Political conjuncture, intended audience and the ‘Historiography' of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist organisation

ABSTRACT

While the literature on the relations between historiography and politics is usually state-centred, literature on the relation between terrorist organisations and historiography is still being formulated. While this literature has studied terrorist organisations such as the IRA and ISIS, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has not been examined sufficiently. In this research, conducting document analysis, we see how Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, uses historical facts in his texts addressed to varying interlocutors at different times. When these facts are assessed based on their themes, it is established that such titles as ‘Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, National Pact, and Republic' are at the forefront. It is observed that the mentioned historical facts are being used to create a perception that the PKK is the continuation of the Kurdish movement from the early twentieth century and to foster the political motivation of its cadres and audience. This paper concludes that Öcalan used historical references to create an image of the state with an unchanging character from the past in order to prove that the organisation’s recent political aims are legitimate and necessary.

KEYWORDS:

• Historiography
• terrorist organisations
• PKK
• Abdullah Öcalan
• propaganda

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU), the United States of America (USA), and many other countries. For more detail and other approaches, see Mahmut Aytekin (2019). On the other hand, academic literature often describes the PKK as an insurgency (Onat & Çubukçu, 2019; Gutaj & Al, 2017; Güneş, 2017; Gürses & Öztürk, 2020). Actually, insurgency and terrorism can be seen as practically the same phenomenon. The term of terrorism includes violence to shock and influence population. Their methods and objectives are both unacceptable. But ‘we regard insurgents’ methods as unacceptable, but their grievances are often seen as legitimate, provided they are pursued peacefully’ (Kilcullen, 2005). Put differently, ‘Terrorism is a politically loaded term and is dependent on the subjective opinion of the observer, illustrated by the adage that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’ (Boeke, 2016). To solve this problem, we prefer ‘violence to population’ as main criteria. Accordingly, the PKK is a terrorist organization (Masullo & O’Connor, 2020).

2 This paper is not a review of the early Republic era. These issues have already been covered by various authors (Lewis, 1961; Findley, 2010; Mardin, 2006).

3 Trouillot is arguing about how certain types of voices are silenced in the writing of national histories. In fact, Trouillot’s argument has greater application regarding how minority groups are written out of national histories. In addition to this, while Trouillot is arguing about how certain types of voices are silenced in the writing of national histories, he underlines power’s role. In this context, Öcalan is the unique power, he is the only academic-politic authority in the PKK, and he decides how to write history. So Trouillot’s ‘process of emerging the narrative’, ‘historical narratives are related to political stances’ etc. arguments are functional to understand the PKK’s historiography.

4 For the details of the notion, see Volkan (2001).

5 Kemalism/Ataturkism is the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey based on secularism and Turkish nationalism. The foundations of Kemalist Ideology include the goals, principles and reforms that Atatürk sets out with his thoughts and practices. See Zürcher (2017, pp. 182–184).