Prof. Warren Montag, one of the leading figures in Western literature and philosophy, stated that Turkey has a number of reasons that compel it to seek peace with the Kurds and true and authentic negotiations would require the freeing of #Abdullah Öcalan# .
The “Peace and Democratic Society” process led by Abdullah Öcalan, who has been subjected to harsh isolation conditions in Imralı Prison for 26 years, is gaining increasing support and resonance at the international level. Statements from various social segments and international circles welcome the steps taken by the Kurdish Freedom Movement towards dialogue and resolution. During this process, strong calls are being made for the Turkish state to take concrete steps at the political and legal levels to make peace permanent and meaningful. It is emphasized that it is necessary to ensure the conditions for negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan and to secure his freedom for the process to succeed.

This process has also enabled the democratic, ecological, and feminist paradigm that Öcalan and the Kurdish Freedom Movement have been advocating for years to be recognized and gain visibility among broader sections of society. These ideas, shaped around the perspective of peace and a democratic society, are seen as a promising alternative not only for the Kurdish people but also for all peoples of the Middle East and the world. This paradigm, increasingly discussed in response to current crises, is emerging as a new alternative model.

We spoke with Prof. Warren Montag, one of the leading figures in contemporary political philosophy, about the importance of the process led by Abdullah Öcalan and the theoretical and political significance of the ideas defended by the struggle for freedom. Montag emphasized that Öcalan’s ideas, which came to life in Rojava, are a source of inspiration not only at the regional level but also at the universal level.

Emphasizing the importance of all segments of society supporting the Kurds' demand for peace and freedom, Prof. Montag pointed to the importance of securing the freedom of Öcalan and the political and legal steps to be taken by the Turkish state for the success of the process.


First of all, thank you for taking the time to speak with us despite your busy schedule. Although your areas of work are different, I know that you follow the Kurdish issue closely. In this regard, I would like to start with the peace process that has begun between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Freedom Movement. How do you assess this process?

Well, let me begin by thanking you for the opportunity to address your audience. And I should say that my engagement with what we used to call the Kurdish question goes back a long way. Probably began with my engagement with the Iranian revolution of 1978, 79. And I was in Los Angeles, California at that time. And there were many Kurdish comrades who I worked with in the broad Iranian student movement in Los Angeles. And the question of Kurdish self-determination, et cetera, was a very important question at that time.

And I have followed the movement to some extent since then. And I recognize that this time in particular is a very critical moment, a critical conjuncture for the Kurdish people, both in Turkey and especially in Syria. And I'm deeply concerned about the welfare and the future of the Kurdish people.

And I want to support the peace process as publicly as possible, because I think that's something we can discuss, but I think it's an important moment. It can be an important moment, but we have to see how things go.

This is a very unstable moment, not only in the region, but internationally. And we don't know exactly how things will work out, but I think generally the things, at least between the Kurdish forces and the Turkish state, may be an opening that could be very productive.

At the center of this process is Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in harsh isolation for 26 years. He is trying to manage this historic process from İmralı Prison, where he is held. The Kurdish side has repeatedly emphasized that his freedom is crucial to the success of the process. What are your thoughts on this matter?

Of course, I think that to have true and authentic negotiations would require the freeing of Öcalan.There is no question about that. I don't want to make demands for the movement. It's not my place to do that, but I think a general amnesty for political prisoners is a very important fact. And it's one of the problems that so many activists, intellectuals etc. are still in prison or are threatened with imprisonment. And it's important to address that immediately. But certainly, in the case of Öcalan, I think of course he should be allowed to participate fully in the negotiations. He's a leading figure, there's no question.

Following the historic call made by Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan on February 27, the PKK convened its 12th Congress and took a series of decisions, including the dissolution of the movement. In recent days, a group of PKK fighters symbolically laid down and destroyed their weapons to show their readiness for the process. In response to all these steps, the Turkish state has yet to take any concrete political or legal action. This inevitably raises concerns. In your opinion, what should the Turkish state do to ensure the success of the process?

Well, these are very difficult questions because they're questions not of principle or sort of general ideas. They're questions of strategy and tactics and what is possible in the current conjuncture in a very broad sense.

And as I was saying before, it's an extremely complicated conjuncture more than we have often seen. Things can change very rapidly, but I think the idea of turning to negotiations for the time being, hopefully for a very long time, pausing the armed struggle and the military side, is an absolutely legitimate route. I mean, you can't just go on indefinitely in a military struggle, especially given the situation now, and not just in Turkey or around Turkey, but also Syria, etc.

