What does the PKK want?

The PKK faced a serious politicization crisis during the 1990s when the old Turkey started to disappear. The PKK's attitude to the comfort zone that armed conflict enabled, which has become increasingly meaningless, is quite noteworthy. While the interlocutors, framework, geopolitics, sociology and geography of the problem and the problem itself have gone under critical breakages and changes, the PKK avoids developing a different perspective other than what it has been doing for the last 30 years.

The picture caused by this condition consists of a PKK that remained alone with weapons. This being the case, the question of what the PKK wants from Turkey and Kurds has become more meaningless. At this point, the question does not have a clear answer. So I ask again: What does the PKK want from Turkey and Kurds aside from the issues that directly interest the organization? The PKK's choice of managing the crisis by taking up arms instead of facing the break requires analysis.

First of all, what does the PKK demand from Kurds in Turkey? Does it wish Kurds, who do not have any problem with their political representation in government and hold local power in many municipalities, to submit themselves to the PKK leadership's agenda coming from their headquarters in the Qandil Mountains in Iraq and react in the same way? Of course this is impossible both politically and socially as it is an impossible mission for a mind that cannot leave the mountains to try to get others to the mountain. Neither the PKK nor Kurdish political actors have the potential to shoulder the burden of the social and political costs caused by the matchup of the PKK's agenda and an average Kurd's reaction.

Despite all its existential crises and distinct capacity problems, the PKK could only instrumentalize Kurds in its war where it tends to embrace arms with its learned ignorance. This only means shooting Turkey through harming Kurds. The military and bureaucratic domination regime only recognized Kurds as long as they were manipulated while fighting against the PKK. And now, the position the PKK has reached is not different from the past. Today the PKK recognizes Kurds only as far as it has used them in its own war, just as the domination regime. For this reason they target Kurds who do not support the PKK and do not abstain from inflicting any kind of violence against them.

Throughout the history of the Kurdish issue, the domination regime kept telling us what Kurds actually want despite what Kurds themselves said. The background of this approach, which is embodied in the system of village guards, is based on a dichotomy of the "good Kurd" and the "bad Kurd." This policy naturally shrunk. Now the PKK has focused on the option of being the "good Kurd." As long as the PKK cannot express what it wants without being trapped into inconsistency and a rationality crisis, it will keep telling what Kurds do not want on behalf of Kurds. As a result, the PKK will inevitably experience a process similar to the domination regime, which has lost its capacity to address the citizens to a great extent.

As the PKK tries to rationalize why it continues its violence, it cannot leave the vicious circle it is in. It should also be considered that the efforts of left-leaning and liberal intellectual patronage are not enough to relieve the PKK from this situation. Kurdish political actors, who are nearly objectified in the face of the PKK leadership, need to determine and specify their position: Are they a fortress unit of the PKK or subjects of the reconciliation process? Otherwise Kurdish political actors will not have any role other than contributing to the revival of the old Turkey if they do not take responsibility. After all, almost anyone pondering the issue has asked the same desperate question after the incidents on Oct. 6 and Oct.7: "What is going to happen now?" Whether we like it or not, this question has some answers. However, it remains unanswered, but the question that really matters should be: "What does the PKK want?"