Recently, 10 DHKC guerrillas have been martyred, and one of them, Hüseyin Gülmez, wrote a letter to his baby daughter to understand his actions when she is older. This heartbreaking, but inspiring letter, has been translated to English by Redspark associates. Photo shows Hüseyin with his baby daughter Idil, who is named after Ayçe İdil Erkmen, a female revolutionary who died in an hunger strike.

Hello my daughter,

I call out from the mountains that rebelled against injustice and tyranny.

You are little, perhaps you do not know what daddy means. You are not old enough to read and understand what I am writing. You will understand when you grow up.

For sure, at first you will blame me, you will get angry. “Why is my father not by my side”, you will ask. The question “Why is he in the mountains, doesn’t he love me?” will come to your mind and delve into your head. Maybe you will get angry and you will say: “I don’t love my father”. Know this my girl, I am here because I love you. I am waging war. What does a father who loves his daughter do? What does someone who loves their motherland do, what should they do? Can they protect by staying aside? Can this be called love?

Certainly, it can not be love. Those who love their daughters love their motherland too. If one does not love his motherland, he doesn’t love its daughter. While our motherland is being under a concealed occupation, if our youth and children are in the bog of the drugs, gambling and prostitution, if one forgets his culture and life, and calls decadence love, then the word “love” has been empty for long time. Our love is the most beautiful. Even if it’s distant, even if it’s impossible, knowingly we go to our death for what we love. Nothing is impossible. Only what is called impossible takes some time.

If I were at your side, perhaps I wouldn’t be able to protect you. So called protection is not (to protect) from a few people, I cannot protect you from the decadent system of the state. Maybe millions of children like you are without protection, are affected by the state’s policies of decadence and agonize in the bog of drugs, gambling and prostitution.

Our sons and daughters that we watch out for and protect like our eyes, are being bogged down into drugs, prostitution and suicide. They are becoming depressed individuals, they are losing their values. They are forgetting their customs and habits. They are forgetting their culture and language. They are playing the role of the egocentric and egoist individual that capitalism wants. What does capitalism say? “Do not trust even your daddy”, is it so then?

No, certainly it’s not. Daddy is like a fruit tree. Even if the fruit is gone, you can stand in its shadow. A person degenerated by capitalism neither has respect for his elders nor has love for his little ones. Directly attacking and degenerating our culture they attack our culture, language, education, our history. They want us to forget it all. They are trying to impose their own decadent culture. We learnt not to bow our heads from Shah Huseyin, Bedrettin, Pir Sultan. We learned from Dadaloğlu, Köroğlu and Hekimoğlu to avenge, from Mahir we learnt not to surrender, from Dayı* to break the isolation.

This is our history of epochs who are too many to fit in books. There has been a Yazid in every century, but also an Hussain who stood up against the Yazid. There has been Pir Sultan. There has been DHKC. Capitalism is the Yazid of today. There is fascism in our country. By attacking the people’s values, fascism makes them individualistic. That way it inculcates the culture of decadence. What shall we do about it, we will fight on the side of DHKC. We will grow the struggle. We will narrow the field of capitalism. We will take our children and take them out of the culture of decadence.

We will give our culture, the culture of Anatolia. Do not say: “My child is in the city, how will I fight in the mountains?”. Do you really think that we will be able to know what our children do being in the city? The problem is not in our children, it’s in the system–fight the system. Are the children not yearned for? Yes, I miss my daughter in the mountains. I am missing her like I’m missing socialism for years. The existence of my daughter gives me strength in the guerrilla. She is my reason for fighting. My girl is my faith and my audacity.

If the people don’t have a desire to fight, it means they have no reasons too. I have my reasons. Our historic legitimacy, love for our people and the motherland, our devotion to the party and my sweetest girl in the world. These causes can grow in number. Because we have a lot of reasons to fight. I want that my daughter will hold on to her history, culture, language, customs and practice when she grows up. I have no doubt it will be like that. If it happens that I fall in this war, I want my daughter to take the red flag from the place where I fell and place it in the palace of our enemy. Let’s not take our children away from the revolutionaries. Because revolutionaries are the children of the people. They are this country’s future.

Our children should not die of drugs, or of cancer or be the dogs of Yazid. May they be revolutionaries, may they be the hope of this country and the world. Our children are the children of hope. They deserve the most beautiful future, mouth full of smiles, the nicest feasts. We will fight and win those beauties. I fight in the mountains as a DHKC guerrilla with this belief. I feel pride and honor for that. Because of my party’s uncompromised line I feel that I owe a debt to it in this regards. I am thankful for it’s march towards the revolution with steady steps without reaching an agreement with the enemy in the history.

LONG LIVE OUR LEADER DURSUN KARATAŞ!

LONG LIVE REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S LIBERATION FRONT!

*Meaning: uncle. Nickname of Dursun Karataş, the founder of DHKP-C.