Sociologist Engin Sustam said that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has become a stronghold of resistance for the Kurdish people, and that its struggle has not ended but has instead evolved into a new phase.

Sustam emphasized that the Kurdish Freedom Movement has gone far beyond being a classical organization and has now transformed into an international people’s movement. Referring to the latest congress declaration, he said the call made to socialists was particularly significant.

The first part of the interview with sociologist Engin Sustam can be read here.

Another issue raised following the dissolution decision is the attempt to create the perception that the struggle has come to an end. Is the 50-year struggle of the PKK truly over with this decision?

As a people’s movement, the PKK exists across many domains and components; as a social movement, an armed movement, legal politics, a cultural force, civil disobedience, and intellectual engagement. It also embodies the history and memory of these dynamics and has become a stronghold for the Kurdish people’s social existence and resistance. It is now transitioning into a new phase.

I think the word ‘ending’ is an overly simplistic formula. In anti-systemic movements, the dynamics of struggle change physically, but they do not disappear. Since its foundation as a movement of rebellion, the Kurdish Movement has not vanished; it has entered into new political missions. Even as it dissolves itself, it does not cease to exist; it creates new spaces within the evolving dynamics of the struggle.”

Yes, the armed struggle may be ending, but that does not mean the Kurdish freedom struggle is over. This is a political structure that has long recognized the limitations of armed resistance, even since the mid-1990s, and has been unable to find a legitimate counterpart to engage with. We can now say that this structure is transforming into a laboratory for a new kind of resistance and social transformation.

In this sense, although there are certain risks, I see this step positively and want to remain hopeful. Like many others, I am also a subject of this issue. As one of the Academics for Peace who was lynched, dismissed from my job, and forcibly displaced, I know what exile feels like. But I also know that the experience of being uprooted from one’s homeland is a reality shared by all Kurds. So of course, we have our fears and anxieties.

It is time to focus on politics that empowers the Kurdish language

One of the most critical first steps in this new phase of the struggle would be the complete demilitarization of the region, which would significantly contribute to the process. Taking political steps to enable the return of displaced people to their homes would help establish civil disobedience rooted in a strong democratic experience.

Rather than speaking under the shadow of weapons, we can now discuss the grammar of freedom for the Kurdish question and the equal citizenship status of Kurds within a civil and democratic space. And I say this despite the layers of state violence, repression, and control.

Perhaps it is also time to insist on a different area of struggle, to focus on a politics that empowers the Kurdish language, which has been marked as the source of cultural existence and a diplomatic tool. Therefore, this dissolution does not signify the absence of demands. On the contrary, many demands have already been voiced and achieved, and this opens up a new arena of struggle to strengthen those gains.

This situation goes beyond what the state desires and beyond the cheap definitions of ‘defeat’ that some people are quick to use. We are standing at the threshold of a new era, one in which a new generation, a post-PKK generation, begins to shape its own experience.

As a social movement, a movement of resistance, an organization, and a mass movement, the PKK has created a political line and a generation capable of producing a collective consciousness that could transform the Middle East, Kurdistan, and Turkey. This does not mean something has ended. On the contrary, a difficult struggle is beginning, one tied to a peace process whose name has not even been spoken yet.

In anti-systemic social movements, actors always change their methods of struggle. Weapons were never the goal, they were a necessity. And now, they are letting go of this counter-violence method.

The Kurdish movement has become an international people’s movement

The strong experiences of municipal governance developed in the post-2000 era, and the fact that the legal political representation of the Kurdish movement currently stands as the third-largest opposition force in Turkey, show that even if the PKK dissolves itself, it can still channel its energy into new paths.

Following the revolution in Rojava in 2012, the practices of autonomy and confederalism have become the only democratic model in Syria. Likewise, it is now clear that the Kurdish political movement in Turkey will serve as the foundation of a grassroots democratic initiative that can open space in the legal sphere without violence. Despite all the risks, this is not only crucial for resolving the Kurdish question, but also for democratizing Turkey through its own internal dynamics.

