As we develop women’s participation, their struggle for freedom and their definition of a free identity within the reality of our party, what level is being achieved in practice?

What possibilities can it open up, and, most importantly, what does its novelty as a current signify? Developing the discussion on this basis may lead to more meaningful results.

Women’s participation and their struggle for freedom must be freed from tradition. They must be approached differently from relations with men, family relations, and attempts to model them on official bodies and institutions. Just as the freedom of peoples and the liberation of classes deserve attention, so do the question of women and therefore their liberation. Making the effort to shatter traditional approaches, even ways of life, and to reach what is distinctive may perhaps bring forth a free type of person.

No one should expect a ready-made prescription. The most we can offer is to refrain from continuing traditional approaches that scarcely deserve respect, even in a refined form, and to attempt a reform in this matter. We will be radical here too. What is radicalism in the women’s question? We must attain an approach that is fundamental in its understanding, going beyond treating this, as is so often done, as a matter of emotions or sexuality, and even beyond saying, “This is how it concerns politics; women should have an equal place in every body and institution.” What is women’s place in history, and what is their level of development? In relation to processes of social formation, what did they lose, and how? What did they contribute to society? To what extent have they been excluded and subjected to oppression? What do women signify in each social formation? Certain natural characteristics of their sex, their participation in society and the situations they experienced throughout the social process may have led to their oppression. They can be made more vulnerable to exploitation. Depending on conditions, this can also be developed against peoples who are easily subjected to oppression and exploitation. This is neither a law of nature nor a divine command, as the dominant claim. These are situations that develop at human command.

Therefore, when reconsideration is necessary, showing the strength to reject is understandable. Radicalism should not mean rejecting men. That is the approach of some groups described as feminist. Yet it should not be approached in this way. Just as it cannot be understood as an anti-male movement, it should not mean merely a movement that has freed itself from oppression and exploitation. These too will have their influence: the movement’s radicalism will be somewhat anti-male and somewhat committed to its demands for freedom, but it must express more as well.

There really is a loss of identity; there is no personality that gives voice to its identity. What is women’s class in this respect, what is their culture, what is their nation? Certainly every woman belongs to a particular culture, nation and class. But what is she as a woman? If all her national, class and cultural characteristics are stripped away, does anything remain in the name of women’s identity? Can such a question even be raised? We believe it can. If we accept social history and its connection with oppression and exploitation as real, putting women in their rightful place is also unavoidable for a fundamental human liberation.

In this sense, it is said that there can be no social liberation without women’s liberation. Without enabling women to attain their true identity, attaining a healthy human identity and the identity of a society and nation will remain incomplete. This is understood. For example, in the Kurdish reality there is a great decline in women’s position. It is understood that this also affects the national level and signifies how far the social level has fallen behind. It is also understood that as what is right develops, the national level will have to develop accordingly, bringing society’s elevation with it. Taboos have been woven around this issue, and we discuss them continually. Throughout history, the judgement has developed that “every woman belongs to one person” or “many women belong to one person”. We call this “becoming property”. The same thing is never said of men. We rarely encounter a judgement such as “a man belongs to that woman” or “many men belong to one woman”. Undoubtedly, we must know the reasons for this in every respect, in terms of history and social reality. There is also the consequence of its reflection in daily relations.

Relations are very impoverished; they lack substance, courage and content. This is even more so when we look at a people with backward social and historical conditions like ours. People look at the analyses and then at the forms of relations; everyone sees chasms. They face a situation in which they can scarcely believe what they see. Undoubtedly, this did not arise spontaneously; these are results brought about by our freedom movement. Our method expresses a way of clarifying and offering possibilities for the search for identity that we are trying, to some extent, to define.

Notice that we do not have an issue called balanced and harmonious relations. We do not ask what a good marriage or a good love should be like. Such questions are deeply influenced by petty-bourgeois, narrow-minded approaches. I find them somewhat meaningless and ugly. I see them as questions that constrict people and obstruct their freedom. Identity must continue to develop in its own way, and, of course, as it develops, a different way of life must be demonstrated. Identity must develop by seeing and living its difference from the system and from tradition. That is, there must be a search for an identity that offers alternatives. However much the bourgeoisie and feudalism say, “This is how women’s world is built,” we too have the question of a women’s world. In all likelihood, the revolutions of the future will depend on this question being set out in all its aspects. Men’s strong development also depends on this.

