On the ‘Democratic Civilisation’
A Critical Reading of Abdullah Ocalan’s Work
By Ismet Chériff Vanly
Editions ORIENT-REALITES, Genève
CONTENTS :
Introduction
a) Abdullah Ocalan , PKK , and Kurdistan National Congress
b) The National Congress cannot be a PKK’s façade for Ocalan’s ideas
1) A general presentation of Ocalan’s book
2) Criteria for criticism of the book
3) Why did Ocalan not join the guerrilla ?
4) A book written for the good understanding of Turkey
5) A federalist solution acceptable for the Kurds in Iran and Iraq
6) No autonomy,nothing but individual rights for the Kurds in Turkey:
7) Misunderstanding by Ocalan as to language and national issues in some countries
(USA –Spain-Belgium-Switzerland- USSR and Russia)
8) Ocalan, Kemalism and Kurdistan
9) A federation of Mideastern states ?
10) Undue hopes put in the European Union
11) Undue hopes put in the European Court of Human Rights
12) To offend Kurdish history and other political parties
13) Ocalan’s party : a democratic or pyramidal structure ?
14) On Ocalan’s strategy of legitimate self-defence
15) On PKK/KGK’s “national leader”, cult of Ocalan, and other topics
16) A Leader in a prophet cloth, in a mission for humanity good
17) The modern type of states : Multinational Democracies
18) About self-determination of the Kurdish people
19) Turkey’s Turks and Kurds are Eastern peoples, not European
20) The Kurds , a flock of sheep or an adult people ?
21) An unjust peace means injustice and subjection
22) A strategy of self-defence or an offensive strategy ?
23) Side remarks about Ocalan’s ‘neolithic society’
24) Conclusion ?
25) Appendice : Estimate of Kurdistan area and Kurdish population (in 2000)
On the ‘Democratic Civilisation’
A Critical Reading of Abdullah Ocalan’s Work
By Ismet Chériff Vanly
Lausanne , 30 March 2004
Introduction
a) Abdullah Ocalan , PKK , and Kurdistan National Congress
The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK after the Kurdish initials) was founded in May 1999 , in Amsterdam, in difficult circumstances , when Abdullah Ocalan , leader of PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), had been asked to leave Syria under Turkish menace , arrested and delivered over to Turkey, thanks to an international conspiracy . He had the possibility to join the guerrilla of his party fighting in Kurdistan (ARGK= People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan), but he preferred to seek refuge in Europe, that he did not obtain. Mr. Ocalan was elected Honorary President of KNK when he was already prisoner of the Turkish state , while I have had the honour to be elected its President , from the beginning until now.
We owe Abdullah Ocalan to have created the PKK and educated its members in the spirit of patriotism, discipline , and sacrifice ; to have transformed the leftist utopia of the Kurdish (and some Turkish) youth in Turkey , about an “international proletarian revolution” , into the liberation of Kurdistan, on one hand, and the democratisation of Turkey, on the other hand ; to have proclaimed the armed struggle for these aims against the racist and corrupt, military and political , establishment of this repressive and ultra-nationalistic Turkish Republic ; and to have associated the Kurdish woman, for the first time in an Islamic country, in this struggle. As a result of the armed struggle, from August 1984 to August 1999 , the Kurdish people in Turkey resisted better ethnic alienation and the state policy of forceful assimilation ; they recovered their national and human dignity , and partially their courage before the state terror, to demand some of their legitimate rights . All this is due to Abdullah Ocalan and his party , it makes an important part of the Kurdish current history , that cannot be forgotten.
Before the Turkish State Security Court , at Imrali , Mr. Ocalan reduced his national demands for the resolution of the Kurdish question to nothing, next to zero , asking for the transformation of Turkey into a ‘Democratic Republic’ where all Turkish citizens, Kurds included, should enjoy their individual freedoms. He was however condemned to a death penalty , on 29 June 1999, convicted of ‘terrorism’ and ‘treason’ by the Turkish Republic. That was an unfair and political trial, for him and the Kurdish people.
According to KNK’s Charter , the Kurdish people are one people , and Kurdistan, their homeland, is one homeland , in spite of its partition between four repressive nation-states in the aftermath of WW1, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria - without any prior consultation of the Kurds . The Charter proclaims the right of self-determination of the people of Kurdistan , including the non Kurdish elements, such as the Assyro-Chaldeans, Turkomans and others , who historically live in Kurdistan, consider it as their homeland and participate , with their Kurdish countrymen, in the struggle for national liberation . The Charter says KNK will be the paramount Kurdish organisation , grouping representatives of the four parts of divided Kurdistan and their political parties , will help these parties to attain their objectives by peaceful means, on the basis of the right of self-determination ; it also says KNK will represent the Kurdish nation and its interest on the international field .