With the YPG etc., it's a very complicated situation. But to take advantage of a peace process is a very good idea. And I think that Turkey has maybe more reasons now than at earlier points like 2015 or 2000, when there were also peace negotiations that ultimately failed.

But I think now Turkey has a number of reasons that compel it to seek peace with the Kurds. It's not just out of the goodness of Erdoğan's heart or something like that. It's obviously the case that they need to sort of win back the Kurds.

We can look at Israel's plans for Iran, for example, which have failed. It will never succeed. But the idea is to go to the minorities and tell them, we will free you, we will break up the Iranian nation and we'll give you your own territory etc. I'm sure it's not true for one thing, but if enough people who belong to Baluchis or Kurds or some other group were to believe that and accept that, that would be a catastrophe for Iran.

I think the same thing is true of Turkey and they know that they need to win back the Kurds. They're not going to win through military conquest. They're going to have to convince the Kurdish people and leadership that some kind of coexistence, which is fair to the Kurds, is possible. And I think that's one of the reasons that Turkey can see if they want to hold the nation together. They can't just pursue a policy of violence and oppression against the Kurds. That doesn't work.

I mean, every single case in the past century of trying to defeat the Kurds, to assimilate them has failed. And at some point, you have to give up that strategy. As there are other reasons having to do with oil pipelines and things like that, I think that this is a moment for the Kurdish movement to seize that moment because the Turks need some kind of peace, let's say, with the Kurds right now.

And I think it is a very smart, strategic and tactical move that makes a lot of sense. And we have to think that way.

You can't just say that carrying on armed struggle is not just a matter of principle. It's really about this: is that the appropriate strategy for this moment? It is very smart to take advantage of the needs of the Turkish state. And I think as many forces as possible can be brought into that process. I mean, Kurdish forces.

The process is certainly something that has to be explored. You can't just deny it or say, ‘we're not going to do that’. That wouldn't be smart.

As you have pointed out, the Kurdish issue is not limited to Turkey; it is also a regional and international issue. Undoubtedly, international powers bear a great responsibility for the emergence of this problem. In this sense, can we say that international powers also have a responsibility in resolving such an important issue?

Yes. I think one of the things very impressive to me is that the historic struggle of the Kurds to have their own culture, their own language, to be able to say, ‘I am a Kurd,’ which became illegal at a certain point, is insane.

I think there are other people like me who became politicized in part around the struggle of the Kurdish people. I mean, there are other struggles going on. It's not the only one, but I think that it is important.

And I think also more recently that the experiences in Syria with the YPG etc., and the transformation, the new ideas of society which emerged from the writings of Öcalan are very inspiring to people. It's something that is very important for the left internationally. I think people do pay attention to what goes on.

And it is a very frightening kind of moment because we are supposed to be talking about Turkey, but we don't know what the Syrian regime is going to do in relation to the Kurds. We don't know what their relation to Turkey is really going to be; it's still shaping up. And the United States, it's not clear that they will support Kurds after a certain period.

That will also depend on Daesh, if it's resurgent or whatever. So, there are so many things, but I really do think that there's broad international support and sympathy for the Kurdish people and it stands. There are many examples on every continent all over the world of minority groups.

As a big minority grouping, there is not legally, but culturally, a Kurdish nation. And it doesn't correspond to the national borders that were established primarily by imperialist countries, but it's there, and it's obvious to everyone. And I think in that way, the Kurdish struggle has symbolized for many other struggles - both indigenous people in Latin America or minorities in Africa- that ongoing struggle for one's own culture, nation etc. is as important today as it ever was.

I mean, you can look across the world and these struggles are ongoing everywhere. And there may be even more than they have ever been. They are at the center of things.

So, I think the Kurdish struggle not only deserves to be supported by everybody. There is also tremendous sympathy. You have to mobilize it. It doesn't happen by magic. People must be organized in defense of the Kurdish people, in support of their initiatives. They're the ones who are undertaking a kind of peace initiative and people should celebrate that and support them in every way possible. That's how I see it.

You drew attention to the importance of the social and political system being built in Rojava. It is well known that this system is inspired by the ideas of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. What would you like to say about the importance of this system or Öcalan's ideas?

