One of the most critical moments in the period between March and May are the Newroz celebrations that resemble serhildans (uprisings) in character. Newroz has always mirrored the political struggle of our people. In the context of current political developments, Newroz presents itself to the laboring left movement as a critical moment, bracing us for ther upcoming political tasks.
The months between March and May, as has been emphasized continuously in this publication, are a period in which mass struggles and political vitality rise against the political Islamist fascist regime. On March 8, the women’s liberation movement heralded political spring. Tens of thousands of women took to the streets, resulting in a powerful realization of the International Women’s Day. All sections of the women’s freedom movement vioced the demands and aspirations of the oppressed on March 8. The greatly antitcipated March–May period was thus entered with a great bout af enthusiasm.
Now we are heading towards Newroz, the next battleground of the rebellious and political spring. Newroz, the day of resistance of oppressed, the Kurdish people especially, will be celebrated this year under the slogan of “Rabe dema azadî û serkeftinê ye”. The first Newroz fire will be lit on March 15 in the Karakoçan district of Elazığ, the hometown of Mazlum Doğan, one of the leading cadres of the PKK, at the Amed walls where Zekiye Alkan self–immolated, and in İzmir–Kadifekale, where Rahşan Demirel did the same. Celebrations will take place in hundreds of places across the country, 57 of which are central. This year’s Newroz is filled with ideo–political content born out of the Kurdish liberation movement reaffirming its revolutionary line on all fronts.
One of the most critical moments in the period between March and May are the Newroz celebrations that resemble serhildans (uprisings) in character. Newroz has always mirrored the political struggle of our people. In the context of current political developments, Newroz presents itself to the laboring left movement as a critical moment, bracing us for the upcoming political tasks; the issue of the absolute isolation on Imrali, preparations for the neo-colonial occupation war and the first preliminary data of the defeat of the trustee politics in the local elections will be reflected in the mirror of Newroz 2024.
Newroz–related activities, intertwined with the preparations for the local elections, are an important opportunity for the development of an anti-fascist and anti-colonialist mass consciousness action. The struggle against the isolation policies initiated by political prisoners has been front and center in the agitation of the current local election process. The political climate and consciousness that surrounded Kurdistan during and after the March of Freedom Against Isolation can be heightened during Newroz, when the Kurdish freedom movement re-establishes its militant mass struggle in all political areas. The resistance in form of hunger strikes, which is ongoing in prisons as an agenda to reduce the absolute isolation imposed on the Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, fulfills an effective political function as the main point of struggle in this direction. The prison resistance and the struggle that integrates and becomes comrades with it gather the dispersed forces and organize the determination to fight.
The March of Freedon Against Isolation has set out with the aim of unifying the Kurdish people politically and by doing so finding a new basis on which to carry out the sruggle againt colonialism. The resistance against isolation policies raised in the prisons found a meaningful political response with the Freedom March. The Mesha Azadî political campaign added significant strength and dynamic to the Kurdish democratic forces. An increasing amount of political attacks in this area make the issue of isolation more essential. In the new political conditions created by Newroz and the post-election period, the issue of isolation should be reconsidered and organized as a matter of practical action.
The colonialist fascist regime is looking for new opportunities to develop its war of occupation in the areas of Rojava and Southern Kurdistan and preparing towards this goal. Erdoğan has once again threatened with a war of invasive aggression against Rojava. He talked about his desire to occupy a depth of 30–40 kilometers. The colonialist fascist Turkish bourgeois state is preparing for this new war in cooperation with the Iraqi government and the KDP in order to develop its occupation of Southern Kurdistan.
The colonialist fascist Turkish bourgeois army, which suffered heavy military defeats in Xakurkê, Metîna and Zap during the winter at hands of the Kurdish guerrillas, is looking for a way out to turn the process to its advantage with new attacks throughout the spring and summer. In this sense, the colonialist Turkish army is gearing up its forces in the Metîna region. Preparations are being made for a new attack on Garê in April. During the past week, Metin Tokel, the 2nd army commander of the Turkish army, met with KDP Barzan region officer Behzat Logman Mele Mistefa at the border line. The meeting, puclicly announced as a ‘meeting with border guards’, included concrete preparations for a new occupation war, for example the deployment of Peshmerga forces to the border as a buffer force. Bafil Talabani announced that PUK were surrounded and open threats were made within the scope of the same plans.
