Kalkan spoke to Yeni Özgür Politika

ANF – Behdinan 31.10.2013 – KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Executive Council member Duran Kalkan spoke to Yeni Özgür Politika about the recent developments in Turkey and Kurdistan, including the warnings and criticism Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan put forward during his most recent meetings with the BDP (Peace and Democracy Paty) delegation and his brother, the Turkish state’s approach and the KCK’s role and responsibility in the democratic resolution process, the course of the ceasefire and the war the Turkish state wages in Rojava. Here some extracts:

Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan said during his recent meeting with his brother, Mehmet Öcalan, that the one-year process has ended as of 15 October. What does this message mean from your point of view?

This statement of leader Öcalan’s is a warning and a truth he wants the Kurdish movement, people and everyone to know. Behind these remarks lie also a concern and criticism. One can conclude from Apo’s (Öcalan) remarks that he finds the attitude and approach against the AKP government weak and inadequate. He is concerned that Kurds have so not understand that the AKP government has ended the process.

 During his recent meeting with the BDP delegation, Öcalan said he considered important the KCK declaration and said what needed to be done by Kurds now was not to expect the government to take steps but to put their own solution into practice. In its declaration, KCK said that “Should the Turkish state and government fail to change their present attitude towards the Kurdish issue and to do what is necessary for the solution of the problem, our movement will re-evaluate the state of affairs and take steps for building a free and democratic life with its own will and method in line with its theoretical line and paradigm”.

Which steps will be applied in practice in the coming term?

The truth needed to be known is that there are two aspects of Turkey’s democratization and the solution of the Kurdish question; The state should be made sensitive to democracy and be relieved of its chauvinist, nationalist, despotic, monist and fascist character. It should gain a new pluralist character that recognizes and accepts freedoms and democratic society and includes administrations grounded on democratic public organization. This means the state should accept the state + society reality which Apo has described as “democratic autonomy solution” which is based on the state and the democratic society or democratic nation sharing the power and administration in a certain balance and harmony.

The other aspect of democratization and the Kurdish question’s solution is the democratic public and nation organization. It means enabling Turkey’s society, women, youths, workers, officers, artists, intellectuals, Alevis, Sunnis and different religious groups and communities to get organized and administer themselves freely, with their own identity, it means their forming a national unity and alliance with other communities in line with the Democratic Confederalism project. To Kurds this also means getting organized and leading a life with their own identity, culture and language, i.e. the organization of the Kurdish democratic nation in eight dimensions which are the economic, judicial, social, political, cultural, ecological, diplomatic and self-defense aspects. The formation of democratic public organization in all these areas includes self-government basing on self organization.

In this respect, democratisation and the solution of the Kurdish issue do not mean the state and the government’s presenting some right to Kurds and other social circles. The statist mindset has brought along a perception which defends that only the state itself can grant or deny rights and freedoms.

It is a useless expectation to ask the government to provide with the things it has destroyed and made away with. This is something like asking for freedom from the executioner.  The state which very itself created despotism and a Kurdish issue cannot be expected to take steps for either democracy or the solution of the Kurdish question. This is why it makes no sense to ask the state to come up with a solution to these problems. As has been indicated by Öcalan as well, it is the oppressed circles of the society, women, youths, workers, that will achieve the democratisation of Turkey and the solution of the Kurdish question. The 70-80 percent of this process is relied on them, while the rest will be relying on the state. Leader Apo criticizes the weakness and ideational slavery of the society to the state and the surrender to statism. The building of the democratic nation and democratic society will be based on their organization with their own will.