Aytekin Yilmaz’s Literature: Turkey’s
Kurdish Problem and the Critique of Revolutionary Violence
The violent clashes between the Turkish State and the Kurdistan Worker’s
Party (PKK) have been going on for almost four decades. Estimates suggest that
more than 50.000 people were killed so far including armed groups and
civilians. Today, the problem continues to cause detrimental effects on
thousands of lives.
Yet so far,
there have only been few voices, which sound concerns towards what is going on
in the mountains. As a Kurdish writer and a novelist, Aytekin Yilmaz devoted
his entire career to point out the wrongdoings of the PKK in terms of human
rights. As a former member of the PKK, Yilmaz spent nine years of his life in
prison throughout the 1990s and was released in 2001. With what he has
witnessed during this period, Yilmaz wrote two novels and two testimonies in
the past 15 years, published by Turkey’s two biggest publishing houses,
İletisim and Dogan. Yilmaz’s latest novel “Ernesto’nun Dağları” (The Mountains
of Ernesto), a fiction that explores the PKK experience from the perspective of
Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, is published in June 2017.
Yilmaz’s first
work entitled “Labirentin Sonu: İçimizdeki Hapishane” (The End of the
Labyrinth: The Prison within Us) was published in 2003. Written in the form of
a testimony, it narrated the ways in which revolutionary parties, including the
PKK, disciplined the everyday life of political prisoners. During the 1990s,
these parties had complete control over prison spaces where inmates resided in
large groups. After their incarceration by the state, political prisoners found
themselves in an atmosphere dominated by the rules of these parties. The
everyday life was regulated with a high amount of discipline that determined
the activities of every member. In the name of the revolutionary laws, language
was standardized, freedoms were limited, collective activities were held,
reading assignments were distributed and gatherings to discuss the revolution
required the contribution of all members. The organizations had judging
committees, which tried members who did not obey the rules. Yilmaz observes
that the state was non-existent in prisons, yet the PKK and others were acting
like state apparatuses.
In his
testimonies, Yilmaz narrates his disillusionment with the PKK and their
methods. The everyday life is so densely controlled by the party that there
remains too little room for individuality and creativity. The first time when
Yilmaz becomes interested in reading materials other than the writings of
Stalin, he is mockingly warned not to develop “a bourgeoisie behavior”.
Undermining the discontents, Yilmaz begins to read the works of Adorno and
Foucault, and eventually distances himself from the party’s Stalinist
projects. Foucault teaches him about the transforming boundaries of power as he
realizes that relations of power can even be constructed and reproduced within
a revolutionary party that is supposed to overthrow power relations. As Yilmaz
gets more involved in critical readings other than the PKK library, he receives
official warnings. He calls for the responsible party leaders to change their
authoritarian style and embrace freedoms, creativities ad individualities. He
thinks that this is the only way that the revolution can truly succeed to
create a new life for all. However, Yilmaz gets labeled as a “liberal”,
developing close ties with “bourgeoisie ideology” and continues a solitude life
in prison.
Others were not
as lucky as Yilmaz was. Many faced stronger punishments and even death
sentences. Yilmaz’s two novels “Dağbozumu” (Mountain Harvest) (2011),
“Sığınamayanlar” (Ones Who Cannot Take Refuge) (2016) and one testimony
“Yoldaşını Öldürmek” (Murdering the Comrade) (2014) narrates the atrocities
committed by the PKK in mountains and prisons. According to his testimonies,
many party members were accused of “betrayal of the revolution” for various
reasons and were therefore tortured, confined to solitude, imprisoned for life
or sentenced to death. If a party member cannot resist the police torture and
speaks while he/she is arrested, this is considered as a betrayal of the
revolution. When the member is incarcerated by the state, the party’s leading
committee initiates an investigation about the degree of betrayal. Yilmaz
manages to stay silent under the police torture. In his later prison life, his
resistance is considered as a crucial sign of his strong revolutionary
character, therefore he is tolerated for his future actions that conflict with
the party. Yilmaz claims that it is completely understandable for one not to be
able to resist torture because, before the revolutionary identity, he/she is a
human being. Yilmaz finds it very tragic for a revolutionary party to execute
its fellow members just because they could not bear the pain. In “Murdering the
Comrade”, he lists all 36 executions held by the parties, including the PKK,
DHKP-C and others. He further narrates the execution processes of eight party
members that he witnessed.
