Towards a free life

What kind of death I am against and what kind of life I reject?

Evaluation of Abdullah Öcalan made in the 1990s.

Great revolutions do not arise amongst the advanced civilisations. Those who do not have to fight for their position do not feel the need to make a revolution. As far as I remember, I know myself as a person who has difficulty liking himself. Even the people I represent - or try to represent - I could not and cannot accept as they are. When I remember my childhood, it is my rejective attitude that first comes to mind. This strong rejection does not only exist on an emotional level. It is rather a non-acceptance of the reasons and circumstances causing the deep downfall of a community. This fact shaped the development of my personality, first in my family and in the village, then in my later life. I still cannot accept this people and its population today: they have found themselves in a situation that is simply unacceptable. The result is something very repulsive, a severe lethargy, a severe defeat.

When I share my memories, things may become easier to understand. What a misfortune to come from this people. A misfortune too, to come from this village, from this family. I say this not to slander or devalue my own reality, but to disclose my background. Revolutionaries must be loyal to their own reality. How can anyone who has lost touch with one’s own reality be a revolutionary? Doesn’t one have to question this person’s humanity altogether? When I recognised my disastrous reality during my childhood, I asked myself typical questions: Can I save myself? Can I reject myself? Childish dreams… I then wished I had another family, I belonged to another nation. If only my parents were different! If only I had been born in another society!

I can remember that I often had such questions and thoughts. But at some point I realised that there was no escape, that there must be no escape. The only decisive thing was the basic fact… The dreams and wishes of being different were not allowed to play a big role. What can one do in this state of being helpless? In a people’s reality without sublime values, one is already in the joy of self-denial, already accepting the state of damnation, lagging behind the development of humankind… Life is anything other than worth living. This village seems paralysed, everything national, everything social has almost completely dissolved. And in this village, there is this family, which can only sustain itself economically with a lot of effort. How did I feel about this time of my childhood? What were the influences I reacted to?

There are not too many memories, but my first steps were those of rebellion.

I remember that I started looking for friendship very early on. Strangely enough, I always found only interest in a child with whose family my own was in an irreconcilable dispute. Our families raised us in such a way that we were prepared to continue this conflict later on, and to protect our family honour - which meant our destruction. I don’t know whether my pursuit in contacting with this child is a sign of intelligence or whether it derives from the need to defend myself. I had a simple desire to start a friendship with this child. Hasan became my friend, later he fell in a very unfortunate way as a martyr. This friendship with him was my first secret ‘organisation’, which I had to hide from my family. I remember that I was very happy to walk with my friend as soon as we left the village. But once my grandmother saw us and she shouted at my mother: “This child of yours will become one without honour!” Despite all that, I didn’t betray my friend. Even under the pressure of social norms, I continued and deepened this friendship, though in a different form.

I began to oppose one of the most important feudalist principles; I do not want to live according to the prescribed laws, not according to the rules of the father or mother - that is how I made my earliest revolutions.

When I took my first steps into the bourgeois society of this Kemalist republic, I had little self- confidence, no big goals. I felt the same helplessness, the loneliness of this society. But I also saw the need to start down the wrong path. Although I did not see any real opportunity for advancement, I forced myself to climb the social ladder step by step. In schools, I finished every year as the best. Until I graduated from university, I didn’t understand anything about this education, I didn’t accept anything - but I was always first. It must have been some kind of inner resistance. With the language of the system successfully overcoming the system - but in reality not believing in it, not wanting to know anything about it. That, too, is a way of fighting that I still use today. Some words I speak in a language that everyone understands, but I have my own understanding when it comes to life. I don’t think those words mean anything to me. I do not agree with the contents of that path and feel that it was an act of destruction against my own identity.

This is where the revolutionary begins to develop: to adapt when necessary, but never to betray one’s own spirit.

However we must not sell out thoughts and basic ideas, such things are necessary for the interests of one’s own people. In a state in which the individual could sell oneself to the system a hundred times a day, one does not do so for the sake of personal pride.

What can be concluded from this is that if the family of humankind regards you as non-existent, if you cannot raise your voice against all the injustice, and yet in this situation you do not sell your soul in order to protect human honour - if you are able to do that, you can set many things in motion. If there are to be accurate analyses about my person, this link could be a part of it. I am still in the situation of not being able to describe myself sufficiently, comprehensively enough…

It is very difficult not to fall in the face of this denial, the pressure, and to stay upright, to keep oneself on one’s feet, and not to lose oneself. A really great personality must understand how to go ahead without falling down. For others, the Kurdish person can be a strong bearer of burdens, a very good wife, a very good husband. For others, the Kurdish persons can be a very good soldier, a very good commander. For others, the Kurdish person can be a good worker and servant, even a good intellectual or a good craftsperson. But when it comes to one’s own identity, to one’s own liberation, the Kurdish person says: “I am not in.” That is the tragedy.