KNK in fact has had difficulties , was far from being that paramount national congress, because of the different political situation prevailing in each part of Kurdistan and , whence, the divergent interest of the political parties struggling at home , with phases of tension or armed fighting between them. The election of brother Abdullah Ocalan as Honorary President of KNK was a political mistake , since it was perceived by the other Kurdish parties as if the Congress had sided with PKK against them.
Yet the KNK’s different organs ( Executive Council, Commissions , a Bureau for each part of Kurdistan, Offices in several Western capitals, a Consultative Assembly=Civata Herdemi in Kurdish), did their best according to the Charter. The proposals of these organs to the Executive Council of KNK often expressed wishes difficult to implement , the Congress being seated in Europe and far from representing all of the disunited and often quarrelling Kurdish parties at home.
As independent President of KNK belonging to no party, I have made over five years no distinction between the four parts of Kurdistan , or between the parties struggling at home. I criticised publicly the reduction of the Kurdish national demands in Turkey into the practice of individual freedoms within a ‘Democratic Republic’ , as this was presented by Abdullah Ocalan in his defence before the Turkish court. I did not follow the directives by brother Abdullah Ocalan to the PKK , but the principles enshrined in the KNK’s Charter. As a matter of fact, in all my activity in the name of KNK , my correspondence to the European institutions, the United Nations, and to national states , I promoted a democratic and federalist solution to the Kurdish question within each of the states dividing Kurdistan . For a later stage , when the Kurds will have obtained not only a theoretical recognition of their national identity, but a true federalist solution within these states , or at least an autonomy status in a geographical area , then the unification of the four parts of the Kurdish homeland into one federal state of Kurdistan , can be envisaged , while keeping at the same time the federalist ties between the Kurds and the neighbouring peoples . In other words, the ultimate objective in a farther future is to work for a federal or confederal union between the nations of the area , somehow as Europe is trying to do nowadays. This schema , a global perception of the future, has been mine over nearly five decades , and it is fully conform to the KNK’s aims. Federalism is one of the options furthered by the right of self-determination. I submitted the federalist solution to the consideration of the European Union, to the Turkish President Ahmed Necdet Sezer, as well as to the Presidential Council of PKK , explaining that individual freedoms and the Copenhagen criteria , as important as they could be, are inadequate by themselves to constitute a solution to such an important issue as the Kurdish national question in Turkey. The European Copenhagen criteria, if really implemented in Turkey, could possibly be just a first step toward a real solution to the question.
I should add that my colleagues in KNK who are members or close partisans of PKK/KADEK did not try to contest my ideas as expressed in the name of KNK. On the contrary , they were helpful. The letters, memorandums , speeches , articles where I expressed the federalist solution as President of KNK, were published in the KNK’s magazines and circulated by its organs . I much appreciate this spirit of camaraderie.
The political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan have adopted the federalist solution since 1992 and, happily enough – not only for them, but for all the Kurds - , they enjoy esteem and respect in post-Saddam Iraq as well as on the international field .
b) The National Congress cannot be a PKK’s façade for Ocalan’s ideas
On the demand of its president, Mr. Abdullah Ocalan, PKK changed its name into KADEK (Kurdish initials for : Congress For Liberty and Democracy in Kurdistan) , at its 8th congress , held in the Qandil mountain , in April 2002 . The Qandil mountain , close to the Iranian border , with tens of inhabited villages, was unfortunately seized by force by the PKK over Jalal Talabani’s PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) . In the spring 2003 , Mr. Ocalan asked KADEK to change again, in order to espouse more clearly his concept for the solution of the Kurdish question , as he had lengthily explained it in a book on the Democratic Civilisation , written in jail, at Imrali, in the spring and summer 2001. We shall have below a reading of this work . The aim of this paper is a critical reading of Ocalan’s book .
