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Time magazine in its April 29-May 6, 2013, issue listed Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), among the “100 most influential people in the world.” There is no doubt that Öcalan is highly influential among the Kurds. The celebrations of his 64th birthday in the village in southeast Turkey where he was born on April 4 of this year attracted thousands of people. Those who prayed and felt with their hands the soil around the house where he was born were a clear indication that for many Kurds Öcalan has assumed almost a sacred character beyond his political leadership.
How has Öcalan achieved an influence among the Kurds that goes far beyond the borders of Turkey while being confined for the last 14 years to a prison cell on an island in the Sea of Marmara? There is no doubt that the primary reason for this is the policies of authoritarian uniculturalism pursued by the Kemalist state that denied the Kurds' existence, subjected them to forced assimilation and brutally suppressed their objections. In this context the torture and extrajudicial killings that Kurdish activists were subjected to during the military regime in Turkey between 1980 and 1983 had a special role to play in extending Öcalan's authority. In short, Öcalan owes his influence essentially to Kemalism.
The Kemalist regime in Turkey has contributed to Öcalan's influence in other ways than those mentioned above. The view that the “deep state” in Turkey covertly helped the violent PKK to broaden its ranks in order to declare illegitimate the struggle Kurds were waging for their identity rights and justify its suppression by force is not at all unfounded. It is no coincidence that such views are common among Kurdish liberal intellectuals who believe that the Kemalist state has taken advantage of the armed insurgency led by the PKK to kill some of the most valued sons and daughters of the Kurdish people and to destroy and depopulate their land.
It is well known that Öcalan when he set out in the 1970s to unite all Kurds under the flag of a communist Kurdistan through armed revolution was inspired by the Marxist-Leninist movement of Turkey of which he was a member. It is equally well known that Öcalan in order to consolidate his authority among Turkey's Kurds ordered not only the killing of activists belonging to rival Kurdish groups but also those who opposed his views within the PKK. This is why even among Kurds who sympathize with the PKK's cause there are those who think that the close to 5,000 internal executions within the PKK will have to be accounted for one day.
The PKK has definitely fought for its changing aims mainly through guerilla warfare against Turkish security forces. But it has not abstained from terrorism, from targeting unarmed civilians. It has even massacred children and women from Kurdish tribes that have sided with the state against it and terrorized Kurds who have opposed its methods by threatening and killing them. This is mainly why most Kurds vote not for the political wing of the PKK, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), but for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in power. This is mainly why a majority of the Kurds is opposed to a kind of autonomy under PKK dominance.
I do believe that Öcalan is no longer what he used to be, that he has left behind most -- if not all -- of his past mistakes and is determined to replace armed insurgency by legitimate, non-violent political struggle. I find it commendable that he has ordered the PKK to cease fire and withdraw its armed militants from Turkey's territory. I support his being put under house arrest soon and receiving amnesty when domestic peace in the country is consolidated. For many years I have been advocating that Turkey's Constitution meets the common, legitimate and democratic demands of the Kurds. The PKK will not, however, shed the terrorist label as long as it does not lay down arms for good and stop threatening for good Kurds who do not sympathize with it. It is remarkable that Gerry Adams, one of the architects of peace in Northern Ireland, considers none of the issues about Öcalan's record raised above in his article for Time magazine.