, sexual and regional impasses of the militant reality of this struggle. In our movement, the insurgent reality that invests and dedicates itself to this line struggle has emerged, as well as the vigilante, treacherous reality that tries to keep the dominant system reality that has developed against this line alive and to make it power in the party environment. Our martyrs, whose number is in the thousands, of rare beauty and character, have been enlightening and guiding the way of resistance in the forking division of the way of struggle. The other was a reality drowning in betrayal, insisting on dishonor in the Middle East’s deadlock.
Ultimately, the relentless struggle of these two lines and the demonstration of the power of success of the resistance line created the lasting values of our struggle that have survived to this day. The success of our guerrilla forces in Kurdistan has also been a perspective of victory and freedom, which paved the way for success for all anti-system resistance forces and guerrilla movements in the Middle East and the world, and enabled other guerrilla organizations to flourish. The role played by our struggle in the failure of the Turkish army, which is supported by the NATO Gladio with its forty years of guerrilla experience and know-how, has been very strikingly revealed in many places, especially in the Zap. At the same time, the peoples of the world and women saw the decisive role of the Kurdistan People’s Defense Forces in the defeat of ISIS, the most brutal gang force the whole world has ever witnessed.
It is clear that the pioneering and emerging developments of our guerrilla struggle in self-defense resistance are a source of hope, courage and will for the peoples, women and societies of the region, the world, as well as in Kurdistan today. Everyone saw clearly and tangibly the truth that guerrilla warfare, brought about by the self-aware and self-defense organized will, is the guarantee of the freedom of women, society and the country.
WOMEN GUERILLA TEACHED KURDISH WOMEN TO FIGHT FOR THEIR FREEDOM
Today, our guerrilla struggle has exceeded the four parts of Kurdistan and reached a level that addresses the whole of the Middle East. It even surpassed this and turned into a reality emulated by anti-system forces around the world. Our guerrilla forces are striving to fulfill this meaningful task. Our HPG and YJA Star units, which emerged as a unique experience around the world and in the Middle East, are not just a force that takes up arms and fights and carries out an armed struggle. There has never been such a power. It was a movement that questioned the class-nationalist perspectives of men and women with their deepest aspects. It gained value by organizing itself on the basis of women’s guerrillaism, the theory of rupture, the ideology of women’s liberation, and women’s partisanship, which our leadership put into action as a method in our freedom struggle during the most difficult processes of the struggle.
Undoubtedly, this itself did not create individuals who were liberated immediately, but it taught self-knowledge, staying independent, and organizing one’s life with a woman’s mind, which is a principle step of liberation. In our movement, women have learned to live without men, to struggle under the most difficult conditions, to organize their own lives, to stand on their own feet, to fight for their freedom and to take command. The approach to women has turned into a very important value judgment and has become a tradition.
Maybe these situations are ordinary for us, but creating such a reality of life and struggle in a geography of the world like Kurdistan is a very important achievement and a very important experience. The fact that men and women both stay together with their historical contradictions and develop such free relationship measures is really something that needs to be understood correctly. As we have stated, these are not an indication of our total liberation. However, they are developments on the road to freedom that should never be underestimated. In this sense, the guerrilla struggle of our age is the struggle to save women from the traps of the masculine system and to create a living space outside these traps. This is a serious and vital attitude that cannot be handled with a revolutionary understanding that is always postponed to the future, as in the past and other revolutionary experiences. It is a mentality that must be fought and built in the moment lived with consciousness. Communal values are poisoned, polluted and even marginalized to horrific levels by the destruction of women’s will, body, soul and consciousness. In that case, the guerrilla struggle, which is the struggle for communalism, must address and solve this most fundamental and key problem.
GUERILLA MEANS BEING PASSIONATE TO FREEDOM
The guarantee of the success of the guerrilla struggle is to establish a life system in which the will of women and peoples is the main victorious force. The reality we call revolution and solution is no longer a dream, utopia or fiction that will come true years later. It is an already created reality. This is very important to understand. Because, in fact, one of the inadequacies of the freedom struggles over the ages is here. As soon as we want and know freedom against the enslavement and loss of will of women, it means that we are faced with the task and responsibility of achieving and building this freedom in ourselves and in the social system we live in. Awareness is very important here. To be curious about knowing, learning, life, history, women, men, science, religion, politics, organization, nature, in short, everything about life, It is a basic philosophy to create a world of mindset that integrates the moment of knowing with the love of truth and the moment of being. It is necessary to never let the woman’s body, soul, emotion or thought be lost to the dominant systems, and to reveal what belongs to her, her naturalness and meaning. With these aspects, our guerrilla struggle, which we have developed from a gyneological point of view, is a struggle that tries to spread feminine values to all cells of society. To be a guerrilla in its literal sense means to be a free individual who is passionately attached to freedom. Guerrillaism is a way of life. Being a guerrilla means living against time. Being a guerrilla means transcending conventional perspectives, lifestyles and personality traits. The guerrilla is a free man. It is necessary to never let one’s feelings or thoughts be lost to the dominant systems, and to reveal what belongs to one’s own nature and meaning. With these aspects, our guerrilla struggle, which we have developed from a gyneological point of view, is a struggle that tries to spread feminine values to all cells of society.
