Duran Kalkan
At the center of the democratic society and the democratic nation stands the free human being.
Unless the free individual grounds themselves in society and develops within it, neither a democratic society nor a democratic nation can be built. Even existing achievements cannot be sustained. Therefore, the free person who bases themselves on democratic society can only emerge through free thought, a free spirit, and free feelings. Otherwise, a person who has not attained free thought cannot be a free person, nor can they act freely. We define the realization of this as the revolution of personality and the revolution of conscience.
Leader Apo’s search, whose center lay in military and political solutions, led him to the idea of a revolution of personality and a revolution of mentality and conscience. The Leadership places its greatest effort at this point and evaluates it as the greatest revolution. Today, the revolution of mentality and conscience constitutes the essence of the PKK revolution. At the same time, it is the only way to make the gains of the revolution permanent and to protect them. You may also have noticed the conclusion that emerges here: in the face of the system of cultural genocide, we need not only education but also the realization of a revolution in mentality and personality. Education, in its essence, is not about making ordinary changes, nor is it about producing reformist changes and results. In reality, education is the realization of a revolution of personality and a revolution of mentality and conscience. It requires a determined and resolute struggle. Revolutionary transformations require realization at the level of mentality and conscience—that is, throughout the entirety of the personality. This is what education expresses.
Of course, we cannot treat education as an absolute concept either. Its function changes according to the aims of every force and every society. It expresses the realization of a particular goal and takes different forms according to different objectives. Every education does not produce the same purpose, nor is education carried out for only one purpose. It changes according to the aim of those who undertake it.
Education expresses the transformation of those feelings, thoughts, approaches, and aspects of the spirit that are not in harmony with our goals. It expresses change and correction in accordance with our essence, our existence, and our objectives. It means moving from feelings, thoughts, and approaches that are contrary to our truth toward feelings, thoughts, and approaches that are in harmony with it. In this sense, it is the realization of a revolution of personality. The further we have moved away from our truth, the broader the ground upon which education must operate and the greater the change that must be brought about in our personality. Sometimes, according to this condition, only very limited changes occur. But if our distance from our truth is very great, if the gap between ourselves and our reality has become enormous, then what must we do? In that case, revolutionary transformations become necessary; a revolution of personality becomes necessary; a revolution of mentality and conscience becomes necessary. The situation we are living in demands this, because we are under the pressures of social genocide and national genocide. Our personalities have been shaped under this reality.
For this reason, the Leadership describes our personality as a “wounded personality.” In other words, a personality that has become alienated from and severed from its own truth. Such a personality is even worse than slavery, because even slaves possess a personality. Remaining in such a condition is worse than slavery itself.
Before capitalism, slaves still had a personality and a social status. They worked under pressure, yet when they found an opportunity, they raised their heads. They were not in that situation by their own will; they performed that labor under force and coercion. The slavery that developed through social genocide and national genocide, however, proceeds through willingness and consent. Here, pressure has been internalized. Through assimilation and intellectual annihilation, the person has accepted and become reconciled to their separation from their own truth. This is not ordinary slavery; here slavery has been accepted within the person themselves. People still act and work according to the dictates of others, yet this no longer occurs through crude force and direct coercion but through mental and emotional annihilation. The new slave has reached this stage.
Without a doubt, this slavery differs from the slavery of the past. The slavery produced by social genocide and national genocide is lived in a more condensed, internalized, and advanced form than the old slavery. Therefore, the struggle against it cannot be an ordinary struggle. We cannot approach this struggle in a one-dimensional manner. Only profound and lasting transformations, together with a decisive struggle, can change this condition. These are revolutionary transformations. What we define as the revolution of personality and the revolution of mentality and conscience is precisely this.
Education in the PKK Is in Itself a Revolutionary Activity
Within our movement, education is itself a revolutionary activity and requires revolutionary transformation. Therefore, we must approach the reality of education in this way. We must not treat education narrowly or superficially. We must not say, “If it happens, good; if it does not happen, that is also fine.” Without education, nothing can exist. We must approach it in a comprehensive, profound, and decisive manner as a revolution of personality. If we wish to free ourselves from slavery and become free personalities, there is no path other than realizing a revolution of personality. Otherwise, the slave personality and the free personality cannot be reconciled. Yet we often live precisely such a condition. Instead of approaching education as change—and as permanent, revolutionary change—we develop ourselves a little, polish ourselves a little, and consider that sufficient. We say: “Let it not be as it was before, but it does not necessarily have to meet the requirements of a free personality either. Let it carry something from both sides; that is enough for us.”
