Exalting the Memory of Our Martyrs and Fighting under Their Command Is Our Indispensable Duty

 For us, the tenth year has a particular significance: our martyrs, interlinked like a chain to form a ring that encircles our entire party existence, enable us to reach the true revolutionary values that are its spirit and warn us always to protect and strengthen them. While, on the one hand, we rectify our errors and mistakes as required by our devotion to their memory, our martyrs are the values of life that oblige us to draw closer to the truth more than ever, continually reinforce our sense of responsibility, must always be respected and must be made to prevail over every moment of our lives.

Not everyone can lay claim to the martyrs; the true owners of the martyrs are the martyrs themselves. Only to the extent that we are their steadfast spokespersons do we acquire the right to keep their memory alive. This is one of the subjects most manipulated in history. Particularly during revolutionary processes, there are many who distort their memory, draw conclusions contrary to the aims for which they fought and thereby turn them into material for their own interests. It is not without reason that the institution of martyrdom is remembered and recounted as a value that has emerged throughout human history and in important processes of development, and that vows of devotion are frequently taken on anniversaries. This is a cause for struggle.

As can be seen at every moment of the class struggle and the struggles of peoples, here too a widespread battle of opposites is waged. Just as there are those who approach the martyrs for their own reactionary personal, familial, and even narrow and selfish class interests, there are also those who draw conclusions from them for all humanity and place them at the service of humanity, equality and justice. When we examine this institution more carefully, we will truly see that the memories of those who sacrifice their lives for important aims constitute the high point of the struggle. It therefore becomes clear that commemorating them in a revolutionary rather than a reactionary manner is a requirement of the struggle.

The seriousness of this movement arises from the consistency of its aims and from the readiness of its members to sacrifice without hesitation their lives, their most precious possession, for the success of these lofty aims. If we wish to learn how consistent an organization is, we must look at whether its members are ready to face every difficulty in both comfortable and harsh conditions and, where necessary, to die for it. If this is truly understood in that way and practice proceeds in this direction, then that organization is a very serious one. But if its members are among those who rush swiftly upon the values in days of prosperity* and comfort, yet scatter like frightened chicks in difficult days or at the slightest pressure, then, whatever they may say, it can be stated with certainty that they are dangerous, that nothing requiring trust should be placed in their hands in lofty struggles such as the cause of peoples, and that they cannot fulfill what such struggles require.

If there are those who die for a cause, then it is worthy of exaltation. Especially when this is not treated as a compulsion but as the fulfillment of a necessary duty with great peace of mind, and when the path is followed gladly even if death lies at its end, this alone is the true measure of the greatness of that movement and that person. This is so for nations as well, and there are countless examples proving that it is also true of internationalism. When a nation is attacked or moves toward dissolution, if its members cannot step forward or demand an accounting and content themselves merely with murmurs and tears, if in this very manner they find sufficient a crawling life befitting slaves, then that nation and its members have earned condemnation. No one takes such nations seriously or respects them. However severe the oppression imposed upon them and however great the injustices of which they become victims, those who hesitate to rise for their own freedom will always deserve to be remembered as an army of slaves and regarded with disgust.

A very clear distinction must therefore be made here. Those who speak endlessly in the name of National Liberationism but do not truly possess a single drop of blood to give it deserve to be remembered with condemnation, to be unable for this reason to appear among humanity, and to die a thousand times each day from their shame; this is the most fitting description of them. That being so, nothing could be more repugnant than for those who do no more than speak at length of national oppression, shed tears over how numerous the injustices are and produce demagogic phrases to appear among the people as though they were freedom fighters. No more dangerous mistake can be made than to be deceived by their demagogy.

For this reason, in important historical causes such as national causes, there are vast differences between the approaches and practices of those who own these demagogic attitudes, which in truth bring nations only greater slavery, inflict a deeper psychology of defeat and prepare a setting more conducive to decay, and those who know that a nation's power to live is proportional to sacrificing oneself without hesitation for its freedom struggle and decide to join the war—whether there is one person at the beginning and millions at the end makes no difference. If one wishes to contribute to this cause, which must achieve results, no duty could be more honorable than refusing to waver on this question and demolishing the opposing side's demagogy. Those who approach history nobly must make such assessments. Both their practices and the countless examples experienced throughout history ask us to act in this way and present it as a moral value to which we must remain loyal. Through countless examples, history teaches us that every people and class that attained victory acted on this basis.