Our guerrilla forces, based on the jineological perspective, also develop a lifestyle based on ecological principles in harmony with nature. The Kurdistan freedom guerrilla, which we can also define as an eco guerrilla, has an ecological sensitivity to avoid being hurt by an ant as well as witnessing the cracking and sprouting of a seed. Again, while making his own undertaking areas, he avoids harming the nature and determines the undertaking areas, and processes the geography of Kurdistan with underground tunnels like a miniaturist’s delicacy. It has a heart-breaking delicacy for the trees cut down in Akbelen and for the forests burned in Cûdî, Gabar and Dersim. The Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla has opened a new page in the guerrilla doctrine with its ecological perspective based on the science of Jineology, its feminine character and its quantum methods.
NO ONE IS POSSIBLE TO STOP OUR GUERILLA ARMY
With all these aspects, the August 15 Initiative is not only a milestone for the free Kurdish identity, but also a departure day for the identity of a free person and a free woman. Every exit of freedom develops as a product of a historical social need. If this exit has left its mark on the heart, brain and life needs of the society, not only with its ideological dimension, but also with its organizational, operational, philosophical and moral aspects, it means that it has found its own way as a magnificent march. Our guerrilla march, which officially started on August 15, 1984, continues its glorious march depending on this dialectic of freedom. It was an act of great courage to tackle a problem such as the Kurdish question, where all problems have become intricate, almost all sovereign powers are involved, and an unprecedented policy of ignorance is in effect. And the Leadership is dealing with this problem, He developed a great people’s war by showing the great courage to solve it. It is necessary to add the disbelief and the impossible logic of the oppression and persecution of the Kurdish people in line with the policy of denial and destruction for years.
To dare guerrilla struggle in Kurdistan means to fight on a wide spectrum. The free, independent and stubborn character of the leadership and mentality of the newly developing movement had turned into the character of struggle. The leadership’s organizing power and the strong friendship bonds it developed failed the orientations. The decision in the guerrilla march was the determination of August 15, as a commitment to free people, holy friendship and free life. The historical reasons for guerrillaization in Kurdistan, combined with the current ones, created a milestone. It is very important to be able to see this essence in the beginning. Every developing phenomenon is also affected by external factors added later, but it is mainly under the influence of its core character.
From the very beginning of our guerrilla struggle, the courage to freedom against sovereignty, the ideological struggle and the stubbornness to create its organization has been intense. This character of our freedom struggle continues today by developing, strengthening and deepening. Otherwise, the struggle cannot be successful. Today, thousands of guerrillas are fighting under the command of Egîd friends. The spirit of August 15 and the style of your friend Egîd are at their peak in Zap. This spirit has become the enemy’s nightmare. The self-sacrificing resistance of friends Rêdûr and Ardem in Garzan cannot be dealt with independently of this spirit. The attitude of Destan Friend in Nisêbîn cannot be evaluated apart from the Zîlan style. Our guerrilla forces are marching to victory on the lines of Egîd and Zîlan today. As we leave behind the 39th year of August 15 and enter its 40th year, the guerrilla is narrowing the Zap Valley to the enemy, does not allow the invader to pass. The West Zap Valley is becoming a graveyard for fascism.
In fact, 2023 has been a year in which the peak expression of the spirit of August 15 was experienced in every inch of Kurdistan’s land. From Dersim to Botan, from Serhad to Garzan, from Amed to Zap, this invincible spirit and will of steel spread in waves. When we first started this struggle, we had nothing but our truths that we believed in. But today, we have 40 years of struggle experience, thousands of martyrs, a guerrilla army fighting on the basis of the democratic nation paradigm and democratic modernity guerrilla principles. No one will be able to stop this guerrilla army. Victory will be for the guerrilla fighting on the Egîd line.”