To reiterate, neither Mr.Öcalan’s words nor the decisions taken at the PKK’s 12th Congress are entirely new. We can recall similar developments during the Özal era. What we are dealing with here is not an organization addicted to violence, but one that used it as a means and has now, as an actor in this struggle, made the decision to dissolve itself.

This does not mean that what occurred during the 1980s and 1990s will not be subject to critical reflection. On the contrary, we are talking about a political structure that has made the historical positioning and memory of the Kurdish question visible and has approached violence as a tool within an anti-colonial framework.

As you know, there were many different Kurdish national political experiences before the PKK. What distinguishes the PKK from the movements of the 1970s is that, for the first time in Kurdish history, it redefined the position of this issue and expanded it to a transnational dimension. It became a cross-border guerrilla movement and a founding force of a collective social, political, and cultural memory.

Take the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), for example. After more than sixty years of armed struggle, it achieved political gains, together with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), following the fall of Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. This paved the way for a federative structure in Kurdistan and contributed to the formation of a decolonial memory, ushering in a post-conflict era.

In this sense, the Kurdish movement in Turkey has moved beyond being a traditional organization. Through the institutional, social, cultural, and political dynamics it has generated, it has evolved into a transnational and international people’s movement. At the same time, it is now opening the path for civil politics and laying the groundwork for social dialogue.

This dissolution process also prompts us to reconsider whether it is possible, for the parties involved in armed conflict, to communicate outside the framework of weapons. From this point forward, it should not be weapons that speak, it must be civil politics, guided by dialogue and a commitment to social peace.

The congress declaration included a strong call to socialists for joint struggle. Is such cooperation possible?

There has always been the possibility of joint struggle, and of course, it still exists. The real question is whether the socialists in Turkey are ready for it. I believe that only when we stop shouting ‘long live’ or ‘down with’ this or that, in other words, when we move beyond slogans and agitation and instead step into the fields of struggle and transform the streets into spaces of peace and social solidarity, then the space for joint struggle will naturally reveal itself.

Look at Rojava. The field of joint struggle exists. Many different dynamics are acting together against violence, authoritarianism, and fascism and not all of them are socialists or leftists.

The core question is this: when will the Turkish left break free from its nationalist and nation-state-centered whirlpool? If they can look at Kurdistan not through the lens of the ‘National Pact’ (Misak-ı Milli), but instead through a framework of shared citizenship and autonomy, then I believe they will no longer postpone Kurdish liberation to some future revolution or distant spring.

At this point, perhaps it would be useful to follow a historical trajectory. Maybe we need to consider the Kurdish Movement as the last radical, insurgent, armed movement. From there, we must ask whether a genuine space for joint struggle is possible and let the field answer that question.

First and foremost, it is essential that the Kurds themselves come to a collective decision about joint struggle. Naturally, this space will interact with Turkish, Arab, and Persian democrats and leftists. Or to put it differently, we are looking at a long political history that includes many Kurdish movements since the 1960s — such as KUK, Rizgarî, Kawa, DDKO, DDKD, PSK, and TKDP. But for the past 45 years, this Kurdish history has been carried forward through the PKK. And now, within this memory, we have arrived at the end of the armed struggle.

The Kurdish Movement was born from the spirit of the post-coup 1970s generation a generation radicalized and suppressed by military violence, one that gave rise to anti-systemic social and political movements. Just like the People's Liberation Army of Turkey (THKO) of Deniz Gezmiş, the People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (THKP-C) of Mahir Çayan, or the Communist Labor Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TİKKO) of İbrahim Kaypakkaya, whose analysis of the Kurdish question remains relevant even today, the Kurdish youth of that era, influenced heavily by the Right to Self-Determination of Nations (UKKTH), and by the Soviet, Chinese, and Guevarist revolutionary traditions, set out on a path believing in the anti-colonial freedom of the people of Kurdistan.