Rather than understanding in this way the rules of struggle underlying the continuous fight for development and elevation from the first stages of the human family to the present, a very sharp distinction must be drawn between those who carry the rupture between reality and words to the most extreme degree, use words to conceal reality, and thereby seek to deceive the tribe, people and nation to which they belong in order to protect the narrow interests and simple life of that period, and those who oppose them. Drawing attention to all their dangers and remaining as vigilant toward them as toward the forces that impose oppression and develop injustice are essential to advancing the cause into which we have placed our precious existence. We need not study history at great length on these matters. This is a law of development; no power's distortion can eliminate the existence of such developments.

It is known that pacifism arising from various religions and the search for salvation in the other world, together with every form of collaboration and servility used to preserve certain extremely limited present-day possibilities of life, have been kept alive in various forms by members of the counterrevolution, from being turned into a doctrine to being presented to us as a character. This tendency, no less than the correct orientation, is an approach that seeks to dominate humanity's development. Not being deceived by it and finding the truth show that a personality is realistic, honest and virtuous. The circles we have mentioned will always wish to portray realities differently. Their interest lies in disregarding historical realities in this way. It is therefore always necessary to know them well and to draw a very sharp distinction between ourselves and them.

Without making this distinction permanent, we cannot greatly advance the struggle for equality against the oppression and injustice that we criticize so often. If we wish great personalities to emerge among us as well, it is of immense importance to wage a tremendous struggle against these people darkening and covering up the realities in which we live. While seeking to illuminate our own reality, provided we remain within this basic approach, we will draw closer to the truth and be able to conduct our course more firmly.

In the 1970s, as we approached reality with all our strength, there was a difference as great as Mount Ararat between the stance we adopted and the false approaches to reality of those who were in a position to see the realities even more clearly than we did. Their approach to reality displayed a pathological structure, ranging from surrendering their souls to the colonial power under its smallest hammer blows to making their minds cancerous, reaching the point of losing themselves. We drew important conclusions from these examples. Our most important conclusion was that the people owned the truth. This aims at defending the values of the people's labor and developing national values. It was important to see and defend them in this way. At the beginning, making them prevail everywhere without hesitation and with the utmost determination, using every available means, was a breakthrough no less necessary and meaningful than struggle on the hot front of the war.

Taking up the war initially at the level of grasping the realities was of great importance for determining what followed and ensuring its healthy development. It also constituted an important beginning for determining subsequent developments. Here the great importance of the struggle between us and the others became apparent. Drawing a distinction between the stance that sees the realities and is ready at every moment to betray them, and the stance that fulfills the requirements both of seeing and defending them, is as important as achieving victory in the revolution.

Having made these definitions, we will now examine the roles of the martyrs, who prove our view. Our words are proof of our devotion and express a reality; as the owners of these words, in the most difficult moments and in an environment of immense powerlessness, on a ground where savagery seemed to roam freely and people had no means of struggle other than relying on their hearts, the martyrs were the greatest representatives of the realities. No matter how incompletely or misleadingly some wish to portray this truth, and no matter how deficient their approaches to it may be, this is the truth itself. If a definition of the martyrs is desired, they are the events in which victory was symbolized in their existence during such a period—and at least in many victories won afterward. They should not be viewed as individuals; they are an institution. For at a time when millions were victims of the most mistaken life, and in a period when every form of betrayal was experienced to the fullest, they were the personalities who had to be the spokespersons of truth and, if necessary, live by proclaiming it alone. Acting in this way is not an easy matter, as many suppose. Today many people understand it in this way, or frequently fall into the error of believing it to be so.

Let us state at once that this is one of the most difficult lives. If we wish to assign meaning to our resistance being waged in every field today, merely resorting to examples from around the world will not suffice. When we consider this understanding within our own distinctive historical position, try to comprehend what has taken place toward the present and take a stand on the side of what is right, we will be able to give meaning to all our values and arrive at a correct definition.

At the forefront of these definitions, it is very clear that there will stand those who are the summit of this struggle, those who, as if dedicating their very existence, cry out, 'This is the truth,' and that no other value, institution or struggle will be more dazzling or will conquer development more greatly than they. The first martyrs of a cause therefore prove its consistency and its march toward victory. They also show that the foundational mortar of this cause has been laid and that, however developed and powerful the initial imbalance of forces and the reality-concealing character of the demagogic environment may be, our values of struggle develop in inverse proportion. The martyrs, who form the summit of this entire ascent, are the greatest event for overcoming that imbalance of forces, destroying that environment, and securing the increasingly irresistible right of the successive victories of truth to develop. Here, no result can be attained by shooting someone, by speaking many words, or by using the various methods we know for generating influence.

