/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

The Kurds are the world’s largest stateless nation, spread across Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, with the majority in southeastern Turkey. Since the 1970s, the most influential independence movement has been Turkey’s PKK, founded by Abdullah Öcalan as a Marxist‑Leninist guerrilla group. The 1991 Gulf War saw Western powers carve out an autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, using Kurdish aspirations to weaken Saddam Hussein—setting a precedent for fragmented “self‑rule.” Post–Soviet collapse and with Iraqi Kurdistan forging ties with Ankara over oil exports, the PKK abandoned armed struggle and Marxism‑Leninism.

In 2005, Öcalan embraced Murray Bookchin’s “ecological libertarian municipalism,” focusing on decentralized communes and environmental protection rather than class-based national liberation. This turn treats ecology as a substitute for the core Capital–Labor conflict and sidelines the broader Kurdish national question. It risks entrenching divisions between Kurds in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, as oil‑rich Iraqi Kurds pursue state‑level leverage while others are steered toward small‑scale localism. Without a Marxist framework, communities lack the tools to counter state repression, plan economic development, or resist co-optation by Turkish authorities.

The PKK’s adoption of “eco‑municipalism” reflects both an ideological retreat from socialist class struggle and an example of how imperial powers exploit minority movements via “humanitarian” and environmental pretexts.

No wonder the movement collapsed.