I frequently examine myself on the question of women. Notice that I have also attained some of the qualities of a strong man. But this is also connected with bringing forth women’s strength. That is, my example makes concrete how men grow stronger as women’s strength emerges. This is not strength secured through money or political authority. You know very well that it comes from the power to bring about a breakthrough towards a free identity. It is a result of participation in women’s liberation, and it brings strength. At the same time, it means going, in its own right, as far as the strength of an army.

At present, I can develop every kind of work with many women. Yet the traditional man has a wife in mind. If petty-bourgeois men have a little money, they find women in nightclubs or brothels, and secretaries at higher levels, have their affairs as they see fit, and want only to make their masculinity and dominance felt. Under feudal social conditions, marrying two or three women is considered natural. All women are his, and when he wants an adventure, he abducts one. This has nothing to do with women becoming stronger; in crude terms, it produces a bad woman and a bad man. Every man is somewhat like this. Whether under European and American conditions or those of the Middle East, he keeps moving between these main extremes.

Admiration surrounding various musicians and athletes is not a condition unique to women. Men admire and women admire; people say, “We worship one another; let our lives be lost.” But this is an approach with little meaning, especially for women. Our difference on this issue is clear. Our way does not exploit women. It approaches them outside the standards of the official man and the feudal man, takes them seriously as a social community, and approaches them with the conviction and understanding that they can become a force, a current, a movement, an army.

First of all, we have moved beyond “let me take this woman and sell that woman” and made this a social matter, increasingly one that seriously considers participation in political organization and war. In my sphere there is no trace of the words “whose wife am I, whose fiancée am I?” You cannot make such claims in relation to me either. Under guerrilla conditions, you also feel little need to introduce yourselves in such terms. You try to define yourselves as the social and political beings, as the force, that you are interested in becoming. This is a new and important situation. You cannot find it in any male-dominant approach. No one easily allows women’s work at this level. It is a difficult approach, but I am trying. When I remove traditional conceptions from you, you may find it difficult, but I think you believe in its necessity. That is why you are not very upset when you free yourselves from the conception of the official man and the traditional man. Your men may put pressure on you, or men may struggle, but you do not struggle; it is understood that you do not immediately begin looking for a man but try to find yourselves. Deeply, you feel the need to examine more comprehensively the question, “What should society and men’s approach be like from our perspective?” This may be a somewhat correct approach. Developing research and the search on this basis is very necessary.

You have been cast out of society, out of politics, especially out of the army, and restricted in all activities. We are seeking an answer to how the return to these should take place. I think we have, to some extent, done what is most appropriate. Unless we free you from the official male approach or from male-dominant social approaches that leave their mark at every level, you cannot enter society strongly with your own identity, rightfully, justly, freely and equally. Perhaps you can improve your situation through some reform. But that is not radicalism; it is not a solution at the roots.

As in every serious social matter, what will be asked of you here is to approach your own freedom with some passion, a sense of sacredness and conviction. First you must believe in this work. I am not telling you to be like feminists, but they too have aspects deserving respect. First you must respect yourselves. You must have some principles of your own, women’s principles. Men have their masculine principles. When masculine and feminine principles are mentioned, degrading principles immediately come to mind. But women’s principles must now become clear as well. What is a women’s principle? Everyone must be able to understand this somewhat. As you establish the principle and give it concrete form, you give the first sign of freedom. But you have not even differentiated or clarified yourselves in establishing a principle and giving it concrete form. Your situations are confused. Every man who looks at you bases himself on the dominant principle; he does not say, “Before me is a being with a principle.” You are already giving voice not to women’s principle but to the feminine principle society has deemed fitting for you. I notice this in all of you. I also struggle against that feminine principle. Unfortunately, all of you approach us with a feminine principle or put pressure on us through it. Yet it is clear that there must be a women’s principle.

