Adir Bustîn, a guerrilla from the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), talked to ANF about what led him to join the guerrilla and what has changed in his life and way of thinking since his participation.

"THE STATE’S EDUCATION POLICY IS LIKE A PRISON SYSTEM"

Adir Bustîn who spent almost his entire life in the schools of the Turkish state, conversed on the system and ideas of the public education as follows: "My life passed entirely in the schools of the state where the system aims in particular at personalities. They conduct this especially in their boarding schools (YİBO), which have been founded entirely for that reason anyway; to sever your ties to your culture and society. There were also some who protected themselves from this system at school, but there were yet many who fell into the trap of the state. In those YİBO boarding schools the students are prohibited from seeing their families. This results automatically in an estrangement from their families. But the most tragic point is, that the people lose all bonds with and alienate from their language and culture. These mentioned schools are throughout like prisons, in their essences as well as in the shape of the system on which basis they have been built."

"WHAT AM I REALLY AND WHAT AM I LIVING FOR?"

Guerrilla Adir also explained the reasons why he joined the ranks and said: "A person who lives among his enemies consequently comes to see their true colour and what they put humans through. After realizing that, I joined the resistance. As much as I knew the PKK, I still lacked a deeper understanding and ideological knowledge. I did not know in particular about their this much profound life. In fact I only knew this: 'The state and its system are bad, but the struggle and life of the PKK are righteous'. Because the system we lived in had nothing to offer to the people. There was no life either, that one could really call a life. Everything was meaningless and a perpetual spiral. Therefore also I got caught up in helplessness. Within that system there was no happiness and neither any joy of living, there was literally nothing. When I was contemplating my future, I thought: 'Even if I become a state official, everything will remain the same anyway'. In other words, life was empty. The reality which the system pumps into the personality of humans is likewise. The system renders humans voracious and ever-hungry. It turns them insatiable in terms of materialism. All thoughts of the humans revolve around money. In this regard there are many rotten affairs. And this makes it impossible for someone to call this a life. The human finally reaches a stage, at which they ask themselves: 'What am I really and what am I living for?"

"THE PKK BRINGS NEW LIFE TO HUMANS"

The reality which guerrilla Adir encountered and lived within the PKK, is described by him as follows:

"When I first joined the guerrilla I stayed startled for quite some time. Because you stumble from a totally empty life all of a sudden into a life filled to brimming. I had already heard a lot of things about the way of life and the comradeship of the PKK, but if you see and experience it at first hand it is a different world. Defining our life here, and what influenced me also heavily, is the true and genuine comradeship. You cannot find this within the system, where brothers do not care for each other’s wellbeing anymore. But here with us it is like that, that guerrillas sacrifice their own lives for their comrades. And the philosophy and ideas of leader Apo have left a grand impact on me. Apo's ideas are very social. The patriarchal system rips the personalities off from the humans, the PKK however gives new life to the people and fills them again with true personalities. Here I attained such a power, that enables me to form and express my own thoughts, to analyse on my own. The system however is built on the assimilation of the people. You come to recognize and understand this situation, which infuriates you to increase the struggle you fight."

At the end of his speech Adir called on the youth to see through their own reality, saying: "I call on the Kurdish youth to enhance their studies on the trueness of leader APO. They shall approach the issue ethically and conscientiously to learn the truth, know their enemy well and join the ranks of the guerrilla."