Heval Emine: A symbol of the women’s revolution and the unity of peoples

Emine Erciyes was a member of the YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) and HPG Command Council (People’s Defense Forces), and of the YJA Star Central Headquarters Command, who fell in 2020 in the Medya Defense Zones. As a Turkmen woman, her struggle represents a powerful symbol of internationalism and friendship between peoples. Çiğdem Doğu, member of the KJK Executive Council (Kurdistan Women’s Union), spoke about her in a recent interview.

Şehîd Emine Erciyes

I remember my comrade, Heval Emine Erciyes, with love, respect, and gratitude. She was from Turkey. By joining the PKK, she lived and embodied the belief that the Turkish and Kurdish revolutions were, in fact, one and the same. In this sense, our answer to her memory must be to ensure the success of a united, democratic revolution of Turkey and Kurdistan. That is how I remember Heval Emine.

I first met her in 1996. Both her path and mine into the party were a little unusual. At that time, within the PKK there was a plan for comrades from Turkey to focus more on the Turkish revolution to build a new formation dedicated to that struggle. That was how the Revolutionary People’s Party of Turkey (DHB) was founded: a structure that brought together Turkish comrades who had gained experience within the PKK, shaped with the perspective and contribution of the Rêber Apo. In the early 1990s this organizational effort took shape under the name DHB. Heval Emine joined this formation, and so did I.

As the process unfolded, operations took place. Later, we moved out of Turkey and directly joined the organization. That was when I got to know Heval Emine in the summer of 1996. We were in the same training cycle: a significant group of comrades from Turkey and Kurdistan, learning together.

She Saw the Future in the Unity of the Kurdish and Turkish Peoples, and Found Her Path in the PKK

By character, she embodied both the democratic, ethical, and aesthetic values of women, as well as the communal spirit, social consciousness, and resistant streak of the Turkmen people. Even though she studied at Darüşşafaka, a school tied closely to the system, producing graduates with bright futures she was someone who could see her own future not in the system, but in the revolution and in the struggle of the peoples. She recognized her place not only in the Turkish people or the Turkmen people, but in the unity of the Kurdish and Turkish peoples and once she saw that path, she followed it wholeheartedly. That spirit is what brought her to the PKK.

At first, she joined through the Turkey-based formation. But over time, she carried forward the same essence in mindset, in ideology, in strategy of struggle and continued her path within the PKK movement itself.

Heval Emine was known in the Movement for her refinement. She was truly a thoughtful, artistic person in every sense of the word, a cultured woman, a cultured revolutionary. That was how we knew her from the very beginning, and she remained that way until the end.

She always kept her childlike spirit alive within herself, consciously refusing to let it fade or “grow up.” At the same time, she deepened it revolutionizing it, politicizing it, strengthening it with organizational experience, with the life of a guerrilla, with the discipline of self-defense. Yet through all this, she never lost the innocence, joy, and sensitivity of that child’s spirit.

It is truly hard to describe her. But she left deep marks on all of us; not only among the older comrades, but especially among the youth. That is why it is so difficult to put into words. She was, quite simply, different.

A Comrade Who Created Meaning in Every Relationship

Her ideological awareness, her curiosity, her constant search for meaning, her effort to understand herself as a woman…

She kept diaries. We would share them even while she was writing, exchanging notes, reading to one another sometimes. In those diaries, there was always a search: the effort of a woman to discover herself; what the Rêber Apo calls xwebûn, redefining her own existence, consciously recreating herself on the basis of struggle. In this sense, Heval Emine was someone who invested deeply in herself, but not only in herself. She also gave great value and effort to her comrades, creating meaning in every relationship she was part of.

Even now I think about her this way. She was a comrade I often reflected on while she was alive. There was always something in her; a joy, a kind of love. In her stance toward life, in the way she acted, in the way she carried out her work, in the way she spoke to a comrade, even in the way she greeted someone, there was always joy, always love. She had a special energy about her. And I believe that energy came directly from her search for truth and meaning.

She Could Act Freely; A Comrade Who Could Break Her Own Chains

Her way of giving meaning to life was not a scientific one, it was something different. For example, she was deeply interested in quantum physics, in trying to understand truth through quantum theory. But also through art, theater, music, dance…

As a revolutionary woman, she had a free personality in this regard. Where many of us might act more conservatively, she could act freely. To dance, to read poetry, to move without restraint on stage; that is truly another level. In this sense, Heval Emine was a comrade who could break her chains.

As I said, perhaps that artistic vein of hers met with her spirit of resistance and found a powerful harmony with the guerrilla reality that emerged in Kurdistan. I see it as very important to describe Heval Emine in this way. Because sometimes revolution and revolutionary life are understood only in rigid forms. Within the PKK, Heval Emine was a source of color in this sense. With her character as a woman, her artistic traits, her qualities as a guerrilla commander, as a member of the PAJK leadership, as a central command member, as a woman leader, she stood out by expressing her own identity, by becoming xwebûn. This is how I find it important to understand her.

And of course, she was also a comrade who must be understood together with her Turkmen identity. She carried within herself the uncorrupted, non-statist, communal, collective values of the Turkmen people. That spirit is what connected her to the PKK. Both by preserving the essence of womanhood and by embodying the resistant and communal side of the Turkmen people, she found her path to the PKK.

Her Bond with the Zagros Was Something Else

Her connection with the region was on the level of love. It wasn’t just ordinary work or simply being in a place; she gave it a profound meaning. Especially in the Zagros, her relationship with the mountains and with nature was extraordinary.

To describe it only as “ecological” would be too dry. The way she related to trees, flowers, animals; it was the same way she added meaning to human relationships, the same way she represented revolution with ethical and aesthetic values. Her bond with a tree, and especially with flowers, was striking.

She had a special love for narcissus flowers. The mountains of Kurdistan are beautiful everywhere, bringing people great joy. Heval Emine’s relationship with nature was like that too: she saw it as alive, spoke to it, gave her love to it and received love back from it.

There is much to say about Heval Emine. At her core she was a revolutionary woman, a comrade who lived out women’s communal essence at its highest level. To honor her memory, it is necessary to strengthen and socialize the women’s revolution.

At the same time, the answer to her memory must also be to approach the Turkish and Kurdish revolutions as a united, democratic revolution and to ensure its success. To serve both the women’s revolution and the unification of the Turkish and Kurdish revolutions that is the way to honor her.

Our promise to her will be on this basis. Personally, I give this meaning to my time with Heval Emine. But organizationally, we all owe her a debt. We will strive to be worthy of her.