We say: “You can’t just live the way you think. We want to convince you of the basic principles of life.” This is our biggest fight. Of course, I determine the way, the pace, the approach, that is my freedom. My legitimation for this is everything I learned in the ‘Union of Humankind’. It gives me the certainty that the pressure I am putting on is absolutely necessary and, above all, very justified. In this respect, I can trust myself until the end. My observations have led me very quickly to results; therein, I have gained a great advantage.

Just as I have gained strength in the area of language, I have also gained strength in the area of action and involvement. Of course I had to learn – if I compare the present time with the time of my weakness – to use this strength correctly. A personality who, as a child, feels a great weakness towards all social values and develops into a position of strength can be assumed to be able to fulfil a leadership role. It is not so important if that is the case with me. I often think about what I am as a human being and what the issue of ‘leadership’ means. It’s true that I insist on being human. This can be based on the reality of the people or the reality of a person – ultimately choosing to be human.

When I first met someone who could be in a completely different position today, he told me: “I can remember you like a friend from my childhood.” I was surprised by his statement. Actually, with that he got the reality. He, who was alienated from himself by the political reality, saw in me only his childhood friend. With that, he said something essential about me. This man could see me as a modest, simple man. This is an important indication of a fundamental characteristic of leadership. At the same time, he saw in me a friend from his childhood. This also means that in a leadership position one must not deny or reject one’s distant, earliest childhood. Even more generalised: One must be in the possession of humankind oneself. Every person, regardless of nationality, gender, social and political level, must be able to see a part of their own self in you. I think every person who makes a similar assessment expects a little humanity from us. It pleases me very much that I can live up to this wish a little.

I am very impressed that there are still people who want to understand the other and who want to find something in the other – it gives me hope.

I am not interested in the material situation of our age. Nor does it fall within my field of interest - how strong a nation is, which name is strongest, how the economy is developing on a global scale. My interests are very valuable to those who have lost human values and are again searching for solutions to the problems of humanity. I feel proud of those who break free from highly developed social and material conditions and come here. In this step I see real humanity. The people, who leave their secure situation in the system, who do not value a life in which they could have fulfilled their material desires, are also important to me – initially regardless of which class they belong to. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many of them. More people support vulgar materialism than one might think. This vulgar materialism finds its expression in the weakness of one’s own nation, one’s own class, whether as oppressed or as oppressor, whether as exploiter or as exploited, but also in the weakness of one’s own family, in the weakness in relation to oneself. This is what is generally lived; but what they call human or humanity is exactly the opposite.

All friends and comrades who want to understand my dialectic of life must understand the following: what kind of death I am against and what kind of life I reject. When I ask: “What to do? How to live?”, then I have the whole world against me. This population itself and all comrades are against us. The difficult problem – that which I have to solve as a leader – lies exactly at this point. If humanity, or some of its representatives, had understood this intolerable life of this people and had taken action, I would not need to do anything. And if this people would recognise its own problems, its own suffering and not let itself be so humiliated, I would not have intervened so massively.

No doubt I’m not doing this for myself. I try to convey these feelings, for which we are fighting here, to the population and to other interested people. Will there also be people from other parts of the world who see themselves as friends, or who want to become our comrades? Our desire and our actions are themselves a solution. We will not make ordinary calls for friendship. You can’t win any good friends and comrades with that anyway. But if there are people who carry this desire in their hearts, they should know that we put our unlimited power and strength at their service. That can be a person or a people. This is not the place to call for support and solidarity with ‘requests’. That’s no sense of greatness either – if you want to be great, fight a great fight. Such people have existed in history, and I believe they will continue to exist in the future.

For me, it would be sufficient if one or two friends of each nation, of each people, were to be found who approach us in this way, but under the condition that they really want to wage a great struggle.

If they have this goal, they should analyse themselves a little and if possible develop their own actions. The name of my party, the name of my people is redundant here. Those who want to give something to humankind cannot think in terms of ‘I’. They cannot approve of these traits, of these characters. At this point, I’m trying very hard. These people are very much appreciated by us in this respect. If they understand us correctly in this respect and if they stand as friends and comrades within their own population, if they make themselves understandable and comprehensible to it, if this people learns from them to understand other peoples – then I firmly believe that I can also be for other peoples what I am for my own. At this point, I have great faith in myself. If we develop our future efforts after this evaluation, we can, even if delayed, develop a good example of friendship. Coming here is an important sign of friendship, it shows a link in the chain of friendship.

Abdullah Öcalan