In a time when the global left is suffering, they reaffirm that insisting on socialism is insisting on being human

Putting conspiracy theories aside, the Kurdish Movement was formed by the most radicalized faction of the 1968 generation, shaped by the spirit of Palestinian resistance, anti-colonial struggles in Algeria and Vietnam, and led intellectually by figures like Abdullah Öcalan and his comrades Hakî Karer, Mazlum Doğan, Kemal Pir, Sakine Cansız, Rıza Altun, Ali Haydar Kaytan, and Cemil Bayık. It was a movement born out of the influence of a generation of students in Turkey’s cities, deeply inspired by the socialist struggles of the era.

This formation did not emerge solely from the trauma of the 1980 military coup or the torture in Diyarbakır Prison. It was also the result of the accumulated memory of all Kurdish political currents since the early 20th century, particularly those that gained momentum after the 1960s.

The Kurdish political movement became a space of transformation, a home for long-lasting change in the Kurdish regions. It radicalized as the totality and outcome of all past Kurdish uprisings, evolving into an anti-systemic armed struggle that extended deeply into the capillaries of Kurdish society and ultimately joined the global political left.

It became one of the largest armed movements in the world, with a vast socio-political cartography and cross-border international networks. From Latin America to Europe, from Africa to East Asia, the movement  built ties with many social and political struggles, from the Landless Workers’ Movement to the Zapatistas. Remarkably, it has evolved into a powerful people’s movement today.

This is a sociological and geopolitical phenomenon, a reality. Over the past fifty years, it has become one of the most debated, resisted, or admired dynamics of the modern era. I remember from Wallerstein’s lectures in the early 2000s how he paid close attention to the Kurdish Movement, seeing it as a systemic opposition force that demanded serious analysis from European philosophers.

We are talking about something far beyond classical political movement frameworks, a body of events with its own rhythms, memories, and historical cycles. Of course, what Wallerstein described was not different from what he co-authored with Terence K. Hopkins and Giovanni Arrighi in their books.

The key insights of that framework, which gained renewed importance after the collapse of the Soviet Union, analyzed the historical dynamics between the French Revolution of 1789 and the uprisings of 1968. And in many ways, I believe those dynamics apply to the Kurdish political movement as well, particularly in the context of class-based freedom struggles. (At the time, Wallerstein was following the Kurdish Movement closely in his lectures.) What I understood most clearly from his analysis of anti-systemic movements was this:

One of the foundational elements of systemic opposition (referring here to the capitalist system) is the ability of individuals, groups, or political movements that critique dominant political institutions to offer alternative models of governance.

Therefore, when analyzing a political mass movement like the PKK, it is necessary to consider it in two ways: as both an armed resistance movement and a social movement. Because in the geographies where this dynamic exists, it also offers a comprehensive social project.

As an anti-systemic force, the Kurdish Movement cannot be read solely through the lens of the Right to Self-Determination of Nations (UKKTH). While it certainly provides a class-based critique of the colonial system, it also offers a series of anti-systemic proposals. It is a movement rooted in the socialist tradition that advances a foundational form of power, while presenting serious critiques of the current stage of historical capitalism and the global system it sustains.

This is why, today, in an era where the global left is so deeply victimized and struggling to articulate a powerful discourse, they are reclaiming this principle: “To insist on socialism is to insist on being human.”

The Turkish left must abandon its ‘elder brother’ rhetoric for joint struggle

In this form, the Kurdish Movement has not only organized resistance (serhildans) rooted in a memory passed down since the Ottoman era or brought political consciousness to the Kurdish people, but it has also transcended a long-term national resistance struggle, transforming it into a transnational force. In doing so, it has contributed to the socialization of global political issues within Kurdish regions.

