Abdullah Öcalan quotes

Abdullah Öcalan is a Kurdish writer and political figure, known as the founding leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). His writings on democratic confederalism and Kurdish rights have had a significant impact on political movements in the Middle East. He remains a central figure in discussions about Kurdish autonomy and peace efforts. Here are 21 of his quotes:

Even if 100,000 people die this year, our movement cannot be disrupted - 1992.

Abdullah Öcalan

Hegemonic powers often use assimilation as a tool when they are confronted with defiant ethnic groups. Language and culture are also carriers of potential resistance, which can be desiccated by assimilation. banning the native language and enforcing the use of a foreign language are effective tools. People who are no longer able to speak their native language will no longer cherish its characteristic, which are rooted in ethnic, geographic and cultural factors. Without the unifying element of language the uniting quality of collective ideas also disappear.

Abdullah Öcalan

The hegemonic powers also used religion and nationalism to preserve their supremacy. In all parts of Kurdistan, Islam is a state religion used as a tool for controlling the population. Even if these regimes embrace secularism, the entanglement of political and religious institutions is obvious.

Abdullah Öcalan

With the sedentarisation of people they began to form an idea of the area that they lived in, its extension and its boundaries, which were mostly determined by nature and the feature of the landscape. Clans and tribes that had settled in a certain area and lived there for a long period of time.

Abdullah Öcalan

Iranian society is multi-ethnic and multi-religious and blessed with a rich culture. All the national and religious identities of the Middle East can be found there. This diversity is in contrast to the hegemonic claim of the theocracy, which cultivates a subtle religious and ethnic nationalism; the ruling class does not shrink back from anti-modernist propaganda whenever it serves their interests, although they implement capitalist modernity.

Abdullah Öcalan

States only administrate, while democracies govern.

Abdullah Öcalan

Democratic confederalism is open towards other politcal groups and factions. It is flexible, multicultal, anti-monopolistic and consensus-oriented. Ecology and feminism are central pillars.

Abdullah Öcalan

Neither total rejection nor complete recognition of the state is useful for the democratic efforts of civil society. The overcoming of the state, particularly the nation-state, is a long-term process.

Abdullah Öcalan

The national question is not a phantasm of capitalist modernity. Nevertheless it was capitalist modernity which imposed the national question on society. The national society replaced religious community. However, the transition to a national society needs to overcome capitalist modernity if the nation is not to remain a disguise for repressive monopolies.

Abdullah Öcalan

Without an analysis of women's status in the hierarchical system and the conditions under which she was enslaved, neither the state nor the class-based system that it rests upon can be understood.

Abdullah Öcalan

Gender discrimination has had a twofold destructive effect on society. Firstly, it has opened society to slavery; second, all other forms of enslavement have been implemented on the basis of housewifisation.

Abdullah Öcalan

Superiority of existence and ideology cannot easily be broken. The youth (and even the children) are subjected to the same strategies and tactics, ideological and political propaganda, and oppressive systems as the woman - adolescence, like femininity, is not a physical but social fact.

Abdullah Öcalan

Sexism, just as nationalism, is an ideology through which power is generated and nation-states are built. Sexism is not a function of biological differences.

Abdullah Öcalan

The social subjugation of woman was the vilest counter-revolution ever carried out.

Abdullah Öcalan

The most important problem for freedom in a social context is thus family and marriage. When the woman marries, she is in fact enslaved. It is impossible to imagine another institution that enslaves like marriage. The most profound slaveries are established by the institution of marriage, slaveries that become more entrenched within the family.

Abdullah Öcalan

Family is not a social institution that should be overthrown. But is should be transformed. The claim of ownership over women and children, handed down from the hierarchy, should be abandoned.

Abdullah Öcalan

There can be no respect for a family that is established on ignorance. In the construction of a democratic civilization, the role of the family is vital.

Abdullah Öcalan

A realistic definition of capitalism should not present it as a constant, created and characterized by unicentral thought and action. It is, in essence, the result of the actions of opportunist individuals and groups who established themselves into openings and cracks within society a the potential for surplus product developed; these actions became systemaised as they nibbled away at the surplus product.

Abdullah Öcalan