You see that a dominant principle is imposed on you in society and directs you. You regard these principles, formed over centuries, as fate. But research also shows that this is a human command, not a divine command, nor a natural characteristic or fate. You have reached this condition as a result of human actions. Of course, the liberation of the female sex is necessary. However one looks at it, you have come to resemble a tortoise; you are dragged along. In society’s movement, you virtually walk at a tortoise’s pace. Is it impossible to make you somewhat more able to run? It is not impossible to transform you from a tortoise into a being walking on its own feet.

For example, why does a man not take your approaches seriously? Even your most socialist man bases himself on the feminine principle when he approaches you. You arrange the situation exactly accordingly. Your feelings, loves, relationships, likes and rejections all develop on this basis. So far I have not seen a woman’s greatness. I am someone who understands words. I know who is exalted and how to speak with the principle of exaltedness and its representatives, but there is no such person. Your condition as a sex reminds me of children, of people crying and complaining, of communities that need managing, of colonized peoples. It should not be this bad. In no man’s assessment, including in our party ranks, have I seen this: “I drew inspiration from a woman comrade with such principles, greatness and value; I valued her, gained strength from her, or discussed and spoke seriously with her, even loved her.” There is not a single word about this. Does this not reveal your stunted stature? Why can you not become such a type? Have you really fallen so far? Why have you not waged a proper struggle on this issue? Men say they are very much in love with you; when it comes to stealing hearts with false words, neither you nor they have any equal. But what I am talking about is a serious value of comradeship practised according to its principle and through its practice. We take this into account and proceed with it. Even in the most accomplished approaches to women, they developed corrupt relations, took women and ran away, disrupted the army, obstructed the revolutionary movement, and invariably brought out a negative quality. Is this fate?

You see that you have issues concerning a principle that must be attained, and therefore researched and known, and the practical attitude arising from it. What I can do for you is both to sever certain bonds and to prevent you from turning towards harmful ones. My understanding of freedom makes this necessary for me and also tells me, “Do it.” Rather than these women and girls becoming captives of one person or another, let us open an environment in which they can live somewhat as themselves. My understanding of justice makes me do this. It does not occur to other men, nor does it occur to you. You have long been prepared for certain situations. My understanding of freedom does not accept this. I believe we should develop a search and be able to open the way to a new situation.

For a very long time, I have said that relations in general and the way women are brought into society should not be like this. I found fault with every kind of relationship, such as arranging engagements, marriages and dating. I said that all these forms of relations were flawed. I believed very early in the need for an alternative, and this understanding allows me to do some limited work with you. You are interested; notice that no one forces you to join the movement. In every region there is virtually a stream of women into our ranks. If we allowed it, they could make up the majority of the force being organized as an army. They also put their lives on the line; death means nothing to them. The peasant girl who until yesterday could not step beyond her threshold goes up into the mountains today. This is a major event, and it is connected with us, or rather with me.

How will you return to life anew? How will the return to society and to men take place? Do not say, “We returned long ago.” I am speaking of a different return: the return in mind, in spirit and in love will develop very differently. I do not like the present situations; I find them ugly. Whether you feel uncomfortable or say, “We do not have the strength,” I believe more magnificent returns are possible. You become respectful and loving; that too is a model of approach. You must take me seriously. I too must find the person before me serious.

Notice that when even the most accomplished man enters a relationship with a woman, the practices that immediately come to mind or that he will carry out are known. He belittles her, makes her ugly, increasingly dulls her and makes her resemble him. If the woman has even a little feeling initially, it is erased entirely; she becomes monotonous and her relationship dies. In a sense, the man himself dies too. But I believe one should not die so easily. Evidently imperialism and all earlier social formations have brought about a certain killing in this matter. Under feudalism a woman is drawn into life at fifteen and is finished at twenty or twenty-five. The bourgeoisie has raised the limit a little, to thirty. And how has it done so? There are concubines; there is a very curious story of sale. How do you offer yourselves? This needs considerable thought.

All our achievement has been this: at least we made ourselves somewhat unmarried in the original sense of the word. Not in the senses you understand; I have not joined myself to the forms of the official order or tradition, and I will not. In all likelihood, the freedom struggle is connected with this quality of mine. Sinking myself into women’s backwardness and slavery might have caused me to lose from the beginning, and perhaps no step towards women’s freedom would have been taken. Had I liked the relationships and been an example of them, there would have been no revolution, the national question would not have come onto the PKK’s agenda, and I would not have embraced this organization as an army in this way.

Your capacity to understand may be insufficient, but it is clear that considerable depth is needed on this basis. Approach courageously; do not approach in the light of existing taboos. Overcome approaches that have turned you into goods and property. The approach to sex is also connected with goods and property; you must overcome those approaches too. Sex in itself is neither a means of degradation nor of marketing. It is a natural matter. It is part of a person’s personality and honour. It cannot be treated separately from one’s own dignity and honour by saying, “This is how it is taken, debased, used or assessed.” Give the principle of freedom effectiveness and a fundamental place in these matters too. All this will bring you before other people with a different identity.

You are subdued on this issue; you have not brought yourselves out very much. Your relations and contacts with all men are dangerous: they either lead to slavery or subordinate you to individual interest. You put the feminine principle into operation, and he puts the masculine principle into operation. The result is the resurrection of the order or tradition. We oppose this. In your approaches to men, you must represent a revolution. You will do this not through smashing, wrecking and crude rejection, but by making him feel how you can love, what kind of beloved you are, what strength of passion, identity, thought and principle you possess, and in this sense drawing him somewhat away from the masculine principle. More precisely, you must return to relations by shattering and destroying that unjust principle and bringing him to a correct principle of male approach.

When I say, “Approach the guerrilla correctly,” you say, “I fight every day.” They have ruined the weapon and all the rules and principles, yet think they are practising guerrilla warfare. Your approaches remind me of this too. When I say, “Approach relations with a strong principle,” you say, “The approaches inherited from our fathers and from our womanhood are valid for us.” Yet the peasant fighter’s methods inherited from his father and your methods inherited from your female ancestors are the same. Nor do they promise a chance of success. Where are your qualities of broad horizons, great alternatives, an encompassing spirit and human attraction? What does your value signify in this matter within society, before men and among yourselves? There are many conclusions for you to draw from this.

A difference and identity of your own will develop, from your understanding of marriage to your understanding of love, from your assessment of sex to all your political and philosophical approaches. You must not fear bringing your personality to maturity in this matter. This is not a merely reactive personality. Colonized societies always react, but the narrowness of this has been understood. It has been understood that narrow national thinking and nationalism led them to massacre, and that their share in the development of social negatives was not small. Therefore, you too must not remain within a narrow understanding of women. There is no need for female chauvinism. In any case, the danger is not here. You have been shaped more according to men and prepared yourselves entirely according to official tradition; overcoming this is very important. Notice that the analyses we develop express these things. This brings not merely a different interpretation to all relations and standards of life, but radical changes, that is, revolution.

When any one of you goes to an area, she must be able to demonstrate her difference. For example, men should be in a position to say, “She is a different type; she has seriousness, value and weight; she is even good and beautiful, and we respect her.” We state that this is the solution. You ask, “How will this be lived?” It is lived through an action, a way of struggle. You will demonstrate this strength in yourselves; that is the approach I will stand beside and support. Most have no identity. They say, “We have moved even further from our female identity”; in the ranks of the revolution, her tongue has been cut off and she has become a satellite. We even struggle to organize a meeting with women. Few provide inspiration. Why should all our meetings be masculine meetings? Why should we not develop a meeting, even a community, in which women too will be serious? Women are now finding a place in the PKK. In other communities, however, the situation is heartbreaking. A woman is absolutely someone’s wife. That is, she is absolutely bound, registered as property and stamped as such. Thus the matter is finished. This is not an issue that can be closed simply by being a spouse. A wealthy or strong woman, whether or not she is a spouse or in a family relationship, signifies an event, a phenomenon, an influence. A woman in the PKK has ceased to be treated as property. She has attained a being whose influence is reflected in every sphere. This too is something of what a woman becoming free means. A woman becoming free is taken seriously and moves towards a personality that carries weight beyond her sex and womanhood. You must both claim this and make your efforts sufficient for it.