On 7 August 2003 , the Qandil-based headquarters of KADEK issued a declaration in which it is said KADEK has decided to abandon Leninism and the hierarchical structure , and to work “to realise the Democratic Civilisation , according to the ideas of our President Abdullah Ocalan”. In the same declaration, a ‘primitive nationalism’ was said to characterise the KDP of Messud Barzani , and denounced . KADEK published several other documents , one rejecting the Turkish Repentance Law , which indeed meant surrender without conditions. In another document called ‘Roadmap’ , Turkey was invited to conclude a bilateral ceasefire with KADEK, instead of the unilateral one observed by the latter . Beside, KADEK hails ‘the new era’ beginning with the fall of Saddam’s regime thanks to the US-British military coalition . As it could be expected, Turkey did not care about these documents. Unfortunately , KADEK was on the Turkish list of “terrorism”, and on the American list as well.
On 29-08-2003 the Presidential Council of KADEK sent a letter to KNK , suggesting that both congresses dissolve themselves and unite together into one new congress. The proposal shows that the brothers at Qandil do not understand the nature and the aims of KNK. The Kurdistan National Congress cannot merge itself together with PKK/KADEK into one organisation without betraying its Charter . At that time a delegation from KNK was visiting Iraqi Kurdistan . When they met with the brothers at Qandil, they advised them to forget the proposal . That was our opinion in Brussels.
Yet KADEK had to comply more clearly with Abdullah Ocalan’s directives, to change again its name , to repeat what he says in the “Book” about a ‘scientific democracy’ , to obey orders . To fulfil this a congress was decided, which took place from 27-10-2003 to 2-11-2003 , at Qandil . It was the last congress of PKK under the name of KADEK, and the founding one of the People’s Congress of Kurdistan (KGK, for Kurdish initials) . To the political and military commanders of former PKK other persons were added, for a large part from the KNK’s Executive Council, to give birth to KGK . As a matter of fact , a delegation from KNK ‘s Executive Council was invited as a guest delegation, but once at Qandil , these guests accepted to melt with KADEK to constitute KGK . That was done without consulting me as the KNK’s President and without a prior consultation of the Council. As a result of this irregular operation , on the 16 members of the KNK’s Council, beside the President , nine are henceforth invested at the same time with responsibilities within KGK. They represent an arithmetic majority in the leading body of KNK .
KNK’s members can be either political parties or independent persons , but all are bound by its Charter . According to the Charter , the Kurdistan National Congress must be a nationwide organisation , distinct from - and above any political party . Its strategic aim tends to bring together the political forces quarrelling in Kurdistan , and not to be the follower of one of them , a window for Abdullah Ocalan’s ideas. I therefore cannot assume to remain the President of a national congress which was put in a position contrary to its Charter and thus lost the reason of its very existence . That was in substance what I told the KNK’s Executive Council of 29 November 2003 . I demanded that an Extraordinary General Assembly of KNK be convened to decide about the future of the Congress, according to its Charter. On the proposal of the Council, I accepted to postpone the discussion to its next meeting, which took place on 24-01-2004 . It was then decided to convene an Extraordinary General Assembly of KNK for May 2004 .. Because of technical reasons , this meeting was postponed for June 2004 . I prepared for this meeting a “General Report” on KNK’s activity over five years , as this was agreed upon by the Executive Council on 24-01-2004. It was also decided that I write my criticism about brother Abdullah Ocalan’s book for a Democratic Civilisation .
Beyond this internal problem about the nature and role of KNK , its relationship with Kurdish political parties , the real question is the future of the Kurdish national movement , and true democracy in the area. I do not agree with the ideas of brother Abdullah Ocalan , especially about the “solution” he wants to impose for the Kurdish question in Turkey . He says “Turkey is the common mother-homeland of the Kurds and the Turks” , while Kurdistan is the common mother-homeland of all the Kurds . He rejects any solution based on federalism and the right of self-determination for the 22 million or so Kurds in Turkey ; he is against a simple geographical autonomy , any status liable to preserve the Kurds in Turkey from assimilation, to keep their language and their cultural heritage , to assure them a future as a non-Turkish nation . He ignores or misunderstands so many examples in the world of modern multinational democracies, where two or more nations can coexist and prosper side by side , for the benefit of each and the whole .
Whence the following critical reading , an appraisal , of his work. This appraisal is written for the knowledge of all , the colleagues members of KNK , the partisans of Mr. Ocalan , the public opinion in Kurdistan , the Kurdish people and their friends . The partisans of Abdullah Ocalan within KNK have been my brothers and sisters , my colleagues over five years . The PKK guerrilla in the mountains are my brothers and sisters ; I have for them high esteem , and much concern for their future . My guide in the following critical reading of Mr. Ocalan’s work is the higher interest of the Kurdish people, true democracy in the area and, if possible , peace and union , with real collective equality , between the Kurdish nation and the neighbouring nations. The following should therefore be understood as a democratic debate between men and women who may have different opinions , but believe in common basic values, and are doomed to have a common national future .
