Interview by M. Sayan with Rêber APO (Part 1 of 2)
M. Sayan: Creating a completely new life seems to be impossible for us. You have recognized this point, and that is also very important. Simply saying ‘you’ve done well! Bravo!’ is not enough. If this idea is actually deepened, it means that the whole world will change its understanding of life. Our relationships will change. A new project must come, a new path must be taken in which relationships with one another are developed anew. To date, this has been attempted in vain. Let’s come back to the question of masculinity. I don’t know if the statement “killing masculinity” means anything to everyone. I can imagine that some men will not like it.
Rêber Apo: It is actually the basic principle of socialism. It destroys domination, one-sided domination, inequality, intolerance. It destroys fascism, dictatorship and despotism. This concept can be interpreted that broadly.
M. Sayan: I took the fact that the question of masculinity was addressed so comprehensively very seriously. Not because a nice sentence was said, but because the issue was discussed in depth and tackled at its core.
Rêber Apo: It’s clear that you are a good interviewer.
M. Sayan: If we say that masculinity must be killed, then we come to the question of what the “analysis of man” is? With the analysis of man, all class societies are also analyzed (we have already touched on this in our conversation.) Of course, if man is not only analyzed on a psychological level, but systematically, social criticism can be applied to individuals. This leads to a proper analysis of the system and criticism of it. It is just as Marx’s analysis of surplus value led to the analysis of capitalist society as a whole. The analysis of the man leads to the analysis of today’s domination, of power, of the nature of social relations.
Rêber Apo: Marx’s analyses have been used to describe the economy, I think our analysis can be used to describe rule, justice and authority.
M. Sayan: Yes. I don’t know to what extent this point has been understood. In other words, I can’t judge the extent to which male interaction, male understanding and the ideologization of men is perceived by everyone. But it’s clear that you didn’t come up with the idea overnight.
Rêber Apo: How do you think I came up with that?
M. Sayan: I don’t know. Perhaps the difficulties you have experienced or the problems you have had to overcome have gradually brought you from the surface to the core. We all come from certain traditions. In organizations we have
We had things in common. Sometimes I saw contradictions in this organization or in this network of relationships and thought that continuing down this path would lead nowhere. I concluded from this that the content had to be changed. I assume that in your life or in your struggle you also did not accept the existing forms, saw the hopelessness and, in order to find the solution, came to considerations of a substantive nature. If humanity seriously pursues this question without neglecting its goals, examines its details and thinks about it intensively, then it will turn out that it is right to pursue this question. What I have observed and appreciate about you is that once you have taken up a matter, you pursue it tenaciously to the end.
Rêber Apo: Right to the end. “The fact that I confronted the question of man/masculinity” is very significant, you say.
M. Sayan: Very much. After the discussions, I can understand the organizational side of this development. I now have materials for it. Before, I couldn’t understand the developments the movement had gone through. And yet the results achieved were very important to me. To have reached this point, to have approached the issues from this side, means that we have begun the right definition of a new life. I tried to talk about this with my friends yesterday. Social influences play a very important role in the development of individuals, and this starts in early childhood; even the unborn child perceives different voices from the environment. This results in the first influences. The unborn child is thus already shaped by social forms, namely by the mother.
Rêber Apo: Perhaps I haven’t mentioned one or two of my skills to you. People talk about ‘caesarean sections’. Does ‘caesarean section’ mean that the woman cuts her own umbilical cord?
M. Sayan: No. This means that the mother’s abdomen is cut open to remove the child.
Rêber Apo: Caesar was born under such circumstances, and the name ’emperor’ comes from ‘Caesar’.
M. Sayan: The child was brought into the world ahead of time, and that’s why the name ‘Caesarean section’ comes from Caesar.
Rêber Apo: That means he was separated from the umbilical cord early on.
M. Sayan: There are also many behaviors among women that need to be overcome. For example, the traditional understanding of women’s roles must be overcome.
internalized, can be overcome. This is caused by immense alienation. Yesterday I gave an example of how difficult life is for women. But women have internalized the difficulties incredibly. One example is how a woman picks up a coin from the ground. You know how the friends laughed about it. If there is a coin on the floor, I pick it up as normal. That’s very easy for me. But a woman has to make five or six different movements to do it, and she does it automatically, she doesn’t even think about it. She holds one hand to her chest or leg, turns to the side, etc., like an acrobat. There is a whole series of things like this that the woman has internalized, which stems from her reticence towards the man.
Rêber Apo: Yes, you are saying that the woman has “lost her naturalness”. That is obvious.
M. Sayan: Yes, of course. She has lost her naturalness.
Rêber Apo: Not just her naturalness…. We are also trying to analyze women differently. She needs to be rediscovered and reanalyzed. That’s why I’m so concerned and cautious. If the woman is not analyzed, the man is also lost.
M. Sayan: Of course the man is also lost. As men, we take a revolutionary position, fight against the ruling class, even defeat them; but this ruling class takes over again in us through the nature of our relationship with women.
Rêber Apo: What will happen if we don’t solve this problem? I also see the problem in our ranks, in the relationships of the fighters. If we accept these kinds of relationships, the battle will be lost in 24 hours. How can this be changed? How can women be empowered to participate even more intensively in this fight? This is very important. We have put a lot of effort into this. This approach has a very big impact on the PKK’s ability to fight.
M. Sayan: As long as these thoughts exist, it is not difficult to achieve equality up to a point here – as you also said. At least they carry the same weapons, sleep in the same rooms and discuss with each other without worrying. That already exists.
Rêber Apo: That’s not all. It’s not enough.
M. Sayan: It has to go further. Personalities have to be changed, new personalities have to be created. I don’t think creating a new personality happens overnight. It is not right to look at the transformation of new personalities independently of the transformation of society. I think it is wrong to think that new personalities can be created in small islands.
not right. It can only be that some people are further ahead than society and thus drag society along with them.
Rêber Apo: Yes, you mean that development is set in motion by vanguards. Let me explain what the mechanism looks like. From a certain age, both women and men subordinate themselves to the rules of society. That is the biggest problem. How did I solve this problem? How do I try to solve it? What is the mechanism?
M. Sayan: I also think that we should address this question.
Rêber Apo: That is very important. This is where “killing masculinity” and “reviving the woman” takes a lot of effort and a planned approach. If people are going to talk about my mastery, then ask me how I did it.