HPG fighter Haki Pir talked about his roots in a reactionary environment and his path from the army to the guerrillas. "The real enemy of Turkish identity is the racist ideology of Turkism," he said.

The PKK is an internationalist movement beyond any ethnic demarcation. The PKK is waging a social, anti-sexist and anti-racist struggle in which Turks have also participated from the very beginning. Haki Karer and Kemal Pir, for example, were among the first Turkish-born internationalists in the Kurdish liberation movement. Guerrilla fighter Haki Pir is Turkish too, and has adopted the names of both revolutionaries as his battle name.

Growing up in a conservative and right-wing extremist environment, he became a professional soldier in the Turkish army. There he also met his first Kurdish friends. The discrepancy between the official doctrine, which was also his, and the Kurdistan reality he now perceived created initial contradictions with his then "reality" and ultimately led him to the PKK. "Turkish nationalism is the greatest danger to the Turkish people," said Haki Pir. This is evident in the state in which Turkish society finds itself due to fascism and militarism.

Where are you from and what kind of society did you grow up in?

I was born in Niğde and have spent my whole life there. I grew up in a conservative and nationalist, poor, working-class environment. It was an introverted, very conservative society. We lived in the city, but since there was also a connection to the village, I was shaped by a synthesis of city and village culture.

The first contradiction in my life was between the village and the city. Village life always attracted me. I took every opportunity to stay there, even for a day longer. Everything in the village felt warm and sincere. For me, it was the only place where there was a collective lifestyle, love for the land and nature, work, simple beliefs without exaggeration and people who were sincere.

Life in the city has always had a negative impact on me. I had difficulty adapting. The laws of morality and freedom that applied in the village did not work in the city. I perceived the city as a monster that frightens people, drives them crazy, imprisons them and pushes them into helplessness. Having no other choice, I was forced to endure the city and moved towards urbanization - that is, towards becoming a monster. To achieve the beautiful life promised by capitalism, I wanted to be the best everywhere.

I lived this cycle by joining religious orders to be the best Muslim, turning to the idealist societies [Gray Wolves] to be the best Turk, working in the factory with the aim of being the best worker, breaking rules to be the best friend, and taking exams to be the best student. Even now, I do not know exactly in which category to classify my beliefs and social cultural practices, myself, my family and my environment, and by what to define them. Religion and national consciousness have become so exaggerated and corrupted that within the current system, seeking and living the truth about them can be no more than a dream.

What were your feelings towards the Kurdish people when you were stuck in this system?

The word that scared us the most in our childhood was "gypsies". We were always told who the "gypsies" were, how they traveled, how they stole and kidnapped children. We rejected them as a society in an organized form and there were many conversations that started with "the Kurds and Armenians".

They were all conducted in a rhetoric of hatred and contempt. The first swear words we learned were always directed against them. It was like a game for us: whoever swears gets candy, chocolate or a reward. We didn’t like the "gypsies". "We chased them out of the neighborhood, but we didn’t insult them. We were made to believe that Kurds and Armenians, who we didn’t even know were a people, whom we had never seen, were worse than "gypsies".

When I was seven or eight years old, I first met a Kurdish family who had fled a blood feud and had to move to our neighborhood to cover their tracks. Even before they unloaded their belongings from the truck, the whole neighborhood, young and old, became restless. Everyone wanted them to leave, but they had to stay, and they stayed, risking everything, giving up their identity. Even if they didn't say "I am Kurdish," no one in the neighborhood felt comfortable. Even the man who rented them his house was threatened and beaten. They were constantly ostracized and humiliated.

The most common expressions I remember were memorized phrases like "murderers, separatists, traitors, descendants of infidels," and they applied to every Kurd. Of course, there were prominent spokespersons who organized all this and incited the neighborhood. The tragic thing was that these people were not Turks themselves, they were Albanians and Muhajirs [descendants of Muslim migrants from the Ottoman Empire]. Our relations with the Muhajirs and Albanians were very close; they were sincere, honest and responsible. But the "Turkishness disease" made them forget their own culture, and they had to display behaviors unworthy of the essence of Turkish culture in the name of the Turks. The greatest enemy of the Turks is Turkism, which has been separated from its essence and created at a table by distorting the original.

