The Kurdish International

Olivier Grojean proceeds, in The Kurdish Revolutionto the in-depth analysis of one of the most structured organizations in the Kurdish space. The purpose of the book is in fact to draw a portrait of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and to analyze the “logics of action and modes of government of this party (and) of its sister organizations in Syria, Iran and Iraq, of its legal and illegal movement in Turkey and in Europe” (p. 16). The book focuses particularly on the actions and mobilizations carried out by the PKK in Türkiye, Syria and Europe.

Olivier Grojean, professor at the University of Paris 1 and recognized specialist in Kurdish mobilizations in Europe, offers a coherent, synthetic and documented exploration of the evolution, activities and functioning of the PKK. A first chapter describes the foundation and evolution of the PKK in the Turkish context. The second is devoted to describing the origins and ideological transformations of the PKK. The following explains how the PKK establishes discipline within his organization and imposes his power over the population. In the fourth chapter, the policies of the PKK in the field of ecology, economy and the condition of women are analyzed in detail. Finally, the last chapter returns to the internationalization of the Kurdish cause.

With extensive experience in research on the Kurdish diaspora, the author offers the reader a work which draws in particular on interviews conducted with sympathisers and ex-militants of the PKK in Germany and France, while relying on a field survey carried out at the Maxmûr camp, located in Iraqi Kurdistan, in 2014. It also analyses the publications of the organization of the PKKin particular those of Öcalan, and cross-references the observations of researchers who have visited the Kurdish areas of Syria.

Transformations of ideological discourse

Reading the book reveals Olivier Grojean’s concern to show the ruptures and continuities in the discourse of PKKas well as the paradoxes faced by the leaders and activists of this organization in implementing their principles. The author sees “a continuous evolution” (p. 57) in the ideas and doctrine advocated by the PKKfrom its foundation to the present day. Placing the Party in the lineage of national liberation movements practicing armed struggle, the author considers it a “nationalist organization” inspired by Marxism-Leninism. Based on a reading of the Organization’s publications and in particular the works of Abdullah Öcalan, the legendary leader of the PKKit traces the restructuring of this discourse after the fall of theUSSR and then the capture of Öcalan in 1999, to show how the movement inspired by this organization ended up engaging in a form of ideological bricolage, known in its latest version as democratic confederalism, and which relies on the capacity of society to self-organize.

The speech of the PKKaccording to the author, demonstrates a certain constancy, for example with regard to “the official rejection of nationalism, considered as chauvinism” (p. 86). However, more than the continuity of the ideological content, Olivier Grojean underlines the ambivalent and contradictory character which persists in the discourse of the PKKThe testimonies collected by the author highlight the internal inconsistencies and ambiguities of the ideology conveyed by the leader and the executives of the PKKrevealing the gap between “what think and what make today the leaders, activists and supporters of the PKK (p. 20). According to O. Grojean, this ambivalence, which must be believed to be calculated, has a double function: it allows one to acquire recognition with the external public and it serves as an instrument of internal control to dominate the activists. The work frequently undertakes to expose the contradictions between statements and practices, notably concerning the theory of the “free woman” and the project of “democratic confederalism” in Syrian Kurdistan. In the first case, the author strives to prove that the idea of ​​the struggle for the liberation of women is used, in part, by the PKK to desexualize and subjugate activists, particularly through “a disciplinarization of bodies (via the prohibition of sexual relations for party members and fighters and imposed attitudes between the sexes)” (p. 161). In the second case, the author insists on the fact that, contrary to its initial aim, the project of democratic confederalism “comes from above and not from below” (p. 183).

Control, supervise, mobilize

THE PKK is an organization that extends from the remotest mountains of Kurdistan to the heart of the major Turkish cities and crosses several European countries. This organization is not confined to a specific country and continues its activities in several territories. The book takes a close look at the control and mobilization mechanisms developed by the Party, among its own base, but also among the Kurdish populations in the Middle East and Europe. To explain how the PKK imposes strict discipline within his own ranks, Olivier Grojean emphasizes the importance of ideological training and especially the theory of the “New Man”.