Today, if the women’s movement is so powerful in many parts of Kurdistan or if ecological discussions have deeply infiltrated our lives, if autonomy, democratic municipal experiences, cultural activities, and significant philosophical debates (this is not just my opinion, but also that of Chomsky, Negri, Graeber, Hardt, and Zizek) have expanded beyond the Kurdish national domain and reached the world, then it is clear that the Kurdish Movement has had a very strong influence on this.

Despite being rooted in Soviet and Chinese experiences, the Kurdish Movement has, through its firm critique of these models, created an anti-systemic and anti-capitalist space of its own. For example, the revolutionary transformation desire it presented to Rojava, and its incredible contribution to the global left, continues to have an impact today.

In the Rojava region, the dialogue and opportunities for self-management and freedom developed through the foundational power structure in areas freed from the Baath dictatorship demonstrate the multi-layered nature of this politics. This clearly shows that joint dialogue and struggle are only possible if we move on equal and common grounds.

It seems quite clear that the Turkish left, especially the large majority of it, must abandon its paternalistic ‘elder brother’ rhetoric and confront ideologies such as Kemalism and Stalinism to create real alliances for joint struggle on equal ground. Of course, both the Kurdish Movement and the Turkish left have many points that can be critiqued. However, one thing is undeniably clear: the Kurdish Movement is not an ordinary movement. It is evident that it cannot be understood merely as an armed struggle movement.

In an interview with Bianet in October 2024, Michael Hardt remarked, which I believe contributes to your question: “The Kurdish movement is an inspiration for movements worldwide.” He does not say this lightly, and he is not the only one. Figures like Murray Bookchin, David Graeber, and Antonio Negri, before their passing, and Slavoj Žižek at different times, have expressed similar views.

With the risk of invoking some extreme Orientalist interpretations or overly interpretative critiques, I am attempting to emphasize that the global network of the Kurdish political movement, originating from the seeds of rebellion in Kurdistan, has now expanded far beyond those borders.

Beyond its organized revolutionary potential in the Kurdish region, the Kurdish Movement has also realized a social/mental revolution in Rojava and Bakur (North). It has presented a social peace project, materialized the social contract, and expanded international solidarity as its second step. This dynamic has been able to establish a synthesis that enables us to position its philosophical and political contributions.

In the 1990s, the mountains were seen as a classic guerrilla center, adhering to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Today, however, the movement has understood the transformation of the world, fighting within it and creating a social contract that acknowledges the power of the working class. It has built more than a hundred municipalities, co-chairmanships, and has created an equality-based structure.

It is not an avant-garde group or party trying to seize power like in the Soviet Union. Instead, it has critically analyzed that model, evolving into a mass anti-systemic movement, a broad-based social resistance movement. Now, it has gone beyond armed uprisings, no longer an insurgent resistance group. It has transformed into a social dynamic that has laid down its weapons and seeks engagement with others.

The reality is that as these experiences, creating regional coordination bodies for autonomous communes, establishing democratic and communal governance councils, have spread, there is a clear connection between the dissolution of the PKK and the widespread growth of these practices.

The proliferation of civil experiences, cooperatives, or cultural activities, and the emergence of a stronger political consciousness in the public sphere and society compared to the 1990s, have all been facilitated by many different political experiences in the reclaimed Kurdish regions (such as the women’s movement, collective work models, local governments, neighborhood organizations, etc.). Moreover, efforts to establish societal dialogue in Rojava without relying on the justice system, mediation, or prisons, and the development of an educational system progressing through health and alternative pedagogy, all these elements are creating hopeful codes rather than pessimism in this new era.

Do you think the Kurdish Movement will now demonstrate its strength and dynamics across different fields as well, in terms of joint struggle?

Absolutely, that’s exactly the kind of capacity I’m referring to. I’d like to add that the space for joint struggle is not only about recognizing the Kurdish question. While positioning is certainly important, a common language and field of solidarity built around anti-racist, anti-fascist, and radical democratic politics could carry the Kurdish resistance to an entirely new level.

