Anarkismo.net

Conversation with Sinan Çiftyürek on the Kurdish question and the communists

On May we had the chance to talk with the spokesman of the
Mesopotamian Socialist Party, a revolutionary Kurdish group, Sinan
Çiftyürek. Although he comes from a different political angle than us,
we believe there are many interesting issues raised by the interview
that are of use for anyone in the revolutionary movement. Sinan
Çiftyürek, with an open mind and a critical spirit, talks of the
Kurdish struggle and imperialism.

1. First of all, what’s the situation of the struggle for Kurdish
liberation nowadays?

Sinan Çiftyürek: In the past the Kurdish national liberation movement
had an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist content. The socialist
identity of the national liberation movement was evident in the
biggest part of the Kurdistan i.e. Northern Kurdistan. All parties
and organisations claimed to be Marxists and Leninists. But after the
collapse of the USSR and the socialist block, these organisations
quickly withdrew from these ideological positions. It was not only
their socialist objective what they gave up, but also their
anti-imperialist aim. Today the Kurdish national liberation movement,
except for the communists, is limited to the anti-colonial aim. A
nationality which has to counter imperialism is full of problems and
the Kurdish national liberation movement has been experiencing these
problems very deeply.

2. We have seen some events of repression escalating in Turkey -do you
think the AKP government or the EU negotiations could play some
moderating effect over these levels of repression?

Sinan Çiftyürek: There is an increase in the oppression and the
operations against the Kurdish people and this trend tended to
increase in the period just passed. For over the last years, the
chauvinistic Turkish regime is pursuing an open policy to exclude, to
alienate and to make a dartboard out of the Kurds. This has been
stated by the representatives of the highest levels of the state and
openly continues to be so. The Chief of General Staff, General Yaþar
Büyükanýt even is stating that everyone who does not say `how happy I
am to be a Turk’ is an enemy of the Republic of Turkey and that he
will remain so. He also says that a guerrilla cannot keep fighting
without the logistical support of the peasants and claims that imams
and demarches are giving logistical support to the guerrillas. If he
openly and totally takes aim at the Kurdish people, the attacks on the
people will continue and increase in the following period.

In this period, neither the new AKP government nor the EU process can
play a role in softening the oppression. The EU has already more than
one of its own Kurds. Northern Ireland, Bask Country, Catalonia
etc. AKP cannot think differently from the army on the question of the
Kurdish national liberation struggle. The reason why AKP did not
support an operation to Southern Kurdistan had to do with the nearing
elections, with the fact that they did not want the army to make a
final decision.

3. What has been the response from the Turkish government to the fact
that Kurdish Iraq functions as a separate entity?

Sinan Çiftyürek: The Southern Kurdistan is still not able to move
independently from Iraq, because it is not an independent State. It
exists within the federal system of Iraq as the Kurdish Federal State.

Turkey is not able to tolerate even a federal Kurdish structure. It
continuously threatens it with attack. Over the last years the
Turkish State has seen the Kurdish Federal State as the greatest
thereat against itself, because it thinks that the structure in the
Southern Kurdistan is triggering the national liberation movement in
the north.

4. One of the main arguments of the detractors of Kurdish independence
has been to insist in the fact that it is not desirable a landlocked
Kurdistan if you can be part eventually of the EU; in what way the
oil-rich de facto Kurdish state affects this view?

Sinan Çiftyürek: The question of EU membership is only relevant for
the Northern Kurdistan, that is, the part in Turkey. It is also still
debatable if Turkey will gain EU membership. The chances are almost
equal one way or the other. The EU process creates an expectation for
the reduction of the oppression among the Kurdish people who have been
beaten by the State for centuries. But these expectations are also
melting with time. The fact that the main tendency in the Northern
part is federalism instead of independence is not something new and it
not directly related to the EU process, but has been there since the
1970’s.

Can the Kurdish Federal State in the south became independent and what
would be the results of it? It is hard to give definite answers to
these questions today. But I should state what I believe: The Southern
Kurdistan can affect the north, but it cannot push it on its
direction! The highest potential to affect and to push forward is in
the north and it is also questionable if it can really do it. There
are many examples of different States coming from the same nation and
this can also happen to the Kurds.

5. You have said that the interests of the US and the interests of the
Kurdish people have been in coincidence at points; many people have
actually singled out the Kurdish as collaborators. But for how long
you believe this coincidence of interests will last? What role do you
think the Kurdish question is playing in the war on terror and the New
Middle East project of Bush?

