The Kurdistan Workers Party and a New Left in Turkey: Analysis of the revolutionary movement in Turkey through the PKK’s memorial text on Haki Karer

One of the banners the left had been marching behind in the 1970s was that of a ‘Fully Independent Turkey!’ – and yet, while these radical voices evaluated Turkey’s status as that of a semi-colony (of Western capitalist imperialism), it had turned a blind eye to Turkey’s own role as itself a colonizing country, vis-à-vis Kurdistan. In this article, we will discuss the contentious relationship between the PKK and the left, and the critique of the PKK on the left in Turkey (i.e. the perception of the PKK as Kurdish nationalist left by the Turkish nationalist left). We will argue that the PKK, itself emerging from the revolutionary left in Turkey sought for an ideological and political transformation of radical politics in Turkey, one that would free the left from the blind-spot of what was called ‘social-chauvinism’, an attitude in which there was only Turkey, no Kurdistan. We think such a study is of interest for those who want to understand the nature of the political struggle of the PKK. Data for this article has been collected by means of interviews and literature study.