This approach produces the middle-way personality, the dual personality, the middle-class personality. Such a personality seeks to live both the existing system and the revolution at the same time and carries the characteristics of both within itself. It cannot be this way, and such an education is not sufficient. Then what is correct and sufficient? It is decisive change and transformation. It is taking definite and revolutionary transformation as the foundation. It is bringing into existence the free-democratic-patriotic personality in opposition to the personality produced by social genocide. It is filling oneself with the spirit, feelings, thoughts, and approaches of this personality; attaining its consciousness; accepting it and internalizing it. Without doubt, consciousness, acceptance, and willpower are necessary in order to reach such a personality.
In the system of cultural genocide, reality is distorted to such an extent that people can no longer distinguish what is liberating from what serves slavery; indeed, slavery is often presented and perceived as freedom. This is, in fact, the greatest deception of capitalism and liberalism. They present ways of learning and patterns of behavior that embody the deepest forms of slavery as though they were freedom. They turn everything upside down. Under conditions of cultural genocide, this situation becomes even more dangerous. If the attacks of the cultural genocide system against the free individual and their society are this comprehensive and profound, then the struggle against it and the effort to educate oneself must be equally comprehensive, profound, and revolutionary. What we define as the revolution of personality must itself be total and deep; otherwise, the struggle against this system cannot succeed in any other way.
If we accomplish this, we can build an alternative personality, society, and system. Otherwise, our efforts will remain incomplete, and we will become merely a tail of the existing system. That serves no purpose. Therefore, first of all, we must see the truth behind all deception. We must clearly distinguish freedom from slavery. In this regard, we must overcome all misleading words and deceptive approaches. Secondly, we must accept what is true and liberating. After all, believing in something means living with it and accepting it.
Capitalism creates a perception in which, even when you see its reality, you end up believing in it against your own will. It polishes and decorates itself, attempts to appear attractive, and seeks to impose its acceptance. From this perspective, accepting what is social and liberatory is important. Yet acceptance alone is not enough; it must be internalized. On the basis of principles and standards, a system of thought and life, as well as an organizational personality, must be built. There is a need to realize the revolution of personality and to demonstrate it in practice. In this regard, internalization and heartfelt acceptance are of great importance. Sometimes half-measures emerge. Without a deep and lasting transformation, a condition appears in which slavery and freedom are lived simultaneously, with these two contradictory realities existing side by side. Unless a revolutionary and lasting transformation is experienced, and unless heartfelt acceptance develops, a liberatory personality and stance cannot emerge.
Thus, education means seeing truth, beauty, and newness. At the same time, it signifies a struggle within one’s spirit, emotions, thoughts, and approaches against everything that systems of power and the state, the system of cultural genocide, and the system of capitalist modernity have imposed upon us. This is the first condition. The second condition is this: on the foundations of social freedom and democracy, and through the principles of communality and equality belonging to the ethical and political society, a new personality must be created. Personality must be rebuilt and reconstituted on the basis of these qualities.
Neither democratic society nor the democratic nation can be built except through the free personality. Only the free personality can build the democratic nation. Therefore, the construction of the democratic nation and democratic society cannot be realized without being grounded in the free personality. If the essence of revolution is the construction of the democratic nation and democratic society, then we must understand that at the heart of this process also lies the construction of the free personality. The creation of a free personality liberated from every form of slavery occupies a central place in the construction of democratic society and the democratic nation. Without the realization of a revolution of personality, the revolution of democratic society and the democratic nation cannot be achieved. All of these processes are possible only within and through one another. They are neither distant from nor disconnected from each other.
Education, in its broadest sense, means bringing oneself to the level of action and becoming capable of carrying out work. We may also define party education as preparing oneself for the tasks and activities of the party. We evaluate education as the preparation of oneself—in terms of feelings, thoughts, and accumulated knowledge—for party work and for the construction of the free personality.
