When the PKK was established in the seventies, it affected all levels of Kurdish society, shaking Atatürk’s “indestructible” Turkish nation (Rugman & Hutchings, 1996, p.26). Most scholars mention that the PKK started as a radical group of students led by Abdullah Öcalan who began his career as a student of political science at the Ankara University. From a group of six, Öcalan’s group would, in less than twenty years, recruit tens of thousands of guerrillas, establish camps and offices in dozens of countries attract the full attention of the Turkish state and gather support from the Kurdish masses in Turkey and Diaspora societies. Early in Kurdish history, elites who followed tribal lines fronted the revolts. In contrast to this the PKK stands out as a movement that was built up from nothing (Romano, 2006, p. 70-71). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a brief period of progressive politics in Turkey, and this enabled Kurdish intellectuals in Istanbul and Ankara to form cultural clubs and
organisations. During the summer of 1967, mass student demonstrations broke out in 19 Kurdish cities and towns, and marchers in the Kurdish capital Diyarbakir included up to 25 000 (Kutschera, 1994, p. 12).
After a planning period of two years, the party was formally founded in the Fis village in Kurdistan in the southeast of Turkey in November 1978 (Gunter, 1990, 1997; Marcus, 2007; McDowall, 2000; Özcan, 2006; White, 2000). It started as an illegal party planning for an independent Kurdish state, and freedom for all Kurds living in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria (Marcus, 2007, p. 9). At this point, there was increasing tension on the political scene in Turkey. In 1980, Öcalan established a training base in the Bekaa valley and later also ideological camps for education (Gunter; 1990, 1997; Marcus, 2007; McDowall, 2000;
Özcan, 2006; Romano, 2006; van Bruinessen, 1988, 2000a; White, 2000). Through education, determination, the ability to organise, and the willingness to take great risks, the PKK reached its main objectives: winning the sympathy of the Kurdish peasants and demonstrating the limits of state control (Romano, 2006, p. 77). The PKK’s resistance against Turkish military power slowly turned the party into a political force (White, 2000) and from a group of 50 fighters in 1984 the number of guerrillas slowly increased until it reached the number of 50 000 in 1994. Özcan (2006, p. 19) argues that the PKK-led insurgence which developed from a small group of university students in the early seventies came to be the biggest challenge to the Turkish state in the twentieth century.
By the end of the 1980s, the PKK had the full attention of the state authorities and the Turkish public. The fact that two thirds of the Turkish land forces were stationed in Kurdistan shows that the PKK had become a severe threat to the state (Romano, 2006, p. 51). The ability of the PKK to engage the grass roots in education and political activities seems to have led to increasing awareness and may explain why in the first part of the 1990s the PKK became a mass movement.
Even if the PKK had massive popular support during the 1990s, it was also a decade of devastating war. The Turkish army carried out aggressive attacks. Those who suffered the most were innocent inhabitants of Kurdish cities and villagers who resisted serving the Turkish state as village guards. About 3- 4 000 villages were burnt or totally destroyed, livestock slaughtered. Many villagers were shot or imprisoned; they fled the area or were forced to leave. White found that the forced evacuation of villagers continued until 1997 and
reached about two million people by the end of that year23 (White, 2000, p. 172). People were placed in large encampments or they managed to flee to the towns and cities in Kurdistan or to Western Turkey, facing severe problems such as housing, employment and schooling.
Thousands of children were orphaned, left to a future on the streets and their only means to survive was petty-trade, begging or prostitution.
After years of fighting, the PKK sought a political solution to the conflict. This effort was underlined by the declaration of its first unilateral ceasefire in 1993. This truce was not successful as the ceasefire was broken the same year. Being committed to a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, Öcalan again declared ceasefires in 1995 and 1998. Turkey, however, maintained their position not to negotiate with ‘terrorists’.
In October 1998, Turkey demanded Syria to expel the PKK and hand over Abdullah Öcalan. After 20 years of support, Syria abandoned the PKK. Öcalan escaped and started a journey to different European countries24 hoping to be granted asylum. He was, however, systematically turned down, also by countries that were normally sympathetic to the Kurdish cause25. After a stay in Nairobi, waiting for transfer to South Africa, Öcalan was abducted on his way to the airport and handed over to Turkish special forces (McDowall, 2000, pp. 442-444). From his cell on the remote island of Imrali, he later demanded a complete withdrawal of PKK forces from Turkey and the end of all military activity. A few days later, the PKK announced that it had abandoned the military struggle.
To the PKK and its members, the capture of Öcalan was a catastrophe, and motivated a restructuring of the organisation. During the PKK’s Eighth Congress in 2002, the party established its successor KADEK (Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan). It abandoned armed struggle and regarded Serhildan26 as its only legitimate form of action.
KADEK was replaced the year after, in 2003, by KONGRA-GEL (Kurdistan People’s Congress). The reason was that KADEK’s leninistic structure was not suited to encounter a modern, democratic and ecological society. In addition, KONGRA-GEL, which is regarded as the political wing of the PKK, espoused the HPG (People’s Defence Forces). The PKK has announced several concrete initiatives for peace, but according to Yildiz & Muller (2008, p.
113): “Turkey did not recognize the unilaterally declared PKK ceasefire of June 1999, just as
23 It is estimated that there are 3 million people are displaced because of the war. The refugees have not received properly compensation for their losses or permitted to return.
24 Öcalan went from Syria to Russia, then to Italy, back to Russia and next to Greece and Kenya where he was abducted.
25 Italy has been known for expressing a pro-Kurdish politics.
26 Popular uprisings. These uprisings have gradually increased since 1980.
she has not recognized subsequent PKK declared ceasefires.” Turkey never responded to any calls by the Kurds for the opening of democratic dialogue on the issue.
The tragic result of the war between the PKK and Turkish military forces, accompanied by state security operations, was that thousands of Kurdish villages were destroyed. Displacement, torture, and arbitrary killings committed by the military and security forces, became commonplace (Yildiz & Muller, 2008, p. 10). In addition to huge material damages, 31 000 people lost their lives, and the infrastructure collapsed in the southeast. Also, some 3 million people were internally displaced (Gunter, 2000, p. 848). Thousands of political prisoners filled up the prisons (see article III). Popular approval peaked in 1999 with the capturing of Öcalan, an act that had a strong symbolic character and led to demonstrations and protests from Kurds all over the world. Sixty-five persons burnt themselves to death to mark their protest and sorrow (van Bruinessen, 2000a; Westrheim, 2001a; see also article II).
The struggle of the PKK in all its forms represents the greatest Kurdish movement in modern times.
No matter how one considers the significance of Öcalan’s contribution to the Kurdish question, there seems to be no doubt that the PKK under his leadership actually initiated a new political consciousness among the Kurds. As the PKK gained increasing support in the population, Öcalan himself became the icon of the masses: a freedom fighter and a nation builder for a suppressed people (Westrheim, 2001a). The PKK’s ability to sustain a campaign of armed struggle against the well-armed Turkish army is one reason why it gained such power and popular support in both urban and rural Kurdish areas, as well as from the Kurdish Diaspora (Hassanpour, 1994). The perhaps most characteristic trait of the PKK movement, however, is its strong educative elements. I will therefore look into the educational profile of this kind of movement.