If such women are created, it is clear that society will be better, life will become more socialist, wars and ugliness will be prevented, and justice, beauty and development will be achieved. This is in fact the women’s revolution. If this revolution takes this form, society can both change and gain great strength. Much ugliness, degradation, hypocrisy, including violence, torture and injustice, can be overcome. With the realization of this type and its action, if there is no opportunism or distortion and representation is complete, that society will be far above all existing social levels. You may find it hard to imagine this, but if we want revolution and ask what women’s place and role in it should be, we must give it some thought. How else will we make you strong? If your every approach is feminine and every male approach is reflected in a cheap, masculine way, where are your revolution, liberation and freedom? You will have independent action and independent thought on this issue. Some may find this very fanciful, even objectionable, but I regard it as a serious revolutionary approach. For our part, we will continue developing searches and approaches on this basis.

Approaching women freely is also a matter of honour and dignity for me. Approaching in this way is a requirement of respecting my own personality. I am not doing this to create women around me who worship me or to develop a harem, as some basely keep saying. On the contrary, it expresses passion for women’s exaltedness, demonstrates the high value placed on women’s comradeship, and I am certain that this is the noblest and most elevated approach. Through this I see myself as ambitious and strong. It gives strength. We draw this strength from the rightness of the approach. Just as in the struggle against colonialism, it is clear that these approaches give strength too.

You can become good comrades; you come towards our way. For me this is a matter of struggle. It is clear that I must approach this struggle creatively. I will work with you, and we will make you work too. You will not be selfish. You will not impose male-dominant approaches on me, nor will you impose feminine approaches. This does not mean we lack love and enthusiasm. We are certainly not a current of traditions or of the system’s laxity. Approach seriously. Ours is the approach that opens the way to human dignity.

We regard this as degrading: “that man’s wife, that person’s daughter, that person’s whatever”. These are shameful words. First one must be able to say, “that respected woman”. If a beloved must be mentioned, one must be able to say, “that woman, that being who represents these values”. Such assessments are more elevated. I detest addressing someone by subordinating them to someone else. This is more pronounced in Arab feudalism. For example, people are named through terms such as Abu and Ibn. Being the Abu of this person or the Ibn of that person is a feudal approach. Instead, we need descriptions such as “having a personality and independent strength”. This is somewhat our preference. In it there is loyalty, deep interest, appreciation and love. This is more multidimensional, social, political and moral. It is possible to develop an approach to the problem in its various aspects in this way.

You are the subjects of this issue; you must give voice to yourselves. This is what I can offer you. You too must create, search and find. Look into people who could be your friends and comrades, struggle for this, and do not make yourselves cheap friends. Do not let yourselves be sacrificed to individuals, myself included, especially men, or to cheap conceptions of partnership and love. The situations you experienced in the past or are experiencing now should not frighten you. We are people who approach freedom courageously. Do not say, “In the past I had these fixations and attachments.” Through revolution we can renew these at every moment. This is a more beautiful approach, and it is the right one. I am willing to undertake it, and I believe in it too.

I hope you understand us correctly. What we ask of you is to be formidable militants of a noble work, wherever you are. This is not done for personal comfort or interest. It is a historical action, an action of honour, an event of human elevation. It is a tendency and approach at least as valuable as religions and various philosophical schools. With ever-growing interest, you must find your searches, discoveries and principle, and carry out your action. This work is as necessary for you as bread and water. Be patient but stubborn. Rather than letting yourselves go to no purpose, make it your basis to advance in small steps and win, and do not belittle the results. I believed in this, approached on this basis, and achieved some results that cannot be underestimated. On this basis, I wish you all success.

4 October 1993