The value and significance of education become clear precisely at these points. It has no other meaning. Therefore, there exists a decisive connection between education, carrying out tasks, work itself, and practical application. Education is not separate from practice and work. If we consider education in a general sense, it is the learning of life. The education of a child, for example, expresses exactly this. From this perspective, one may understand education as learning life and work, creating oneself and one’s life, and preparing oneself for activity. It is the development and accumulation of feelings and thoughts. This is how we can define it.
Within our movement as well, education signifies attaining consciousness of the party personality. It means taking the freedom and liberation of the people as a fundamental task. In order to successfully fulfill these tasks and to attain the emotional and intellectual strength required for them, education involves work, research, and the attainment of theoretical accumulation. It also involves conveying the intellectual accumulation that has emerged to one’s surroundings, making efforts in this direction, and realizing these ideas through acquiring the art of speech, rhetoric, and propaganda. It means bringing forth the power of language, uniting with the people, educating them, organizing them, and assigning them responsibilities. It means organization, guidance, and coordination.
At the same time, all of these are objectives of our education. To realize them, there is a need for self-education, organization, and the acquisition of the capacity to lead and manage. Therefore, it is necessary to follow tasks closely, plan work and responsibilities, establish a balance between the work and the person who will carry it out, assign people to duties, and monitor their fulfillment. All these aspects are interconnected components of education.
We must understand that the Leadership continually educates itself. At the beginning, it was not at a level where it could carry out every task, nor was it prepared to do so. As new tasks emerged on the agenda and as it committed itself to each stage of the struggle, the Leadership educated itself according to the needs of those tasks. Since the party and its activities are continuous, party education must also be continuous. If life and work continue at all times, then education must likewise continue at all times. Education contains a moral, motivational, and emotional dimension; it contains a dimension of thought, mentality, and insight; and it contains a dimension concerned with practical achievements and accumulated experience. These dimensions are referred to as moral education, ideological education, military and technical education, or professional education. When education enters the realm of practice, it differentiates according to fields of work and areas of activity in terms of preparing people. If it develops mastery, we call it professional education. If it prepares people intellectually, we call it theoretical and ideological education. If it prepares people morally and emotionally, we call it moral education.
The essential point here is to understand the decisive relationship between education, life, and work. Life and work are possible through education. In order to develop successful activities and live a correct life, we must educate ourselves accordingly. If we do not prepare and educate ourselves on this basis, successful and correct practice cannot emerge in life. To the extent that we educate ourselves for our tasks, we live life correctly, and our practice becomes successful. Those who enter a stage of struggle without education will break down and will not be able to stand on their own feet. This is how lack of preparation and lack of meaning appear, and this is what educationlessness signifies. Educationlessness means failing to prepare oneself for the work at hand. In such a condition, no one can successfully carry out their work or fulfill their responsibilities. To the extent that we have educated and prepared ourselves, we are able to carry forward our tasks and activities.
Since the party itself represents the creation of a new life and an alternative way of living according to its own principles, and since every activity requires this, it always signifies the education of the self. Likewise, we know that the reality of the Leadership is the reality of continually educating itself—a school with its own distinctive characteristics. The Leadership develops everything on the basis of education; this is decisive and beyond dispute. We must attain awareness of the fact that wherever there is education, there is correct life and successful practice. This is important. We must understand that without education we can do nothing in the name of life and struggle. In this regard, the Leadership has said: “Without the party’s leadership in Kurdistan, not even a leaf moves.” Party leadership means preparing oneself for work. It means preparing oneself according to the tasks of the people, the tasks of the revolution, and the tasks of national and democratic struggle. Party leadership expresses precisely this.
Therefore, without education we can accomplish nothing. In Kurdistan, we can do nothing in the name of freedom and struggle. When we educate ourselves, however, we become capable of these things; we can make ourselves effective, succeed in practice, and create practical and life-based accumulations of experience. Yet under present conditions, a rupture from these realities is being experienced. The system of cultural genocide, the colonialist system, and the collaborators who have surrendered themselves to it have severed society emotionally from these truths. Therefore, there is a need for new feelings, a new spirit, and new moral strength. Without these elements of life, we can neither educate ourselves nor carry out meaningful work.