In this he joins the pioneering reflections of Paul White, who linked the theme of the new man to a “Stalinist” inspiration that the PKK would have “radically adapted to one’s own needs”, adding Guevarist, Castroist and Maoist inspirations. This concept has since become widespread in works devoted to the PKK. Olivier Grojean claims that the PKK uses the theme of the New Man in order to indoctrinate its activists, to supervise them and to demand from them “a total surrender of self, unwavering obedience, a drastic discipline of life” (p. 105) not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe.

According to him, this desire for transformation applies, beyond activist circles, to the whole of Kurdish society. But unlike activist circles, in the Kurdish regions and the diaspora, the party’s main objective is no longer to “impose a certain way of life by force”, but to seek support, to “organize and (to) control the Kurdish population” through the media, associations, municipalities, the organization of social and political activities (p. 108-118). Olivier Grojean describes in particular the exercise of power in the spaces governed by the PKKsuch as the camps of Maxmûr, Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) and Sinjar (in Iraq). Through testimonies, the author shows how these spaces are dominated and monopolized by the sister organizations of the PKK and their allies.

Internationalization of the action space

Kurdish resistance to Middle Eastern states has, since its emergence, had a cross-border character. But it also reflects very different relationships to the state frameworks existing in the region and to the possibility of action on a regional scale. Hamit Bozarslan rightly emphasized that “the Kurdish fact goes beyond state borders to acquire its own regional sphere.” PKK was born in a context marked by the progressive regionalization of the Kurdish conflict. In the last chapter of his book, Olivier Grojean focuses on the phenomenon of the regionalization of the Kurdish question and more particularly on the international dimensions of the Kurdish movement in Turkey from the 1980s. According to the author, while the Kurds of Iraq “have benefited from the involvement of international organizations and the intervention of the great powers”, the Kurds of Turkey remain forgotten by the international community, but, through the PKKhave projected themselves “into a strategy of mobilization”. More recently, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Kurds of Syria have seen their cause become internationalized. The author focuses instead on the internationalization of the Kurdish question in Turkey and explains in detail the place it occupies on the agenda of government bodies and European parliamentary institutions. Finally, to complete his analysis, he also provides information on “non-institutional support for the PKK » (p. 174).

Beyond the organization, the movement

This book is an essential contribution to the understanding of what the author sometimes calls the “Öcalan party” (p. 89). In this sense, the purpose of the book remains perfectly clear. But the question is whether one can fully understand the Kurdish movement by focusing solely on the analysis of its main organization. This book, like the majority of works devoted to the Kurdish movement, makes Kurdish organizations the heart of its reflection. As a result, the evolution of the movement tends to be reduced to the history of political parties or armed organizations. The demands and characteristic features of the movement are defined from the discourse, strategy and modes of action of the most important organizations.

This “organizational bias” in the analysis of the movement – to use the concept of O. Fillieule and M. Bennani-Chraïbi – could, on the one hand, hinder the understanding of the Kurdish movement in its entirety, and on the other, make the distinction between the subjectivity of the actors involved and the ideological and symbolic discourse of an organization disappear. In other words, in O. Grojean’s book, the place given to the organizational factor in the Kurdish movement is so prominent that we often forget that participation in the movement is not limited to membership in the PKK. As a result, there is almost no reference to the less visible, unstructured and less centralised aspects of the Kurdish protest movement.

Moreover, this organization-centered approach does not allow us to examine the experience, identity and subjectivity of individual actors in the movement. Because it reduces the work of the individual actor to a simple affirmation and sharing of representations made by leaders and managers of the PKK. It is enough to recall, however, that the internalization of this ideology as desired by the PKK concerns only the organization’s cadres and a “small active minority” within the guerrilla. Based on this observation, it would be interesting to know how individual actors live and participate in Kurdish collective actions, but also how, through their experiences and ideas, they could participate in the invention and reorientation of the movement. These observations certainly do not disqualify the exceptional merits of this work, which now constitutes a true reference for all those who want to understand the PKK and the role it plays in the developments in the Middle East today.