As for the Rojava invasion, MİT President İbrahim Kalın and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan are continuing their intensified negotiations with the US. All developments, analyses and open data show that the colonial fascist Turkish state is preparing for an occupational colonial war against Southern Kurdistan and Rojava. Therefore, it is necessary to foresee and prepare for a new invasive war attack after the election period. In this sense, the Newroz should be understood and organized as a preparatory action of total resistance against the colonialist and occupying assaults on the part of the Kurdish people and the laboring left movement.
Newroz coincided with the election period last year as well. Likewise, it fell into the March–May interval. These are the conditions under which we welcomed spring. However, there have been significant changes for the working class, the oppressed and the impoverished throughout the last year. Driven by the political foresight and initiative of the Kurdish people, the DEM party, together with its allies, made an accounting of the total situation and political process after the 2023 general elections.
Tactical cooperation with the Bourgeois National Alliance and correcting the damaging and corrosive results of the presidential elections in a practical self-critical way and a certain simplification and consolidation in the third front policy were achieved. The local election tactics of the united democratic front party, (DEM Parti) in the West, although fragmented, are ahead of last year. Therefore, it is our duty to work with all our strength and enthusiasm towards the defeat of the trustee politics of the third front and the success of the tactical policy that will complement the anti-fascist political alignment in the West with positional gains.
The political content and scope of election campaigns must be shaped by revolutionary agitation and mass actions. Limiting the struggle during local election and the basis of political opportunity to exclusively issues of agitation and asking for votes, and understanding the work within the voter-party relationship, only turns the oppressed and exploited masses into voters. It pacifies the working class and the oppressed, young people and women, inhibits the political initiative and subjectification of the masses, organizes political alienation and confines them to the field of bourgeois politics.
The political tendency to appease the oppressed and exploited masses, which has become evident in the laboring left movement and especially in the practice of the DEM party in the past few election periods, must be definitively uprooted in all its understanding and practical dimensions. A line of creative political struggle based on legitimate action and initiative of the masses should be developed against this style of politics within the bourgeois order, which is one of the dominant political forms of liquidationism. Not surrendering to this liquidationist backwardness and loss of direction imposed by the hegemonic political style of bourgeois order politics, drawing the election work directly to anti-fascist consciousness and action positions within political mass work, organizing and preparing the future is the basic link of the work.
The agendas of the March-May period offer the ground and enormous possibilities for organizing precisely this antifascist consciousness and action. The establishment and realization of Newroz demonstrations filled with revolutionary content will be progressive and propulsive in terms of electoral activities, which pose an opportunity for us to organize antifascist struggle. Revolutionary socialists must be the subjects of the process with their agility to organize Newroz celebrations and demonstrations in a strong, widespread, mass–palatable and revolutionary way. Socialist patriots must organize Newroz with a political inclusiveness and organization that takes into account the new political dynamics arising in Northern Kurdistan. All election offices in Northern Kurdistan and Turkey should be made places where Newroz mass work and consciousness are organized. Election offices in the neighborhoods should be the first places where Newroz fires are lit and celebrations are held.
Newroz calls on the third front forces, the anti-fascist forces, to expand the anti-fascist, anti-colonialist united struggle of the oppressed peoples of Kurdistan and Turkey for equality and freedom by millions, against the two fronts of the bourgeoisie. Let us grow the united struggle fronts of our people against colonialism in order to prepare the united revolution of the oppressed peoples of Kurdistan and Turkey, to advance and win the struggle for equality and freedom. Let’s flock to the areas with the motto of Long live Newroz, freedom and socialism. Let’s make Newroz celebrations demonstrations of power of the united struggle against the colonialist fascist regime. Let’s ignite the enthusiasm and determination of a new spring of struggle with Newroz.
*Editorial of the 159th issue of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated March 15.