1) - A general presentation of Ocalan’s book
A critical reading of a work does not mean to be against, but rather appraisal, positive or negative. It is supposed to be neutral , if not objective . It can hardly be objective , it is necessarily subjective , but it should be fair , honest on the intellectual ground .
Let me begin by presenting some positive aspects . Abdullah Ocalan is one of the rare intellectuals among the leaders of Kurdish political parties . He has an extensive background of Turkish and oriental culture . He should have read a lot of Turkish authors, and Turkish translation from foreign works written in Western languages . He is a clever man , a subtle spirit , and has an intimate knowledge of the Kurdish mentality, that he would use for political purpose . He does not have a high opinion of the “ignorant” Kurdish people “who would kill each other for a hen” ; he assumes the role of a severe educator to redress the Kurds , that of a rigid father who would not tolerate any deviation in the family from the rules he himself has decided or in which he believes . He wants them to be better, and modern. He might have himself some departure from those rules , given the personal upper rank where he established himself and which is recognised by his followers . He is perhaps the sole Kurdish party leader worrying about the fate of all of the Kurds, as inhabited by a mission for the search of a global solution to the question, but how, and for what a future, that is another matter , we shall see it . He would seem to have a propensity for mysticism , but he has a too pragmatic and materialist spirit to be a mystic. Knowing the traditional pious spirit of the simple Kurdish masses, the veneration they have for holy men , he does compare himself , with a subtle art of wording , with Abraham, Jesus , Muhammad and other prophets , so that he may appear in the position of a man invested with a somehow supernatural , a divine mission to save the people from oppression. The good people cannot fail to be impressed. He knows how to say things with a calculated nicety. I know even a few educated Kurds who did the same comparison between him and prophets, and would take him for a saviour. I do not know if they have changed opinion since . The average Kurd cannot fail to fell in admiration before a leader endowed with such a ‘science’ of history and such a ‘metaphysical’ power.
Abdullah Ocalan is indeed fond of history , but he is not a historian (and does not pretend it) ; he ignores any methodology in the matter and his work is void of reference . It is a personal perception of the past . The book is wearisome to read and difficult, if not impossible, to present because of repetitions, constant comings and goings between the Kurds of today , his personal case, his imprisonment at Imrali , and the most ancient times – prehistory, including a neolithic society present everywhere, to which we do owe the beginning of the agricultural technology , that he identifies with the ancient Kurds and makes poetically an ideal for peace and harmony, beyond what is established by science .
Mr. Ocalan’s understanding of history is based on the ideas of Karl Marx and Engels. He denounces what he calls “the established socialism” , meaning the USSR , but remains prisoner of the Marxist thought about dialectic and historic materialism, and the struggle between social classes. However , he presents this work and the solutions he advocates for the Kurdish question as the sole “scientific” (all what was written before him being good to be thrown away) , somehow as Marxism was said to be “the scientific socialism”. The aim is a “scientific democracy”, based on individual human rights , not only for the Kurds, Turkey and the Middle East , but for all humanity. Is he dreaming in his cell at Imrali ? This is dramatic .
Mr. Ocalan wrote this work in Turkish , at the prison of Imrali , from 11 April 2001 to 28 August 2001. It was published in Turkish and a few other languages, thanks to PKK . I have the Arabic edition, entitled – as the other editions - ‘From the Clerical State of Sumer to the Democratic Civilisation’ . It is in two volumes making together nine successive chapters , as follow : Volume I contains : a preface, chap. I (on The Slavery Society and the Evolution of Civilisation) ; chap. 2 (on The Time of the Feudal Society) ; chap. 3 (on The Time of the Capitalist Society) ; chap. 4 (on The Place ,the Time and the Ideological Identity of the New Civilisation) ; chap. 5 (Can the Cultural Heritage of the Middle East be a Component of the New Civilisation ?). Volume 2 contains : a preface ; chap. 6 (The Kurdish Question in the Middle East and the Possible Ways for its Resolution) ; chap. 7 (about the international conspiracy against Mr. Ocalan and the PKK which led to his abduction) ; chap. 8 (Can the European Law System Find a Way to Resolve the Kurdish Question ?) ; chap. 9 (The Identity of Apo : an autobiography) ; a Conclusion 1 and a Conclusion 2.