On the other hand, we need strong intellectual education and the power of comprehension and insight. For we claim that we will struggle against the existing system. How will we do this? We do not possess ready-made data or accumulated resources. We must see and create them ourselves. This, too, can only be achieved through self-education. Education alone can make it possible. To the extent that you transform your insight, enrich yourself, and nourish your consciousness; to the extent that you convince yourself regarding the work and the fulfillment of tasks, you will be able to act. Without intellectual unity and conviction, no work can be accomplished. Even today we experience the difficulties arising from this. Sometimes we say that people act according to themselves; no matter how many duties and responsibilities are given to them, they act according to their own level of consciousness. How can a person accomplish something they do not understand? Therefore, this is natural.
Comrade Mazlum once said to the Leadership: “We already know these things, so why do you write them?” The Leadership replied: “We write the things we know; how could we write the things we do not know?” Human beings realize what they know, understand, and are convinced of. Otherwise, the necessary tasks will not be fulfilled. Orders and instructions cannot replace genuine conviction and need.
Let us look at the results that have emerged in our own practice. In Kurdistan, people accomplish things to the extent that they are convinced, accept them, and believe in them. Once they accept something, they place death before their eyes and still carry it through. They are intelligent and capable of carrying out successful work. Therefore, the claim that “people are physiologically backward and incapable of working” is false. Such claims are lies of the enemy, enemy thinking, and an insult to human beings. Yet we ourselves sometimes say, “We cannot work.” Why can we not work? Because we are not convinced, we do not understand, and we do not accept. For this reason, when work could not be carried out in practice and the correct methods were not being found, the Leadership would say: “Pass your faith before your eyes.” Not because some other deficiency existed. Rather, it meant: “Clearly, you have not fully convinced yourselves, you have not fully bound yourselves to the objective, and you are not connected to it with the level of devotion and love required.”
What we mean by ideological education is the creation of the power of conviction. On the basis of revolutionary work, revolutionary life, free life, and the beauty of social life, it means convincing one’s surroundings and giving them faith. What else should we understand by ideological education? Learning certain pieces of information is not ideological education, nor is it ideology itself. It merely signifies the acquisition of theoretical information. In its true essence, ideology is convincing oneself. It is believing in free life and in the reality of revolution; believing in the struggle for such a life. It is being convinced of its dignity and beauty and binding oneself to life through it. Nothing more. Therefore, consciousness is different from theoretical information. Learning theoretical information is one thing; acquiring consciousness is another.
Consciousness is connected to ideology. The other aspect is the education of approach and mastery. Education in approaches and mastery is necessary so that we can successfully apply our accumulated knowledge in practice, learn the methods, means, and styles of revolution, and make better use of the instruments of revolution. Propaganda is also necessary in order to develop the power of our language.
If the field is military, such education is necessary to use military and technical tools effectively. If the field concerns relations with the people, it is necessary to develop a proper discourse and style and to behave correctly toward the people. If the field is administration, it is necessary to learn how to assign people to the right tasks, as well as the methods, procedures, and techniques of leadership and management. All of this can be understood as part of education in mastery and technical development. It can also be described as the practical application of a person’s skills and accumulated experience, using them effectively in relation to work and developing methods that ensure success in a correct and influential manner. We may call this professional and technical education. Military training also belongs within this category.
Training in media and journalism, political education, organizational education, and propaganda education—all of these involve using skills and competencies effectively and employing the necessary methods and tools properly in order to accomplish tasks successfully. In this sense, they also constitute important forms of education for carrying forward party work.
We have said that the reality of the Leadership is a reality of education. Our movement is a movement of education. The history of our party, in essence, is a history of educational work and educational struggle. So how did this history develop? Through what stages did it pass? Through which methods and instruments did we educate ourselves? How did we bring ourselves to the level where we could live correctly and successfully carry out the tasks of the party, the people, and the revolution? In this regard, we must know this history from the very first emergence—which we define as the leadership breakthrough—up to the present day. Indeed, the history of our party is, in one respect, composed of these educational stages.
What emerges here and imposes its importance upon us is the following: no work develops without education, and at the beginning of everything we must prepare ourselves through education. In the end, we may define education as learning mastery and accumulating the experience of all forms of work.
How did this begin? The Leadership began with research, reading, and discussion. It educated itself through observation, gathering information, learning, understanding, reading, and analyzing these things. All of this was made the basis of cadre formation. There is such a dimension within the Leadership’s educational approach. In the Leadership, the essential thing is knowing oneself through knowledge and transforming that awareness into ideology. In this way it also becomes a force of conviction and faith.
From the very beginning, in order for people to work in the service of the revolution and the party, they had to be convinced of the correctness and dignity of this work and believe in it. First, consciousness of this had to be built. Thus the first educational efforts developed. The emergence of the PKK, its break from the system, and the creation of its own characteristics and standards took place in this way. How would a break from the system occur? How would an alternative life be created? These were the questions posed from the outset.
Breaking away from the life and activities of the system is a serious matter. There is a saying: “A person becomes like a fish taken out of water.” At first, people experienced exactly this. When a person breaks away from the standards and characteristics of the system, leaves its interior, and enters something else, they experience loneliness and separation.
The system also educates people in order to draw them into its service. It seeks to shape their emotions, spirit, thoughts, and every aspect of their approach according to itself and to integrate them into its own order. To become part of the PKK, to enter an alternative life and alternative work, requires breaking with and abandoning all of these characteristics of the system. Such a break is not achieved merely by coming to the mountains and joining the guerrilla ranks. Some people fall into this misunderstanding. On the contrary, breaking with the system was also possible within the system itself.
Indeed, this is how the PKK began—right in the center of the system, in Ankara, at the heart of its life. It broke away from it and decisively built an alternative life. The PKK is a movement of this kind. If, contrary to this reality, we claim that it simply fled from there to the mountains, preserved itself in that way, and thereby reached a new way of life, then we do not understand the history of the PKK correctly. Such an interpretation leads to false conclusions. In order to break from the system, it is not necessary to flee from cities, villages, and every sphere of life and come to the mountains. This is a major mistake.
To become part of the PKK requires successfully creating an alternative life within one’s personality. Therefore, it requires a decisive break from all aspects of the system’s life and activity. Without such a rupture, a person cannot become part of the PKK. From the very beginning, this is why such a stance toward life was adopted. It also requires continuously educating oneself according to what is new. If we are speaking of a definite break from the system, then the importance of education appears in two dimensions: first, developing a struggle against all old forms of knowledge, forgetting them, and condemning them; second, learning what is new and becoming conscious through it.
The more deeply a person has entered into the life of the system, the more difficult it becomes for them to develop within the party and enter the life of the PKK. Accordingly, they need greater self-education and a stronger internal struggle. In general, the influences of the system must be cast off and overcome. At the same time, the truths belonging to the reality of the Leadership and the Party must be placed in the space left by what is dismantled within oneself. This demands greater effort and struggle.
The more a person has fallen under the influence of capitalist modernity, the further they have moved away from becoming part of the PKK. In this respect, the PKK differs from actually existing socialism. What were the standards of actually existing socialism? They said: “The more a person develops within capitalism, the more the basis and foundation of socialism develops.” Practice demonstrated that this view was mistaken.
The opposite reality proved true. It is correct that the PKK also emerged in such an environment, but later it moved toward more accurate standards and a more correct line and established itself upon that line. For PKK education, it is not necessary that a person first pass through the education of the system. On the contrary, greater struggle is required with those who have undergone the system’s education, because they create greater difficulties for the party. The further a person has remained from the life and education of the system, the more open they are to PKK education. Our history and our concrete experiences have demonstrated this.
From the perspective of education, we have passed through many important stages. In the beginning, we were not at the level we are today. We were always a movement of education, but our approach, methods, and forms of education were not always the same. In different strategic periods, the content, aims, instruments, and methods of our education also differed. For example, during the ideological phase of our party, the aim of education was to acquire a new consciousness, become convinced of it, live according to it, and spread this consciousness to our surroundings through propaganda. The method was to develop theoretical and ideological education more extensively. There was more reading and research. We did this both collectively and individually. The Leadership carried it out in discussion circles, seminars, libraries, dormitories, schools, associations, and student houses. All of these spaces were utilized and given great importance in the education of cadres.
The primary forms of training were collective educational activities conducted in homes. In this way, life itself was divided into two parts: first, preparing oneself through education; and second, carrying out work and struggle, developing propaganda, and taking part in the daily struggles of youth and in other fields of struggle.
To be continued…