April 4th: Birth of people - 1

Searching for Kurds' truth

The leader Abdullah Ocalan took his place in the ranks of the peoples struggling for their existence, and quickly turned in a relatively short period to the pioneer of the liberation movement seeking to rid the Kurds and all cultures of the Middle East from colonialism and fascist regimes.

Since his early years, leader Abdullah Ocalan decided to lead the helm of the lifeboat to bring the peoples to safety.

How the march of struggle for the leader who was born on April 4, 1949 started in the village of Amara (Omerli) in Khalafti district in the city of Ruha (Urfa).

  The leader divides his personal and organizational life in the volume "Defense of People" (The Pleading Submitted to the European Court of Human Rights) into three stages. In this dossier, these stages will be discussed according to what he mentioned in his arguments and books that he authored.

The first stage of the leader's life

Leader Ocalan says about the first stage of his life in the volume "Defense of People": "It starts with going to elementary school, after I first showed reactions to my family and the village."

 The initiation of primary education is the first important step in the emergence of interest in statesmanship, as the personality takes its transitional step from communal society to state society, and proceeds in conjunction with urbanization.

As for the preparatory, secondary and university study stages, and employment; they are preliminary preparations for the formation of the statesman, and the personality of the city and the state intransigently dominating the personalities of everyone in this period of life. As for being a backward state and crushed nationalism; it turns into reactions to the state…"

In the manifesto of democratic civilization (the Kurdish Question and the Solution of the Democratic Nation), leader Abdullah Ocalan explains in detail what he lived at this stage, and says, "My main concern was to form small units of children. So, I even took the initiative to form my own congregation which I used to lead while going to elementary school.

Leader Abdullah Ocalan continues in other parts of the volume "The Kurdish Question and the Solution of the Democratic Nation" his talk about childhood and study in his life, and says, "When I encountered the Turkish education system in the elementary school stage of my childhood, the truth about Kurdism used to barely manifest a shady imagination, and it resulted in many questions in my mind and soul. Turkification did not appeal to me, and in the depths of my soul I began to feel the effect of humiliation and self-deprecation because of this imposed practice, and the first thing that came to my mind was the search for family links with Turkism.

The distant kinship relations on the part of the mother with the Turkism did not have much the power of a solution; however, patriarchal feelings of a Kurdish nature used to impose their presence in public, and I could not escape from this reality, which also based on it, I suffered the first wound with the start of primary education, where I developed the awareness resulting from the first contact with Kurdism as a very problematic fact, while not such a feeling has developed much among my peers.

As for the way to bridge the gap between me and the children who adopt the Turkism of the Republic in the old Armenian village where the school in which I received my primary education is located, it was passing from my being loved by teachers, and it seems that my constant impulse to obtain the first degree, starting from the primary stage, was a defensive method against the negatives that might result from the Kurdish reality.

In this way, I wanted to prove my privacy, and I succeeded in that. I maintained this success until the last year of university studies without interruption, and in this way I had proven to "friend and enemy" alike how serious and worthy I am in being a true man. This is how I became able to engage in important matters.

In fact, I had also succeeded in the more classical area of ​​religious awareness, by memorizing the Quranic surahs by heart. I had memorized thirty-three short surahs. So I made an ascending path by advancing to the bottom of the pulpit to perform the prayer near the village's imam, and the imam’s answer was as follows: "O Abdullah, you will fly if you continue at this speed!"

My attachment was another way of securing ability and competence and opening an outlet for myself, so I had acquired a favorable place among the ranks of traditional society as well. At the time, I settled with these two methods, and the other topics did not interest me.

In 1969, I dared to head towards socialist thought, and then I turned to Kurdism in 1970. It was essential to walk the two together; however, the style of my handling of these two irreversible realities would not, at first, go beyond the scope of having characteristics dominated by dogmatic because that was a period called the Slogans Revolution, and I was struggling to find my way based on a few initial slogans.

I was always alert, of course, to skilled teachers. Among the main slogans I sanctified were: "The Kurdish Is Present," "The Kurdish Question Exists," "Nations Have the Right to Decide Their Own Destiny and Establish a State," "The Most Correct Way to Solve the National Issue Passes through Socialism," "The National Liberation War May Have to Be Taken into Account," and "The Establishment of a National Party Is Present in the Event that It Is Impossible to Establish a Joint Party."

I was full of contradictions when I dealt with the national and social affairs of the Kurds at the beginning of the seventies ... At that exact time, I began searching for a solution in the right-wing or left-wing entities in conflict with each other to get rid of this spiritual state. I remember that I took the pulse on the right first, being a person drawn to his prayer and reverence. The days during which I performed prayer in the Maltepe Mosque in Ankara until the year 1969, and the days during which I used to guide others were not few. I even had the opportunity to personally hear "Naguib Fadil Kaysakurk," who was always called "The Great Professor," when I attended the conference that he held in the "Turkish Club" building. I was enthusiastic at the time, and I hardly remember the "Big East" magazine as well.... I met Süleyman Demirel and Rafik Korkut also in the "Anti-Communist Association" building, and then I don't know how I found the book "The Alphabet of Socialism" placed under my pillow. I started reading it automatically.

I had finished my studies in 1970 and appointed a state employee in Diyarbakir, and there I got acquainted with the monthly salary and bribes.... My interest gradually increased in Kurdism, which the city’s atmosphere was motivating and dragging me to. This is the story of my first deposit on the Kurdism path.

I enrolled in the Faculty of Law at Istanbul University in 1970. Knowing about Istanbul and working as an employee in an upscale neighborhood like "Baqir Koy" would become influential. These days witnessed a noticeable moment by DDKO and DEV-GENÇ. I leaned towards both sides and even became an official member of DDKO.

My last memory in Istanbul relates to a meeting held in the hall of the Istanbul Technical University in the Mashka neighborhood ... It was one of the most important articulation meetings in the history of DEV-GENÇ. Suddenly, Maher Jayan and Youssef Copley entered the hall.

Maher and his companions' launch was an important role in my registration in the Faculty of Political Sciences in Ankara, based on a scholarship and at the rate that enabled me to occupy my place among the top twenty students. Then I became an advocator in THKP-C in 1972.

Tomorrow: My goal is to create a struggling organization and fighting people

D.H

ANHA