For example, when femicide, ecological destruction, labor exploitation, and worker deaths are approached through the colonial context of the Kurdish issue, it becomes easier to recognize that the Kurdish question is also a class issue in the face of those in power. And from there, joint struggle can be constructed. Otherwise, to be honest, I don’t believe that political actors who postpone the Kurdish question to some post-revolutionary future, who still cannot see it as a matter of a people’s freedom, will have much to say about any future of shared life or dialogue.

What’s needed is for a traditionally orthodox left, one that situates itself not only through class, but also through gender, ecology, genocide memory, the Kurdish question, and other micro-identities, to establish a form of struggle grounded in a renewed class reading. I don’t mean Stalinist or Maoist approaches, but rather a need for a new class-based framework. This must not be delayed to some future moment, it must begin now. Such a step could open the path toward a new political commonality. At the same time, this approach could help the Turkish left move away from right-wing, national-socialist, or Kemalist tendencies.

I’m talking about a kind of reckoning where the left is capable of acknowledging, for instance, that May 19 is also the date of the massacre of Pontic Greeks. But extreme nationalist, reactionary interpretations in the field and certain leftist formations still trapped in paranoia about national division, are standing in the way.

Take femicide, for instance, every day the numbers are growing at horrifying rates. In Kurdistan, under the layers of state-sanctioned violence, we see traces of paramilitary forces (village guards), or the security apparatus itself. In the case of Rojin Kabaiş, we saw how young women were abducted and murdered, university students, children are being killed.

Perhaps the language of this new era, of this new politics, must be built around a struggle that takes all of these fields into account. Organization must emerge from these realities, from the streets and create a power to resist. The pursuit of rights, reckoning, and justice should move from the streets to parliament, or from local governments, but it must always be rooted in the street.

A decolonial resistance process in the Kurdish regions of Turkey could redefine the position of the Kurdish issue, and very clearly, it would also return the left to its rightful place as a rebellious, founding subject. And of course, it would contribute to the formation of a new memory from which this field of resistance can grow.

The state should not be the distributor of justice; it should only be a tool in achieving it

On the other hand, look, as someone who does not trust states, I am not speaking solely from my intellectual identity; I must say that the Kurds have produced a profoundly democratic social project that is on the brink of significant changes in the Middle East. I believe there is no need to repeat the Kurdish Movement's contribution to this. The ‘Social Contract’ in Rojava after the revolution was born from this experience; just looking at it is enough.

Perhaps, it is not just Turkey’s dynamics that should be included in this process, but also Syria and Iraq. For this process to be constructive and reparative, the state must, of course, take certain legal steps and establish legal guarantees in order to allow for the activation of reparative justice, enabling reconciliation on many issues that are crucial pillars of social peace.

What I mean is that one of the most important processes is the release of Abdullah Öcalan and all other political prisoners. Along with that, the release of key figures like Selahattin Demirtaş, Figen Yüksekdağ, and all other political prisoners in legal politics is necessary for the process to transform into a politically founding dynamic.

The Kurdish question in Turkey is not just about the cessation of a tool of violence; it is about the dismantling of political, symbolic, or denialist violence parameters used by the state or colonial apparatuses, the recognition of Kurdish demands for autonomy, and the right to equal citizenship.

Perhaps, first and foremost, we must start with language, weaving peace into the language, so that we do not return to the pre-2015 process and avoid the language of ‘terrorism’ that stigmatizes the Kurds and the actors of their political movement, and this divisive, condescending rhetoric.

Therefore, any approach that does not engage with the issue, does not shed the repetitive racist language, and does not move away from security mechanisms that are the apparatus of colonial instruments will be harmful. The only thing that can make this process stronger and more reparative is achieving justice through the Kurdish demands.

The state should not be the distributor of justice; it should only serve as a tool in the realization of justice. Justice can only be achieved through fulfilling demands and through confrontation.