It is not easy to attain the secret of a meaningful life. Walking and advancing on this path, and reaching fulfillment on this journey, requires great strength, courage, and heart.
Not everyone is made to take this road, for it is difficult, painful, and arduous. Daring to do so is the work of the brave. Once you decide to live and struggle for a meaningful life, however, the road is beautiful, heartfelt, and equally joyful—provided one knows how to look rightly. Jindar Ezgi Dersim was a seeker of meaning who attained life’s secrets in order to give meaning to her existence, identity, and struggle within the PKK, the sanctuary of meaningful life. She became a revolutionary and a comrade who tore through the veil of ordinariness, transformed herself from ordinary to extraordinary, and reached the truth of meaning. While seeking to give meaning to her existence, she endured much chaos in her mind and heart, questioned deeply, and fought fiercely, for attaining life’s secret is not easy. Aware of this truth, Heval Jindar wrote: “O magnificent life, O universe whose secrets we have not mastered, O our magnificent planet, the home of our lives, O humanity… Those who came, passed, and will come. You too experienced the pains within me; you experience them and will experience them. Knowledge creates weakness if it cannot find true meaning. Time brings torment if it is not felt with friendly emotions. If the moment is not enlarged, it becomes the grave of smallness. And method… I am still shaken by the pains of searching for myself. I am still trying to add meaning to my existence. I still feel the presence of dozens of chains I must break. O wisdom. My sage. The unseen part of life enchants me. I feel that I belong to them.” In every place and time, Jindar never abandoned her faith in and search for a meaningful life; believing in its beauty, she tried to perceive and live it.
As Jindar Ezgi Dersim tried to give meaning to her existence, she continually questioned herself on her inner journey, conscious of her historical and social truth. Because historical and social reality formed the basis of her questions, she enlarged her personality and gave herself meaning. The search for meaning brought Jindar’s existence into being; her existence became immortal before meaningful life. She therefore knew how to make herself exist and left lasting traces in every place and time she entered and every heart she touched.
Heval Jindar was born and raised in Dersim, a magical and magnificent land. She grew up in a reality surrounded by mountains on four sides, where greenery covered everything, waters were abundant, and nature was seen as living, worshiped, and sanctified. Having learned from childhood to love nature and regard it as sacred, her relationship with it was distinct. She kissed and touched every tree she saw, greeted those in the distance, and welcomed the rising sun with great reverence. She loved animals and approached carefully so as not to hurt a flower. She loved and respected nature, and Mother Nature embraced her with the same sanctity. She always said Mother Nature saw, watched, and protected her. Raised where social values were strong, her love for people was also great. Her outlook placed love-filled living and love itself at the foundation of her life and relationships. She said: “I believe love is the foundation of all beauty. Love reveals beauty. I want to bring out the beauty in people; that is what I strive for.” Heval Jindar was thus a cascade of love, creating joy and value wherever she was and in every comrade with whom she shared. She spread joy, opened the door to seeing beautifully, and brought you together with all that was good and true. Jindar meant knowing how to live with love, to see, and to feel. She created this feeling in every comrade and left lasting traces in all. Her love and devotion to the Leadership were equally distinctive. When she spoke of Leader APO, the radiance in her eyes and the sincerity of her sharing moved us, deepening our devotion to, understanding of, and love for the Leadership. She put her feelings about the Leadership into writing; her texts made us think, deepened our understanding, and illuminated our revolutionary practice. During the 2013 winter camp she wrote in her diary: “Our Leadership is the person who carries, lives, and protects the human values of this age. He has attained the love of truth and devoted his life to it. He is the most resistant person of our age and the closest to freedom. Women’s closest friend and comrade. The person who understands children in their purest state and succeeds in entering their clean worlds. Mother Nature’s worthy son, her beautiful child. I truly love him very much. He is my source of morale, strength, and courage. My fundamental aim is to try to be worthy of his beauty. I strive to give meaning and value to my love.”
In her revolutionary struggle, Heval Jindar knew how to walk the right path amid the splendor and majesty of the mountains. Though all life’s hardships imposed themselves like an immense burden, she shouldered them all; without complaint or loss of faith, she forged her personality in the fire of the freedom struggle and brought herself into being through labor and love. She created this in the majestic land of Cilo and the rebellious mountains of Dersim, giving meaning to her existence where struggle and conflict were lived in their full heat. She regarded Cilo and Dersim as teacher, mother, and domain of wisdom, and set her compass for life and struggle accordingly. Thus our mountains were not only places of protection, but also places of learning. The mountains were a wise place for Jindar, and Jindar a beautiful child of the mountains.
As a woman of Dersim, Comrade Jindar was not only a worthy child of Dersim; from joining the struggle in 2001 until 2018, as a Kurdistani and socialist revolutionary, she was a worthy child of all Kurds and humanity. She struggled in the Zagros Mountains, the cradle of humanity, and conducted youth and popular work. Finally, through six years as a guerrilla in Dersim, she lived life and time fully; with her resistant, unbowed personality, as a successor to Bese, Zarife, and Bêrîtan, she fought the cruel, barbaric enemy and showed everyone the power and nobility of a woman guerrilla. In the operation launched by the enemy on August 15, she fought with all her conviction, devotion, and courage alongside Heval Berfin and Heval Çekdar, and they joined the caravan of immortals.