Something very distinct for peoples must be done here. It is this: however unfavorable the conditions may be, some people will inevitably sacrifice their lives so that the people may win their fundamental rights. Such a step awakens peoples and brings them to their feet a thousand times more powerfully than every instrument of influence could. This is the immense power of advance realized by the martyrs. When historical causes are examined today, it will be seen that those who dedicated themselves at the first emergence of these causes are continually remembered and that they conditioned the causes' subsequent development. These first martyrs of our party are our true values of war: they concentrated in our hands a power so great that we could never have raised the people's consciousness and awakened them through any other means, created in us the strength to walk, led us to defend our realities more firmly, and gave the command to continue the struggle. This remains so if their followers and spokespersons did not succumb to despair before this great event and secured their firm devotion to it. But if, upon seeing the first blood spilled, their comrades exaggerated the enemy's strength within that blood, produced demagogy about why the enemy could not be resisted, and especially if they made their own selves accept it, betrayal had begun. Defeat therefore began there as well. Thus, just as a correct approach to martyrdom is a fundamental measure of victory, an erroneous, deficient and discouraged approach to it is the beginning of betrayal and defeat.

When we pledged devotion to the memory of our first martyrs, above all Comrade Haki KARER, we tried to understand and explain reality in this way. Knowing that the most meaningful devotion to our martyrs' memory would be to exalt their cause still further and fulfill our duties without delay, we embraced our tasks with this understanding. On this basis, we found the courage to proclaim and build the PKK. It must not be forgotten that we moved in this direction after seeing the most correct revolutionary step that had to be taken, without overlooking any secondary effect or condition, so as not to face a crushing condition beneath the great memory of our first martyrs and not to accept the moral collapse and discouragement that an erroneous approach to them would bring. As a result, our party program emerged. What does this step mean? It means transforming devotion to this memory into the proclamation of a party. For this, we carried out intensive practical work. Not even a year after the program was written, we proclaimed the party. Just as this event revealed how powerful an event martyrdom was, it also demonstrated that this was the firm way to respond correctly to those memories.

As we moved toward proclaiming the PKK, our level of consciousness developed. It sharpened our consciousness to the point where we could set it down in the Manifesto, and our membership grew. Yet it must continually be stated that none of these had sufficient weight on its own to lead us to proclaim a party; the fundamental means of intensifying their effect and transforming it into a solid structure was again the blood of these martyrs, and what had to be done was precisely what did not disregard or contradict them. After making such a lofty proclamation, those who wish to follow the martyrs' path may now shed as much blood as they will, develop as much as they will, and display every kind of effort for this cause. For all these developments find their meaning here and open the path of the new life from here. What does all this mean? The memories were renewed and defended on the correct foundation. No matter how many difficulties there may be, how much tyranny is applied, and how much the environment is sought to be drowned in demagogy, values were revealed to which one will remain devoted to the end to the extent that a theory and a view are developed. It will become clear and be accepted that, besides being the key to our development, this was a value of fundamentally determining character in the later growth of the PKK's supporters and pioneers and in bringing the masses to their feet.

We saw very clearly, both in our own practice and in other practices, the meaninglessness of different approaches to the martyrs. It is utterly useless to content oneself with remembering the martyrs tearfully and providing their relatives with a few more conveniences. Such an approach is widespread in our society. The relatives of those involved in such events are given material support and gifts, and people shed tears with them. This serves only to save the present moment, not to preserve the meaning of devotion to the martyrs. From the beginning, we did not favor such approaches. We maintained this stance in all our later instances of martyrdom as well. We did not regard martyrdom as a matter of shedding a tear for the dead or consoling their relatives. For our martyrs are our true living values. Although they are not among us in physical form, through their spirit and consciousness they have become institutionalized and transformed into a living army of fighters.

For this reason, we say that our martyrs are our true living values. We are merely the fighters in motion under their lofty command. This definition is not an exaggeration. If we understand life as the concentration of correct revolutionary ideas—which correspond to important realities—what meaning could any other life have? The preservation of the vitality of our physical existence, the movement of our arms and legs and the functioning of our emotions have no meaning. If we do not reduce life to such a low-level understanding and if we have set out with an aim such as recreating a society and producing it in a revolutionary manner, then we will accept that within these aims the martyrs are the most precious beings and, consequently, the true living ones. We will understand the meaning of exalting life still further as, in fact, multiplying the martyrs still further, and this as the first martyrs transforming themselves into an army. At the same time, this means choosing the only correct path in becoming an army, the path leading to victory.

Let us look at the wars waged by all peoples and nations: they approached their realities in this way and saw victory as they multiplied their martyrs. Otherwise, they were always defeated, crushed and condemned. Then the growing, chain-like increase of our martyrs' advance is nothing other than our martyrs transforming themselves into an army. What we do is merely act as spokespersons for their demands. If one looks carefully, this is the point all of us have reached today. The truth and lived reality of our commemoration of the martyrs emerge here. Some people here may defend a very low level of life in the face of the party. Yet wherever they may be, those who belong within the PKK and are truly devoted to the martyrs' memory do not live for themselves and are ready at every moment to sacrifice their lives for this struggle.

The conclusive proof that our party was formed on the basis of devotion to the martyrs' memory is the practice we have lived. This also means approaching our realities correctly in their entirety, changing them in a progressive and revolutionary direction, becoming organized for that purpose, becoming the fearless militants of this organization, deepening in thought and sharpening ourselves in practice. We know that the continual intensification of these effects is the development of national resistance. It is the maturation of the PKK's core. All this also means the people's political and military formation as an army. When we speak of the martyrs becoming an army, we wish to emphasize that they are values like a red ribbon, a main artery and a backbone, articulating, binding and giving life to our entire existence from beginning to end.

If we understand devotion to the martyrs as, 'A part of us has been torn away, our body has fallen to pieces, and it can never be revived,' and if we approach them in this way, then we will probably have committed one of the greatest insults against them even before the enemy does. It must be said that even daring to do so is itself an act of immorality. The fact that those who live most intensely with our martyrs and are intertwined with them see victory and life in the martyrs' memories clearly demonstrates how correct our commemoration is. We know very well how deeply our people are affected and saddened even by the loss of the simplest values. Yet while so many martyrs are given in the PKK, we also witness our people's criticisms asking only, 'Could they not have acted more carefully? Could they not have spread themselves more broadly and increased their contribution to the struggle?' Our people accept no other kind of life. They accept only departure for these lofty aims. It has now become clear that our people act in this way before the memories of our martyrs, and this is another development that gives us considerable courage. It is clear that a people such as ours, ready to give everything so as never to abandon their most precious beings under any condition, approach the instances of martyrdom developing under our conditions with great respect, devotion and a still greater understanding of sacrifice, and show their support. This proves that our martyrs give voice to our people's true life, revive it, and find their echo among the people.

Therefore, if we do not think narrowly about martyrdom, if we do not view it merely in terms of individuals' physical existence and memories, and if we approach martyrdom as a political event and a revelation of realities, as a question of class and national struggle, we will see that in truth it is always the martyrs themselves who live among us. It becomes apparent that those who live at a lower level—even those, whether inside or outside the party, who understand life narrowly and superficially and as a means of saving the present, and who have denied their own realities a hundred thousand times—are the most putrid dead. With a more correct approach, while true life is concentrated around the martyrs, what multiplies in the breath and minds of the others will be seen as a cancerous process, and as the worst of all deaths.

We do not approach life as the enemy imposes it today. What the enemy imposes is fascism. What is presented as life is in fact death itself. When a person slightly dulls their breath in the face of this imposition, when they do so at a somewhat moderate level, they understand such a thing as attaining a good middle-class life. Such a stance means nothing more than accepting fascism. Yet when we concentrate ourselves and examine the realities, we see that the life into which society has been cast, far from being life at all, is truly the worst of deaths. It can be said that such a life is a thousand times worse than death. A life branded by fascism is a cancerous life. It is widely said today that effects resembling those of cancer are truly developing in society. However far this feature develops, the struggle against it is also a struggle to eliminate cancer. It therefore becomes clear that our living values are the best vaccine against this cancer. In this sense, our martyrs are a vaccine for treating the most diseased conditions into which society has been cast. What does this mean? It means revealing the medicine that will restore society to its true free life. This is the meaning our martyrs express for the whole of society.

As we strive today to advance the whole of society toward a democratic life, we also reveal the existence of a great historical truth and a great gain for humanity by showing that humanity is not obliged to live as fascism wishes, that it is a being lofty enough to proclaim its own superiority, that this is embodied in the PKK, and that it is represented there in the most immediate way and, when necessary, alone under the most difficult conditions. These are not simple realities or forms of representation. Nor can they be evaluated merely as forms of representation that render futile fascism's present-day impositions. They are values whose effects will encompass centuries. Such is the true value of our martyrs in our struggle.