Turkmen guerrilla: PKK fights for all peoples

Destan Gülşah is a Turkmen YJA-STAR guerrilla. She is one of the young people who are heading to the mountains to fight for freedom.

Destan Gülşah joined the guerrillas on 1 September 2015, in Amed. She underlined the date she joined to remark that her choice was made on 1 September, i.e. World Peace Day.

She said she has always been interested and not unfamiliar with the reality of Kurdish and Kurdistan, but it was actually after she begun to cooperate with the Rojava Revolution that she took the decision to enter the organization.

“I felt that the Rojava Revolution actually embodied what the Ideology of the Leader [Abdullah Ocalan] was for me, what the party wanted to do. I understood then - said Destan Gülşah - that the solution is the Leader’s ideology”. Her last push towards joining was after the Suruç massacre, on 20 July 2015.

Destan Gülşah stated that the Kurdish Freedom Movement is fighting for humanity without discriminating between language, race and religion and said: "We are fighting for the peoples of the whole world in the form of Kurdish people, this struggle for freedom is a struggle to be spread to the whole world, not just Kurdistan".

Gülşah, who studied in different cities, met different people, continues: "The city where I grew up was cosmopolitan and there were Kurds living in my city but they were discriminated against. Kurdish children were not treated in the neighborhoods like we were. Because they were Kurds they were not treated equally, didn’t have the same access to the health service, for example. There was a terrible racism, and there is no explanation for depriving people of their basic rights, such as health and shelter”.

The YJA-STAR guerrilla shares her thoughts about an education system which in fact increases racism by not teaching the richness in different religions, history, cultures: “Thinking different, having a different idea, or even questioning was not allowed: a Sunni understanding of religion was given and child soldiers were being created. At the university I met with fascist youth, resisting youth, and apolitical youth. If you enter within the sphere of the state you should be a fascist: you will have work and money are not a good person,. The hard choice was to be leftist / a patriot: you were heading against the state’s repression and violence”.

Guerrilla Gülşah says she joined in the PKK, but adds that participation requires more effort as it has a more complex meaning.

She explains: "Participation is a matter of devoting yourself to a cause, life habits must be changed, must be adapted to the sociality of this place, so that the one-person experience individualism is broken here. I learned to live in this community, we are fighting, and we need to believe in truth and connect with love”.

YJA-STAR guerrilla Destan Gülşah underlines that she is also fighting for the Turkish people and stresses: "We are fighting for our lost people, fighting for our children to be able to look with honour towards ourselves. We all have responsibilities. Our belief in life is big enough to cover the world, and we must know the Kurdish Freedom Movement well in order to understand the truth and fulfill our duties”.