How were the Kurdish people viewed in this context?

After all that had happened, when we learned that there was a people and that they lived in the East, we thought that the Kurdish people were backward, wild and barbaric, that they were easily deceived by our global enemies because they were ignorant, that they were made up of rebels who were always rising up to overthrow the state, and that this people could never be trusted.

The ethnic and cultural existence of the Kurdish people was like a bomb that was about to explode, threatening both our religious and national integrity. They were interpreted as the hump on Turkey's back that prevented it from rising up.

Some said, "The Kurds are the snakes we feed in our womb." The anachronism of their traditions, customs and tribal organization was seen as a problem to be overcome. Kurds were tolerated because they were cheap labor and did their work with high productivity. As this situation led to constant competition between Turkish and Kurdish workers, they were marginalized by the working class and abused by the employers. Today, the same problem is being imposed on Arab and Afghan migrants. On one side are the exploited and assimilated peoples, on the other side is the state, which uses security concerns as populist political material and leverage.

What was your attitude towards the Kurdish people and the PKK during your time as a Turkish soldier, and what was the reason that made you break with all of that and join the PKK?

The motto "Happy is the one who calls himself a Turk" was practically instilled in our cradle, and for the state, every child is a seed. The state plants this seed in kindergarten at the age of four to five. It does everything it needs to make it grow accordingly. It constantly waters, fertilizes, hoes and prunes it until it bears fruit. One of these fruits is military service. My hostility towards the Kurdish people and the PKK, which began in my childhood, grew with each passing year. Military service was the culmination of my hatred for the Kurdish people. I always thought that I would have the chance to face my enemies, whom I had hated for years, and take revenge.

During my military service, I met my first Kurdish friends. A deep relationship with them soon developed. The process of getting to know the Kurdish people began with them and lasted until 2014. With each Kurd I met, I realized that what we had been told in the past was a lie. It took six to seven years for the profile of the "evil Kurd" imprinted on my mind to change and for me to get to know the Kurdish people in reality.

Neither in Adıyaman nor in Dersim could I realize the things I had dreamed of during my military service. I could not adapt to the centralized, hierarchical system of the state. My contradictions, which had started in the army, multiplied. Both the injustices within the army and the injustices towards society reached a level that could no longer be ignored. I was torn between duty and conscience.

After some back and forth, I decided to leave the army, which was rewarded with a one-year prison sentence for breach of contract. Prison was the beginning of enlightenment for me, and I began to better distinguish between white and black. I recognized inequality as a child, witnessed injustice during my military service, and understood the lack of freedom that resulted from remaining silent about it.

I was released from prison and was filled with the desire to achieve equality, freedom, and justice. For five years, however, I could not find where and with what struggle I could defend the social values ​​I believed in. During this period of passive search, I began to live in a neighborhood where the Kurdish people were in the majority but were still oppressed. Together with them, I had the opportunity to get to know the Kurdish people, the culture of Kurdistan, and the PKK freedom movement up close. When I heard the Newroz message by Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] in 2013, I imagined a Turkey so beautiful that I dreamed about it for a few minutes.

The message of democracy, equality, peace and brotherhood was very strong and sincere. With this event, my eyes opened, and I began to look into the distance. I began to walk towards the horizon where I believe the truth lies. My orientation, which now appears as a change from one side of the front to the other, is essentially a result of commitment to principles and goals.

The first front, where I fought for the safe coexistence of peoples in equality, freedom, justice and prosperity, did not give me the opportunity to realize these goals, but on the contrary, pushed me further away from them. I felt that I could achieve the goals through the PKK. I believe in this more than ever today.

To be continued...