Volume I of the Arabic edition is 493 pages, and volume 2 , 387 pages. I read the preface of volume 1 and practically all of the second volume . Between the two , and in each volume, there is plenty of repetition. We find in the Arabic edition grammatical mistakes (this is not important) , and a few sentences are rather ambivalent as to the meaning.
The defence by Abdullah Ocalan before the Turkish State Security Court, which, sitting exceptionally at the Imrali island (in the sea of Marmara , not far from Istanbul) , condemned him to a death sentence, on 29 June 1999, was also published thanks to PKK , in Turkish, and in some other languages, under the title ‘Declaration on the Democratic Solution of the Kurdish Question’ . I read its introduction, in the English edition, and hardly leafed through the rest. Many of the themes are common to both publications, there is again some repetition.
For the trial of the illustrious prisoner of the Turkish Republic, the Imrali island was evacuated of its inhabitants, who were replaced by an army of guardians to watch and keep him . He is the sole prisoner in the island, but was given a tiny cell to live, no doubt stuffed with hidden cameras and microphones to spy him. The maritime air of Imrali is harmful to his health ; he suffers from respiration problems , and probably more from loneliness, moral but not physical cruelty. The only link between him and the outside world is through his lawyers , whose visits are limited by the state.
Mr. Ocalan was apparently not satisfied with his own defence before the Turkish Court at Imrali . His European lawyers lodged an appeal against the sentence passed by the latter Court at the European Court of Human Rights . The case Ocalan v. Turkey is still pending before the Court at Strasbourg. Mr. Ocalan also lodged complaint at Strasbourg against Italy, Russia and Greece for not having granted him asylum , or for having betrayed him and let him be captured . The Italian Appeal Court said Italy was wrong in not granting him asylum, but that was said when Mr. Ocalan had been kidnapped . It was too late .
It is curious that Abdullah Ocalan wrote his work on the Democratic Civilisation as his defence to be presented by his lawyers to the European Court of Human Right. He says in chapter 6 of the book , under subtitle 4 entitled “The PKK, its birth, its evolution and future” , that he wrote the book as his “defence before the European Court of Human Rights”, and that volume 2 of the work, beside a general presentation of the Kurdish question, includes a “scientific and juridical analysis” of his own case . Does he really think the European judges have the time to read about 900 pages making a muddle of prehistoric and historic times , of themes pertaining to the Kurdish, Turkish and Mid-Eastern societies , a mixture of the case of the Kurdish people and his own , all having nothing to do with the competence or the procedure of the European Court ? He obviously wrote this work for the knowledge of the Turkish state , as a better and more developed defence than that he had presented before the Turkish Court at Imrali , and to convince the Kurdish people in Turkey that there cannot be a solution to their national question other than his own , which is not a solution , but basically an acceptance , with an epidermic “make up” , of the present Turkish state order , as we are going to see under the following subtitles .
2) Criteria for criticism of the book
Owing to the large number of recurrent themes constantly repeated in Ocalan’s work in different ways , not without contradiction in his own ideas , we have to make a choice – not necessarily by order of importance - among those which are the most liable to produce confusion in the mind of the Kurdish people and are thus open to criticism in my opinion. The general presentation above of the book gives already a key about it . Yet by his repetitions, his contradictions, his constant comings and goings across ages , and his art of wording , Abdullah Ocalan puts his reader in the fog . Nothing is clear and limpid . All is ambiguous . One idea is however clear and constant : the solution to the Kurdish question is to be found through the rights of individuals , according to his Democratic Civilisation , his Scientific Democracy , and under his guidance, with his followers . For him , all the other Kurdish political parties are either feudal and tribal , or bourgeois , adept of a primitive nationalism , and agent of foreign or regional powers.
Let me repeat that my criticism changes nothing as to the historical role performed in my opinion by Abdullah Ocalan in creating, educating and commanding the PKK, a struggle resulting in a rebirth of the Kurdish people in Turkey, for the liberation of Kurdistan , for democracy , for the rights of women, against fascism and racism in this Turkish republic pretending itself to be democratic. Abdullah Ocalan is no doubt an exceptional person to have achieved this . He changed after his arrest , when he had become prisoner of the Turkish state. He did not give up ; he should have consecrated a tremendous energy to write this work, suffering alone in his cell , but what for ? During the years of armed fighting , he was the enemy number one of racist Turkey, the hero of most of the Kurdish people in Turkey , a hero and a guide in the eyes of some idealist youth across Kurdistan . Since his abduction, he became a problem for Turkey, a problem for Europe, a problem and a burden for his party and ‘his people’ (he says sometimes “my people”).
This does not mean indifference , nor hostility toward Abdullah Ocalan and his fate. But the higher interest of the Kurdish people requires the criticism below . The future of a nation is more important than the case of a leader . My duty is to try to open the eyes of the Kurdish people , and why not possibly to make the Turks understand the mistake of their rulers ? I wish the Kurds could do something for the safety of Abdullah Ocalan , and if possible for his liberty. I wish success for his followers, in as much as this can be done on the basis of real – and not a verbal and void – democracy , in the interest of this nation .
I am obliged to translate from Arabic the themes below , chosen according to the criteria mentioned above, that is among those which I see most open to criticism . I shall do it the most faithfully to Mr. Ocalan’s ideas, often by literal quotations , and as concisely as it may be possible, owing to time and space limitation. For reference , owing to the variety of editions , I would give the numeration of chapters, titles or perhaps subtitles. The themes presented will be appraised and commented one by one .
3) Why did Ocalan not join the guerrilla ?
This is not one of Mr. Ocalan’s themes , but a question . If he had joined the guerrilla when he was obliged to leave the comfortable space he was given amid the orchards surrounding Damascus , he would have spared himself the humiliation he was to know in Europe, the martyrdom of being the prisoner of the Turkish Republic, the desperate search of a “solution”, be it the most exceedingly “moderate”, consisting in fact of the negation of Kurdistan as the homeland of the Kurdish nation, just what the ultra-nationalistic Turkish establishment could possibly accept. He would have responded to the image of a hero and spared ‘his people’ sorrow and confusion . He would probably not have written this muddling book on the Democratic Civilisation , more than ambiguous, curiously presented as a defence before a court . Reportedly, Mr. Ocalan did not join the guerrilla because he thought he would be killed , not in action , but by some infiltrated agent of Turkey . That was reported to me by a Kurdish intellectual who had put him the question when he was free to stay in Syria . This is reported for consideration, with no further comment than what is an evidence : Mr Ocalan had placed himself above the guerrilla, that is above the people. In a way, he still places himself at the summit of the hierarchical structure of the Kurdish society, denounced by himself.
4) A book written for the good understanding of Turkey
The themes the most open to criticism in Ocalan’s work are those in which he ignores completely the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people , dismisses any solution based on federalism or autonomy , which require by definition the recognition of a Kurdish-inhabited geographical area . All these themes are meant to the good understanding of the sole Turkish government. All the book was written for this purpose. He does not make a mystery of the purpose, but says it . The paragraphs concerning Kurdish “history” or “society” , repeated everywhere in the book , often mixing together prehistory and the present time , can be considered as pertaining to all the Kurdish people . But Abdullah Ocalan does not dismiss a federalist solution for the Kurds in Iran and Iraq , on the contrary , this solution is for him acceptable, sometimes under peculiar and strange conditions, as we shall see . Any solution on the basis of federalism or autonomy , any special status , is excluded for the sole Kurds of Turkey, who represent a little bit more than one half of the Kurdish nation.
5) A federalist solution acceptable for the Kurds in Iran and Iraq
The attitude of Abdullah Ocalan , and consequently of his followers, toward the Kurdish political parties in the other parts of Kurdistan , is generally a condescending and rather contemptuous attitude , not exempt of jealousy toward the Iraqi Kurds . This is particularly true regarding the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) of Messud Barzani and the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) of Jalal Talabani .
This condescension may be explained by different reasons . Firsty , Turkish Kurdistan is the largest part of the Kurdish homeland , making alone a good half of the Kurdish nation as to the area and population . Turkish Kurdistan is somehow the elder brother , to whom precedence or preeminence is due . Secondly , the PKK , or its successor , formerly Marxist-Leninist , today adept of a “scientific democracy” , considers itself as a better leader , a more advanced vanguard , for the solution of the Kurdish question , than KDP , PUK , or any other party , all said to be feudal, tribal , or adept of primitive nationalism . Thirdly , Barzani or Talabany could perhaps represent a challenge for Ocalan’s leadership , knowing especially the fact that they enjoy consideration on the international field , while, unhappily , he is considered as a “terrorist” . Fourthly , all things being balanced , Turkish Kurdistan is , unfortunately , more seriously hit in its identity than the other parts of the Kurdish homeland . About 40 % of the Kurdish people in Turkey live outside Turkish Kurdistan, if not more, because of the Turkish state policy , while the ratio is far much lower in Iraqi or Iranian Kurdistan – let alone the question of language , Kurdish being endangered only in Turkey.
In chapter 6 of the book (The Kurdish Question in the Middle East and the Possible Ways for its Resolution), constituted of five main subtitles , Abdullah Ocalan , in the fifth subtitle, “Toward the Resolution of the Kurdish question” , begins again with a kind of general introduction , long enough to be a mixture of historical times , social issues , and political ideas , then he consecrates a special paragraph for the resolution of the question in the four states dividing Kurdistan , Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. A six paragraph of the same subtitle concerns “the problem of unity of all the Kurds”.
About the Kurdish question in Iran : After reference to ancient Media and Persia , Ocalan remarks correctly that , contrary to the Turkish Republic , the Iranian state , according to a long tradition , has never practised a policy of denial as to the existence of different peoples and nationalities within its borders . Mr. Ocalan knows about the existence of an Iranian province (ostan in Persian) officially called Kurdistan . An ostan in the Iranian imperial tradition correspond to Land in Germany , or state in the USA, whence the name of countries such as Pak-istan , Afghan-istan , Kurd-.istan meaning the country (istan, ostan) of the Pak , the Afghans, or the Kurds . The ostans in the extensive Iran , with a kind of hierarchy between them , are few in number (22 in 1966) , but large in area.
The ostan of Kurdistan , or rather Kordestan , according to the Persian phonetic , with the city of Sanendaj as capital , was originally created by the Saljukid sultan Sinjar of Iran , in the 12th century . It was to be partitioned more than once across centuries , the last time under shah Riza Pahlavi , in the early 1920s . Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan, , as the geographically continued homeland of the Kurds in Iran , schematically corresponding to a large part of ancient Media , does not include the sole ostan presently called Kordestan , but four other , more exactly the following provinces geographically continued in the Zagros ridges , from north to south : Western-Azerbaijan , Kordestan, Kirmanshah , the northeastern half of Hamadan, Ilam , and a northern part of Luristan . Mr. Ocalan seems to confuse Iranian Kurdistan , as a linguistic entity and the homeland of the eastern Kurds , with the present ostan of Kordestan .
Ocalan blames late Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou , secretary-general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDPI) , murdered in Vienna by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on 13 July 1989 , not to have understood , according to him , the good tradition of Iran in matter of nationalities . He makes abstraction of the fact that Iran has constantly been opposed to any Kurdish autonomy and to the administrative unification of the five or so provinces inhabited by the Kurds in western Iran . He blames the KDPI to be adept of a primitive Kurdish nationalism . He finally suggests that Iran becomes a kind of an Islamist , yet democratic , and federal state , as a solution to the Kurdish question and some other national questions . This acceptance by Ocalan of the idea of a federal Iran means statehood and administrative unity for Iranian Kurdistan , as a federate entity within the framework of the federation . But could the Islamist Republic of Iran , a dogmatic theocracy, become a federal and democratic state , respectful of human rights ?
About the Kurdish question in Iraq : Mr. Ocalan says the KDP of late Mustafa Barzani was a “feudal” and “tribal” party, adept of a “primitive nationalism” . He adds that since the creation of PUK , in 1975 , by Jalal Talabani , as a separate party from KDP , and a challenge to it , “the Kurdish movement in Iraq has been more and more used as an instrument in the hands of foreigners….” .
Ocalan notes that “the Kurds in Iraq began , after 1990 , a period of federalism , under the protection of the USA” , but they were to be separated into two administrations , one governed by KDP, and the other by PUK , “under Turkish watch”. He blames both parties “to have been used , at that period , against the PKK, on the political, military, and diplomatic ground” .
Ocalan is not against a federalist solution to the Kurdish question in Iraqi Kurdistan , but he blames the two main Kurdish parties “not to have achieved the establishment of a true federate government, by democratic means, because of the selfish and materialist interests of their respective presidential house” .
Yet he suggests as an alternative , a possible “solution” consisting of “a democratic Iraq , together with the regime of Saddam Hussein” . That is indeed a curious , and astonishing