Well, it's an experiment that was undertaken in the most difficult circumstances, trying to build a kind of new society, but in the midst of war and a very complicated war. Look at just the attempts to create gender equality and the fact that women became maybe half the combatants in the YPG. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but it's close to that. And I think that was a huge step forward. It was an example to the whole world about the place of women and about doing away with this sort of idealist stereotypes of what women can and can't do.

I think it's also a place where there is no divide between the secular and the religious, unlike the case with the Europeans, and to a lesser extent, North Americans. Europeans are obsessed with their secular society in an extremely coercive way. In the Kurdish area in Syria, you can see the people, both the religious and not religious, working together without any problems. It wasn't an issue, and it shouldn't be an issue. Including among women, you could see women, hijabi women in the army etc. And nobody thought about it.

And, you know, if it were France, people would be crying and it would be unthinkable. I mean, the French are not the leaders of sort of deconstructing the fantasy of secularism. But I mean, these are examples. I think the world can benefit from these examples.

They can look at this very closely and ask how this came about. Why didn't this cause all sorts of problems? And how did they attempt and bring about these changes? I'm just talking about women, but also in matters of governance in communities, kind of communal collective governance that, too, offers something for the future. I mean, I think all the experiences could be studied and many valuable conclusions could be derived from them.

I think it's the kind of society that the Kurdish organizations were trying to create in the Kurdish part of Syria. I think it's very important, very interesting. It's something like - if I want to make too close of a comparison- the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico because they still, to some extent, have a kind of liberated zone, as they used to say, where they put into practice a kind of council democracy that wasn't some representative, the typical parliamentary system. In the early 90s, it served as a model for other people. It was very inspiring, and it helped other people on other continents to fight against their oppression and try to create communities that were controlled from below, not from above. And I think it's critical. The Kurds have served that purpose.

I would say the Kurds and the Zapatistas are very close in certain ways and they have served in sort of parallel as inspiration for several generations of people. And I think that that's important. I'm just using that one example, but there are many others. We could talk about that.

You drew attention to the importance of the ideas that the Kurdish Freedom Movement is trying to implement. But this force, the PKK, is still on the US and EU lists of “terrorist” organizations. Perhaps this decision has no significance in the eyes of the people, but diplomatically it is an issue that is raised every time. What do you think about these states insisting on such a definition?

I was just talking to my students about it recently. I was also very active in the movement supporting Palestine. And especially at the beginning of the movement during the 1982 Lebanon War, I worked very closely with some people. All of them—groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)—were visible. If I were associating with them today, I could probably be arrested or something similar would happen. I think this decision regarding the PKK is absurd.

I mean, the whole designation of terrorists, especially now, is ridiculous. I mean, if you want to talk about terrorists, you could talk about Israel to start.

Unfortunately, it has legal consequences, but I think the PKK can't possibly be declared a terrorist organization. They waged a legitimate armed struggle, and they're now trying to initiate a peace process. It's absurd to lean on that. Their right-wing groups are going to say that no matter what.

And probably a lot of Turkish politicians will say that, but it is just a cover for their own violence in certain ways. The Turkish state isn't exactly innocent of anything.

Dear professor, thank you very much for your time and valuable comments. Is there anything else you would like to add?

I hope that everyone will support this strategic turn of the PKK, and I hope the YPG as well. And I think it's important for everyone to publicize and to discuss the process in order to support it and in order to tell the rest of the world how a group, a minority, can reclaim its rights to be, to speak in their language, to have their culture etc. That's a critical issue in the world today. And this process is really bringing that, making it very visible. So, I think that's very important.

Warren Montag

Warren Montag is an American socialist thinker and literary theorist. He is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Occidental College. His work primarily focuses on 20th-century French thought, particularly Louis Althusser and the Marxist theorists around him. Montag also analyzes the internal contradictions of political liberalism and individualism through the texts of early modern thinkers such as Spinoza, Locke, Hobbes, and Adam Smith.

In addition to his academic work, Montag played an active role in socialist organizations in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1976 and 1978, he worked in a collective influenced by Ernest Mandel, and between 1978 and 1990, he was involved in left-wing organizations such as Workers' Power and Solidarity. Montag holds a distinguished position in the field of Marxist theory and literary criticism, and also serves as editor of the journal Décalages: An Althusser Studies Journal. His in-depth analyses of Althusser’s legacy have established him as one of the key figures in contemporary critical theory.[1]