Şiyar Gabar is a German national in the ranks of the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle, PKK. He is fighting for the freedom of the Kurdish and all other peoples around the world since his participation in the armed struggle in 2013.

Gerilla TV has interviewed Şiyar Gabar about his decision to join the ranks and what changes his participation in the struggle in Kurdistan territory has brought along for him.

Could you first tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Şîyar Gabar. I was born on October 10, 1994 in the German city Hamburg. My family members are democrats. And on December 27, 2013 I joined the ranks of the PKK.

At first, within the PKK, yes, it is true they are a movement fighting for the freedom of the Kurdish people, but in the person of the freedom of the Kurdish people it is for the freedom of all peoples of this world. One needs to say this. And every PKK cadre knows this, acts accordingly and fights for this. When we are fighting now for the Kurdish people, when we are fighting now for the freedom of the Kurdish people, the freedom of the Kurdish people is the key opening the door to the freedom of the world. In this term, we are first and foremost all comrades. It is unimportant of which ethnicity we are and from where we have come, it is of no great importance at all. One can say that all different kinds of people are here cherishing each other, they are from all countries around the globe, of all professions, of all ethnicities, all of whom have received the education and training. There are all kinds of people, but we are still one in all our aspects. Our comradeship is binding us together. We are revolutionaries, we are comrades. You will not encounter any big difference between the nationalities at all. We are all comrades, you can put it in these words.

First and foremost I can say that when I was 12, 13 years old I embarked on a quest. I looked around me and I asked myself how to live, how I want to live once I grow up. And I realised that I felt more and more aversion towards the life the people, the community was living and that I could not bear such a life. It is an empty life, a meaningless life, the content of which was directed by personal pleasure and was materially driven only, nourishing enmity, a life beyond conscience, beyond ethics, a life that has removed itself from humanity. I looked and understood that I could not live such a life. My life was always like this, as long as I can think I was on a quest. I asked myself, how should I live?

What drew my attention the most was the way of life of the PKK. Within the system everyone is lying, everyone is working for their own personal profits. When I first joined the ranks, I still had some doubts, I thought that the PKK might be striving for freedom and such in theory, but I was dubious that they might not be like that in practice. I thought everyone is working towards their personal benefits anyway, why shouldn't the PKK be like that either? But after joining the ranks, after coming here and seeing with my own eyes the life of the PKK and lived myself on the free mountains, worked here and engaged in struggle, I realized thoroughly that the basis of the PKK was freedom and that the life of the PKK was freedom as well.

What changes have you been through after joining the ranks of the PKK?

After joining the ranks I underwent huge changes indeed. I know that within the community I always used to be weak, I am talking about the mental aspect, I was a powerless human. My conscience said to me every day, I told myself every day how shall I live? I told myself, the world is in a big crisis, I told myself that billions of people are left without bread and water, are hungry and die. Billions of humans are being put to death. All the peoples are subjected to oppressions and violence, all for the profit of a handful. Our environment gets destroyed, I asked myself every day; how can I endure to live like that? How can I accept that? I felt that I could not approve of it, but I did not see my own strength, I deemed myself weak, and I thought I cannot oppose the state, I cannot struggle and cannot fight, I told myself that I was not capable of all that. But after I came and joined the PKK ranks, after starting to live on the free mountains I realised the strength I carried in me. I know that in the past I used to fear death, I was thinking about what would happen when I die. But the power I met within the PKK, made me learn that until I die, until I fall a martyr I need to mount all the strength in me, and use my energy and do all I can for the revolution. This power I encountered in myself. When I face thousands of soldiers on a hill, all their mortars and artilleries and jets, I know that I will put up a struggle, that I will struggle until my last drop of blood. This strength the PKK breathed into me, this strength the ideology of the Leader created in me. And it is not something odd, but in fact I returned to my roots, I became once more the owner of my strength, my will and conscience. You can say that I found back to the nature of mankind.

Could you tell us how you learned Kurdish?

I learned it here when undergoing the guerrilla training. I had a small dictionary with me. Each time the comrades said some words I wrote those down, looked them up in my dictionary and learned the language like that by myself. If you really want, you can learn anything. Who has the desire, can indeed learn everything, there are no limits whatsoever. I learned Kurdish like that.

Could you tell us what you are doing here?

We are now dressing the wounds of our horse, whose leg got injured. To keep it calm we positioned the horse on the ground and are now treating its wounds so that it can heal again. We are transporting stuff mostly with horses, our equipment and ammunition. In that aspect we take good care of our horses, dressing the wounds, providing good placements.

They are sacrificing their lives for the freedom of peoples, that always left a deep impact on me, as I already said. Where did these humans take all this strength from? What attracted my attention, as I began to read the books of the Leader by the time, I suddenly found the answers to discords I could not explain before at all.

In that aspect, how should I express it, in that aspect a huge impact was left on me. The more I deepened my knowledge on the ideology I was finally able to analyse my old life, to analyse my family, analyse the community I grew in and the more I read, the more I understood. It is like a rebirth. Like your eyes open for the first time. Because within the system there were loads of things that I could not grasp. How the states system is functioning, on which basis the system enslaves regarding the relation between men and women, on which basis it enslaves the woman, the man and the people. I used to be very much in search of that subject, but was not capable to find an answer, until I joined the ranks.

I feel like coming more and more closer to the meaning of freedom. In the past within the system I had such a perception of freedom that pushes forth liberalism, that handles freedom like a personal good. It says that as much as you can live to your personal pleasure, live a physically comfortable life, hoard material possessions, that much freedom is getting weighted and considered. But when I came to the mountains I realised that all those things were meaningless and inane. Freedom is felt nowhere more than in this life on these mountains, this spartan life with all its difficulties and that lacks all means, I can say this.

I call upon all the youth around this globe to take now a stance, to join the revolution. Many people in Europe, many of the young are well aware that they can no longer live within the system but cannot find any alternative. The system is feeding them lies, claiming that the time for revolutions was over, that socialism has been defeated, that it has been proved. But these are all lies, it is far from the truth. And the evidence is the Rojava Revolution, the PKK movement and the ideology of our Leader. And I call on all the youth to join the guerrilla ranks, to take up arms, fight for the freedom, fight for equality and fight for socialism. This is my appeal.