The Kurdistan National Liberation Movement: Paradigm Change and Transformation from National Liberation to Democratic Liberation

Abstract

Abstract This thesis examines the paradigm change and transformation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – the PKK and how it became the hegemonic dominant actor in the Kurdistan National Liberation Movement. The thesis argues that the Kurdish Question is an international question that can only be solved through the doctrine of National liberation aiming for National Right to Self-Determination discourse. Such a paradigm change and transformation of the PKK consists of four stages: Formation, Reformation, Transformation and Re-transformation. Throughout the nineteenth century and three quarters of the twentieth century, Kurdish national and political organisations had failed to secure the national and political rights of communities in Kurdistan. Those failures caused a radical revolutionary emergence, such as the PKK in Bakur Kurdistan. The PKK formed when the KDP-led revolt in Bashur failed. National right to self-determination for an independent, united and democratic Kurdistan was the manifest of the PKK from 1973 to 1993. A Political party, a guerrilla army and national liberation front was formed. The Re-formation stage started when the PKK evaluated the national, regional and international changes, and began negotiations with the Turkish state. The thesis argues that the PKK was successful in the formation stage and had a stalemate at the reformation stage, which cost president Özal his life, and resulted in the life imprisonment of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan. It argues that at the third stage, Transformation, the PKK tried to save its leader’s life as well as safeguards the movement from total failure. Therefore, it started to totally transform the party, the front and the guerrilla army. A comprehensive paradigm change occurred and the National Liberation Strategy transformed into the Democratic Liberation Strategy. The Democratic Liberation Strategy began in March 1999 up until July 2015, when the latest so-called ‘solution process’ totally failed. The fourth and final stage of Re-transformation is necessary to examine because the Democratic Liberation Strategy, which was based on ‘Democratic Autonomy’, has failed and has not guaranteed any legal political rights to Kurdish communities. Therefore, this study concludes that a Re-transformation of the PKK paradigm is a necessity especially at this historically, politically and diplomatically critical time in Kurdistan’s national and political history. This examination is based on a wide range of qualitative contemporary resources, the PKK literature and its journals with interviews, alongside a variety of comprehensive observations that were conducted during my fieldwork in Bashur as well as in Bakur Kurdistan.