Sinan Çiftyürek: Firstly, I should note this: Imperialism does not
have friends or enemies; it has interests. Its hostility and
friendship depends on its interests. A friend of the US or the UK can
become an enemy one day.

The US wanted to be sovereign in the Eurasia in the 21st century so to
stand on it own land. In the early 1990’s he transformed this into a
long-term strategy.

English geopolitics scientist Sir Harold Mackinder said as early as in
1904 that he who rules over Eurasia will rule over the earth. And
American strategist Brzezinski notes in his book `The Grand
Chessboard’ that in the 21st century the most important strategic
reward for the US will be controlling Eurasia. I don’t want to keep
going on. These remarks shape the basis of the 21st century strategy
of the US.

The US wanted to circle and neutralize Russia and then China. It knows
that neutralizing these two states will pave the way for controlling
Eurasia. The aim of the Eurasian strategy is certain and Afghanistan
and then Iraq are occupied to reach this aim.

The US also gave to the Kurdish national liberation movement a place
in its Eurasia strategy since it is at the hearth of the Middle
East. It was the US who invited the Kurdish people for cooperation,
knowing that they have been beaten by the four states and yearn for
their own State. This invitation had a positive response. The Kurds,
mainly the southern/Iraqi Kurds, tied to the US against the
dictatorship of Saddam as `one ties to the infidel from the
faithless’. The duration of this cooperation depends on the
developments in the region and especially in Iraq. I don’t think that
this cooperation is durable, but thinking that it will end soon would
also be wrong.

Kurdish national movement is an important dynamic in the Middle
East. Either the revolutionary movement will use this
40-millions-strong potential for the advantage of the people and the
revolutionary transformation or imperialism will use the Kurdish
national potential as a part of its divide-and-rule policies and of
its aim to rule Asia.

6. What do you believe to be the main priorities for Kurdish people in
the current regional context?

Sinan Çiftyürek: The answer to this question requires detailed and
long answers starting with the sociological structure of the Kurds. It
is not possible to do it given the limits of this interview. But I
can note this: The Kurdish people are one of the indigenous peoples of
Mesopotamia like the Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians etc. As well, the
Kurdish people and the peoples and societies constantly interacting
with one another are one of the creative dynamics in the Middle
East. Especially Hurris have a historical importance for fulfilling
the role of a bridge between the West and the East. They played an
important role in the making of the Mesopotamian culture through the
interaction with Hittites, Palestinians and Phoenicians and carried
this to ancient Greece and Western Europe.

7. Now that can bee seen a number of movements in all of the Middle
East claiming to fight imperialism and US hegemony -how do you see the
fight against imperialism in the region?

Sinan Çiftyürek: The ongoing fight against imperialism in the region
is full of problems from many angles. `The footprint of the horse is
mixed with the one of the dog’. Only a revolutionary uprising from the
depths can win it.

It is full of problems, because the US financed, supported and
directed many Islamic organizations in the region during the Cold War
with the aim of forming a `Green Belt’ (Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt)
to prevent Russia’s advance. Today we see these organisations in the
anti-US front!

It is full of problems, because the militarist forces of the Saddam
regime also joined the anti-US front, because the US did not give them
a place in the post-Saddam regime!

It is full of problems, because there are no more anti-imperialist
nationalist movements around leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mohammad
Mossadegh, Hafiz al-Assad.

It is full of problems, because the communist movement is weak in the
region. This was the political climate which gave the opportunity to
invade Iraq. Of course in no place on earth is democracy brought by
tanks and thus it will not be brought to Iraq.

Due to the reasons I already noted, the struggle against imperialism
is problematic. The radical resolution of these problems depends on
the re-birth and development of the struggles of the working class and
the oppressed people not only against imperialism, but also against
capitalism.

8. What are the main features or changes you see in international
capitalism and imperialism over the last while? How does this affect
the struggles in the region and in Kurdistan?

Sinan Çiftyürek: Dear comrade, I should write a little brochure to
answer to this question. We prepared a manifesto answering it and we
will soon end the debates around it. After the manifesto assumes its
definite shape in the following weeks, we will translate it into
English and share it with the world communist movement.

After this remark let me explain myself briefly. Firstly, Lenin’s
analysis of imperialism maintains its relevance, but there are also
some new developments and we should take them into consideration. I
think that in a short period of time the `Empire’ thesis was refuted
by life.

Secondly, I believe that globalisation is not something new. Its roots
are in the past. The comment of Marx that history became world history
with capitalism explains many things. The capitalist globalisation
fastened over the last 15-20 years after the socialist block
collapsed.

Thirdly, capitalism is not just historically on the end of the road,
but it also reached its natural (physical) borders. The natural
resources of our earth cannot carry the weight of the capitalist
consumer culture. If the whole Asia and mainly China and India enter
to this culture, the end of our earth will come. So humanity needs
quickly to throw capitalism to the litter bin of history, because
capitalism is dragging humanity and the world to collapse.

Capitalism blessed property and gave it the status of a god, but in
this process a majority of the world is also dispossessed. Capitalism
transformed economic work from a mean to an end, but capitalism also
detaches wage labour from work using technology. Capitalism
commodifies everything human, commercializes everything that is social
and makes nature and humans the notaries of the markets. If production
and consumption were not the undividable aspects of a cycle i.e. if
the large masses were not in a dynamics of consumption, capitalism
will not even consider humans worth exploiting!

9. How do you see the future of national liberation struggles?

Sinan Çiftyürek: The classical national liberation movements on earth
were superseded at the end of the 20th century. After the collapse of
the classical colonialism, the States around the world increased from
40 to above 200. Since everyone encircle their garden with national
fences and put a national flag in the middle of it, the national
independence movements will not be a determining dynamics. There are
only a few unresolved national questions. Briefly, Asia, Africa and
America formally gained their national independence, but imperialism
came back down the chimney after he was ousted from the door. There
are more than 200 states around the world, but only a few can act
independently from imperialism. The conflict between imperialism and
the oppressed peoples is changed after the liquidation of the
classical colonialism in Asia, Africa and Latin America. While the
imperialists’ openly assumed aspects get weaker, its social-class
aspects with their economic, social and cultural content loomed
larger. In the 20th century the determining aim of the national
liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America was national
liberation. In the 21st century this left its place to social
revolutions aiming to economic independence. Briefly, these continents
are preparing to new revolutions against imperialism and also
capitalism. The waves from the depths give the first signs of this.

10. Having suffered a number of defeats as well as changes in the
context over the last couple of decades, what’s the future you see for
left wing politics? What type of movement and organisation do you
think is best suited for the tasks you see ahead? I remember we were
talking of the criticism about centralism and the theocratic
organisation what I think is particularly relevant…

Sinan Çiftyürek: I don’t believe that history is in search for a new
way. In other words, the movement of freedom and socialism are
developing a fight to give again a direction and shape to
history. This fight is growing deeper and on a larger scale than in
the last century, just like the development from the 19th to the 20th
century. I have no doubt of it. Humanity and especially the oppressed
people are preparing for a final fight against capitalism. We are at
the beginning of the 21st century and the communist and today’s
revolutionary movement in general should be liberated from the shadow
of the revolutionary movement of the 20th century. In history, breaks
and continuities always developed side by side. Every break formed a
bridge between the past and the future as continuity. Lenin was a
political genius who could apply the break and the continuity. Lenin
did not repeat the experience of Marxism in the 20th century and he
contributed and reproduced Marxism under the context of changing
conditions on the world and Russia.

The contemporary world communist movement should base on Marxism, on
the relevant universal sides of Leninism and the revolutionary spirit
of the 20th century which attacked the heavens. But it should break
from the political programme and practical struggle methods specific
to the 20th century and from the communist structures of the last
century which became a new social democratic movement.

We understand the communist organisations of the 20th century and
think that it should not be repeated today.

In the 20th century the relationship between discipline and freedom
was defined as freedom in discipline. But freedom did not find a place
to live under the limits of discipline. In the party, organisation
discipline was from outside and we cannot keep it so. We accept and
aim discipline in freedom and to transform discipline to an internal
phenomena.

In the 20th century party structure the determining part of democratic
centralism was centralism. Therefore the place for direct democracy
decreased in the organisation. Today the relationship between
democracy and centralism should be reconfigured to emphasize
democracy.

In the 20th century communist movement the center had the status of
god and the general secretary had the status of the prophet. In a big
party the base of the party i.e. the body followed the central
committee or the general secretary, if they moved to a leftist
position or to right wing opportunism.

Briefly we, Kurdish communists, aim at a party/organisation strong in
the body, not in the centre. The ideological, philosophical, political
power should be concentrated in the body of the organisation. And the
final decision maker should be the body. We call this `organisation or
party strong in body’.