JL

The Syrian Kurds of the YPG and YPJ follow the philosophy and writings of Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of the PKK. Although the PKK was originally formed in 1978 as a separatist Kurdish political party based on Marxist-Leninist principles and began its armed struggle in 1984, the ideology of the group has evolved significantly over the decades.

After being forced from his operational center in Syria, Öcalan was captured in 1999 while on the run in Nairobi, Kenya, and has been in a maximum-security prison on Imrali Island in Turkey ever since. Confined to his cell in virtual isolation, Öcalan delved into political theory, requesting and receiving hundreds of books on sociology, philosophy, and political theory. The authors Öcalan encountered would greatly influence the future role of the PKK, in particular the work of the American social theorist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin advocated ecologically sensitive, decentralized power-sharing in local communities as the basis of all decision-making, suggesting general assemblies at the local level were the true path to democracy.

Öcalan critiqued the Marxist-Leninist roots of the organization and introduced the theory of democratic confederalism as a new way forward in 2005. “Democratic confederalism” advocates for self-administration in Kurdish areas, which could operate in duality with the Turkish state, as well as the other parts of Kurdistan. Democratic confederalism was described as not just for Kurds, but as a system that could be replicated by any population in the Middle East. This collective mass of small units could confederate with one another to form a new kind of local power that challenged the authority of centralized states.

Öcalan’s ideas have inspired many movements in all four parts of Kurdistan [the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Bakur (Turkey’s Kurdistan), Rojhalat (Iranian Kurdistan), and Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan)]. These new organizations are independent and decentralized from the PKK leadership, which is now based in the Qandil Mountains of Iraq, but they still very much share a common ideology — a “Kurdish hive-mind” of Öcalanism or “Apoism.” Apoism has manifested itself socially, politically, and also in various armed groups, who view Öcalan’s writings both as a blueprint for self-determination and as a style of armed resistance. With the advent of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the disintegration of the Syrian state itself would offer further grounds for Öcalan’s theories to be set in motion.