The executions
did not only take place in prisons. Prisons were only the concentrated areas of
revolutionary practice initiated at the mountains. Yilmaz’s two novels narrate
the atrocities that took place in the party camps. These are narratives based
on Yilmaz’s fictional accounts of the witnesses testifying him during and after
his prison life. Yilmaz observes that political struggles between different
power groups in the party led to the execution of many in mountains. Yet what
he finds striking is that love and militarist ideology were
the two major factors behind the executions.
Love is
prohibited among party members. Homosexuality is strictly forbidden and is not
considered legitimate. Loving is considered as a “bourgeoisie habit” which
poses the danger to distance oneself from revolution. According to Yilmaz,
members who felt in love with each other were prosecuted and couples who did
not end their relations were executed. In “Ones Who Cannot Take Refuge”, Yilmaz
introduces a feminist perspective by pointing out how women were subordinated
by these practices. Young Kurdish women find it charming to join the party to
be free from patriarchal Kurdish culture. However, Yilmaz warns that they find
themselves under the disciplinary practices of a military-patriarchal ideology.
There are several testimonies where women were raped, got pregnant and are
executed for acting against the party laws, despite no prosecution done for the
perpetrator. Besides, the militarist ideology does not allow the members who
give up their struggle and wish to return to civilian life. The fates of these
members also end up with escape attempts where few survive and most of them are
sentenced to death.
Yilmaz’s
literature declares that no revolution can be successful if it is the enemy of
love and conscientious objection.
In “Murdering
the Comrade”, Yilmaz asserts that 1030 party members were murdered by the
revolutionaries between 1990 and 1999 in the mountains, the PKK leading with
904 executions. He draws attention to the fact that although human rights
associations hold the exact numbers of people arrested, prosecuted or killed by
the Turkish police, there are no records regarding the atrocities committed by
the PKK. According to Yilmaz, this is a tragic mistake, which leads to the
legitimization of “revolutionary violence”. Today, we still see the weekly gatherings
of “Saturday Mothers”, women whose children were lost throughout the 1990s,
seeking answers from the state regarding the whereabouts of their beloved ones.
Yilmaz reminds that the mothers of the party members who were executed by the
PKK cannot get involved in these gatherings. They cannot even search for their
beloved ones since if they do; they are labelled as the parents of traitors.
Their testimonies are completely silenced.
Yilmaz’s last
novel, “The Mountains of Ernesto” is a radical critique of Turkey’s leftist
political circles, that sympathizes with revolutionary ideals. In his novel,
Yilmaz creates a fictional account of the guerilla life in the mountains,
placing the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara at the center of the
narrative. Ernesto is a Kurdish guerilla who interrogates the party’s
revolutionary methods, consisting of similar kinds of objections raised by
Yilmaz’s previous novels. Ernesto is a disillusioned guerilla who struggles to
negotiate his passion for revolutionary ideals with the misdeeds of the
organization, which he considers as destroying any real chance of possibilities
that would actualize the revolution. The narrative shows how the organization,
implicitly pointing out the PKK and its leader Abdullah Ocalan, reproduces a
totalitarian party with suppressing individualities, human reason, love for
nature and humanity as well as a cult of leader personality, which actually
contradicts with true revolutionary ethics. The narrative argues that a
revolutionary agenda should be based on fostering the lives of humanity and the
nature, rather than their destruction. Even a revolutionary like Che would be
disillusionment with the party’s way of handling a revolution, becomes the main
understanding conveyed by the novel.
Yilmaz’s
literature points out the fundamental necessity to see the events from the
perspective of victims, be it a Turkish soldier or a Kurdish warrior. It
champions life, over death. For him, the life of one single individual is more
precious than the kind of revolution that a party seeks. A revolutionary act,
which disciplines lives, dehumanizes individuals, disseminates fear and
promotes death, cannot be a true revolutionary struggle and is doomed to fail.
Yilmaz precisely suggests that the PKK should end the military struggle and
seek civilian, democratic politics. In recent years, pro-Kurdish HDP (People’s
Democratic Party) appeared as a political alternative seeking a democratic
solution. However, they also failed to face the atrocities committed by the
PKK. For Yilmaz, their democratic success is also dependent upon their
confrontation with the past, rather than solely targeting the Turkish state’s
wrongdoings. This is the only way for a proper reconciliation to take place in
the future.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder