Features

The Plight of Rebellion: Lessons from the PKK’s Disarmament

Published

7 months ago

2025/07/20

PKK Guerrillas Pose Near Makhmour Trench Position, Makhmour, Iraq (Photo: Joey L)]

When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow to evade imminent death—a moment that signalled the collapse of his regime’s grip on power—the repercussions extended far beyond Syria’s internal turmoil. For years, Damascus had offered refuge and covert support to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), leveraging the group to exert pressure on Ankara. Assad’s escape thus marked a decisive rupture in the regional dynamics that had sustained such insurgent alliances. The PKK, a principal actor in the Kurdish struggle and long engaged in armed confrontation with the Turkish state, announced a deliberate transition away from armed resistance. The disarmament ceremony held on 11 July 2025 in Sulaymaniyah was neither triumphant nor final, but marked a meaningful moment in a decades-long conflict that has claimed over 40,000 lives and left a profound imprint on Kurdish political identity and collective memory.

The ideological development of the PKK, as shaped by Abdullah Öcalan, represents a significant departure from orthodox Marxism towards a synthesis of Kurdish nationalism, cultural self-determination, and democratic confederalism. Öcalan himself articulated this shift in his prison writings, emphasising the centrality of culture and identity as the foundation for political liberation. In Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisation, he stated, “The liberation of the Kurdish people cannot be achieved by military means alone; it requires a revolution of consciousness grounded in history, language, and tradition.” Further distancing himself from classical dialectical materialism, Öcalan rejected the conventional nation-state model, advocating instead for “a democratic system in which multiple identities and autonomies coexist without domination” (Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization). This ideological transformation has drawn both acclaim and criticism, yet remains key to understanding the PKK’s persistence beyond its military activities.

Yet what unfolded in Sulaymaniyah was not the triumph of ideology but its abdication—or perhaps, its transformation. Twenty-six guerrillas and four commanders set alight their arms before Kurdish regional officials, international observers, and a cynical press corps. Öcalan’s voice, still echoing from the penal archipelago of Ýmralý Island, declared: “This represents a voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law.” In doing so, he invited a critical historical question: is the voluntary end of armed struggle an act of ideological maturity, or merely a concession to exhaustion?

There are no clean answers. For four decades, the PKK embodied both resistance and rupture—resistance to cultural erasure, rupture from normative political channels. Its armed campaign emerged not from abstraction but from concrete dispossession: the enforced assimilation of Kurds, the ban on the Kurdish language, the razing of Kurdish villages, and a carceral architecture designed to extinguish collective identity. The visceral cost of this repression remains inscribed in the psychic life of Kurdish society, not least in the sacrifice of individuals like Mazlum Doðan, who in 1982 set himself ablaze in Diyarbakýr Prison. His final words—”Surrender leads to betrayal. Resistance leads to victory”—transcended martyrdom to become a doctrine of ontological refusal.

Zeynep Kýnacý (nom de guerre: Zîlan), the first female suicide bomber linked to the PKK, carried out her attack in 1996. In her farewell letter, she wrote: “The body is an instrument; the soul is the rebellion. I give one to save the other.” Her words reflect the PKK’s internal logic—where sacrifice and identity were inseparable from its mode of resistance.

These narratives complicate any simplistic reading of the PKK’s disarmament as a redemptive denouement. They raise the spectre of what Giorgio Agamben has termed “bare life”: individuals reduced to bodies whose only agency lies in choosing the manner of their disappearance. In this context, disarmament may signal not only an institutional recalibration but also a painful decoupling of political meaning from historical memory.

Even as the Turkish state publicly embraces the symbolic act, its deeper posture remains fraught with ambiguity. President Erdoðan’s statement that “Turkey began to close a long, painful and tear-filled chapter” may sound conciliatory, but it contrasts sharply with the ongoing application of anti-terrorism laws, the removal of elected Kurdish municipal officials, and the imprisonment of representatives from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). While a parliamentary commission has been announced to oversee the legal dimensions of reintegration, there is little indication that foundational constitutional reforms—namely, the legal recognition of Kurdish identity and language—will follow.

This ambivalence is not lost on PKK leadership. Murat Karayýlan, vice commander of the movement, stated unequivocally: “Legal steps and changes must be taken… Legal reforms must come first. Otherwise, it will be very difficult.” His phrasing—moderate in tone, urgent in implication—articulates the central tension of this new phase: disarmament without enfranchisement remains an incomplete peace.

The legacy of the PKK makes it necessary to disentangle the justness of its grievances from the problematic tenor of its methods. While the organisation was born in response to systemic negation, its own internal structures mirrored the authoritarianism it opposed. Dissent within the ranks was often met with punitive measures. Child recruitment, internal purges, and ideological absolutism were documented even by sympathetic observers. In attempting to forge a new Kurdish identity, the PKK at times jeopardised the very plurality it claimed to safeguard.

Yet it would be myopic to equate insurgency with illegitimacy. The Kurdish movement cannot be understood solely through the metrics of security and insurgency; it is a sociopolitical phenomenon rooted in a longue durée of exclusion. Armed resistance, in this context, was not the first choice—it was the terminal option following the foreclosure of all others. The current peace process, then, represents not a capitulation but a recalibration, predicated upon shifting geopolitical tectonics in Syria, Iraq, and within the Turkish polity itself.

What follows from this transition remains precarious. The promise of democratic confederalism, if not rendered into constitutional scaffolding and civic inclusion, risks collapsing into abstraction. The reintegration of former combatants, the revocation of draconian security decrees, and the cultivation of pluralistic Kurdish political representation remain prerequisites—not guarantees—for a sustainable peace.

Therein lies the enduring lesson: rebellion, particularly one born from marginalisation, tends to absorb the moral vocabulary of its oppressors unless consciously tempered. The PKK, in choosing to disarm, now engages in a high-stakes experiment of historical re-narration—one where its legacy may shift from martyrdom to civic transformation, if permitted by the state to do so.

Peace, in such contexts, does not arrive as a formal treaty or a public ceremony. It arrives in the ability of former combatants to walk unarmed into towns where they once hid in shadows. It arrives in textbooks printed in Kurdish. It arrives in elections where mayors are not replaced by bureaucratic trustees. And it arrives, above all, in the state’s willingness to no longer see its own citizens as existential threats. The plight of being rebellion is not only to fight and suffer, but to surrender the very instruments of that suffering with no guarantee of reciprocity. The disarmament of the PKK marks a potentially luminous moment—but only if the silence that follows is filled not with erasure, but with recognition.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa ✍️

All News Advertisement

Features

Crucial test for religious and ethnic harmony in Bangladesh

Published

15 hours ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

A political protest that led to governmental change in Bangladesh mid last year. (photograph: imago)

Will the Bangladesh parliamentary election bring into being a government that will ensure ethnic and religious harmony in the country? This is the poser on the lips of peace-loving sections in Bangladesh and a principal concern of those outside who mean the country well.

The apprehensions are mainly on the part of religious and ethnic minorities. The parliamentary poll of February 12th is expected to bring into existence a government headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamist oriented Jamaat-e-Islami party and this is where the rub is. If these parties win, will it be a case of Bangladesh sliding in the direction of a theocracy or a state where majoritarian chauvinism thrives?

Chief of the Jamaat, Shafiqur Rahman, who was interviewed by sections of the international media recently said that there is no need for minority groups in Bangladesh to have the above fears. He assured, essentially, that the state that will come into being will be equable and inclusive. May it be so, is likely to be the wish of those who cherish a tension-free Bangladesh.

The party that could have posed a challenge to the above parties, the Awami League Party of former Prime Minister Hasina Wased, is out of the running on account of a suspension that was imposed on it by the authorities and the mentioned majoritarian-oriented parties are expected to have it easy at the polls.

A positive that has emerged against the backdrop of the poll is that most ordinary people in Bangladesh, be they Muslim or Hindu, are for communal and religious harmony and it is hoped that this sentiment will strongly prevail, going ahead. Interestingly, most of them were of the view, when interviewed, that it was the politicians who sowed the seeds of discord in the country and this viewpoint is widely shared by publics all over the region in respect of the politicians of their countries.

Some sections of the Jamaat party were of the view that matters with regard to the orientation of governance are best left to the incoming parliament to decide on but such opinions will be cold comfort for minority groups. If the parliamentary majority comes to consist of hard line Islamists, for instance, there is nothing to prevent the country from going in for theocratic governance. Consequently, minority group fears over their safety and protection cannot be prevented from spreading.

Therefore, we come back to the question of just and fair governance and whether Bangladesh’s future rulers could ensure these essential conditions of democratic rule. The latter, it is hoped, will be sufficiently perceptive to ascertain that a Bangladesh rife with religious and ethnic tensions, and therefore unstable, would not be in the interests of Bangladesh and those of the region’s countries.

Unfortunately, politicians region-wide fall for the lure of ethnic, religious and linguistic chauvinism. This happens even in the case of politicians who claim to be democratic in orientation. This fate even befell Bangladesh’s Awami League Party, which claims to be democratic and socialist in general outlook.

We have it on the authority of Taslima Nasrin in her ground-breaking novel, ‘Lajja’, that the Awami Party was not of any substantial help to Bangladesh’s Hindus, for example, when violence was unleashed on them by sections of the majority community. In fact some elements in the Awami Party were found to be siding with the Hindus’ murderous persecutors. Such are the temptations of hard line majoritarianism.

In Sri Lanka’s past numerous have been the occasions when even self-professed Leftists and their parties have conveniently fallen in line with Southern nationalist groups with self-interest in mind. The present NPP government in Sri Lanka has been waxing lyrical about fostering national reconciliation and harmony but it is yet to prove its worthiness on this score in practice. The NPP government remains untested material.

As a first step towards national reconciliation it is hoped that Sri Lanka’s present rulers would learn the Tamil language and address the people of the North and East of the country in Tamil and not Sinhala, which most Tamil-speaking people do not understand. We earnestly await official language reforms which afford to Tamil the dignity it deserves.

An acid test awaits Bangladesh as well on the nation-building front. Not only must all forms of chauvinism be shunned by the incoming rulers but a secular, truly democratic Bangladesh awaits being licked into shape. All identity barriers among people need to be abolished and it is this process that is referred to as nation-building.

On the foreign policy frontier, a task of foremost importance for Bangladesh is the need to build bridges of amity with India. If pragmatism is to rule the roost in foreign policy formulation, Bangladesh would place priority to the overcoming of this challenge. The repatriation to Bangladesh of ex-Prime Minister Hasina could emerge as a steep hurdle to bilateral accord but sagacious diplomacy must be used by Bangladesh to get over the problem.

A reply to N.A. de S. Amaratunga

A response has been penned by N.A. de S. Amaratunga (please see p5 of ‘The Island’ of February 6th) to a previous column by me on ‘ India shaping-up as a Swing State’, published in this newspaper on January 29th , but I remain firmly convinced that India remains a foremost democracy and a Swing State in the making.

If the countries of South Asia are to effectively manage ‘murderous terrorism’, particularly of the separatist kind, then they would do well to adopt to the best of their ability a system of government that provides for power decentralization from the centre to the provinces or periphery, as the case may be. This system has stood India in good stead and ought to prove effective in all other states that have fears of disintegration.

Moreover, power decentralization ensures that all communities within a country enjoy some self-governing rights within an overall unitary governance framework. Such power-sharing is a hallmark of democratic governance.

Features

Celebrating Valentine’s Day …

Published

16 hours ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating love, romance, and affection, and this is how some of our well-known personalities plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day – 14th February:

Merlina Fernando (Singer)

Yes, it’s a special day for lovers all over the world and it’s even more special to me because 14th February is the birthday of my husband Suresh, who’s the lead guitarist of my band Mission.

We have planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day and his Birthday together and it will be a wonderful night as always.

We will be having our fans and close friends, on that night, with their loved ones at Highso – City Max hotel Dubai, from 9.00 pm onwards.

Lorensz Francke (Elvis Tribute Artiste)

On Valentine’s Day I will be performing a live concert at a Wealthy Senior Home for Men and Women, and their families will be attending, as well.

I will be performing live with romantic, iconic love songs and my song list would include ‘Can’t Help falling in Love’, ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Burning Love’, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, ‘The Wonder of You’ and ‘’It’s Now or Never’ to name a few.

To make Valentine’s Day extra special I will give the Home folks red satin scarfs.

Emma Shanaya (Singer)

I plan on spending the day of love with my girls, especially my best friend. I don’t have a romantic Valentine this year but I am thrilled to spend it with the girl that loves me through and through. I’ll be in Colombo and look forward to go to a cute cafe and spend some quality time with my childhood best friend Zulha.

JAYASRI

Emma-and-Maneeka

This Valentine’s Day the band JAYASRI we will be really busy; in the morning we will be landing in Sri Lanka, after our Oman Tour; then in the afternoon we are invited as Chief Guests at our Maris Stella College Sports Meet, Negombo, and late night we will be with LineOne band live in Karandeniya Open Air Down South. Everywhere we will be sharing LOVE with the mass crowds.

Kay Jay (Singer)

I will stay at home and cook a lovely meal for lunch, watch some movies, together with Sanjaya, and, maybe we go out for dinner and have a lovely time. Come to think of it, every day is Valentine’s Day for me with Sanjaya Alles.

Maneka Liyanage (Beauty Tips)

On this special day, I celebrate love by spending meaningful time with the people I cherish. I prepare food with love and share meals together, because food made with love brings hearts closer. I enjoy my leisure time with them — talking, laughing, sharing stories, understanding each other, and creating beautiful memories. My wish for this Valentine’s Day is a world without fighting — a world where we love one another like our own beloved, where we do not hurt others, even through a single word or action. Let us choose kindness, patience, and understanding in everything we do.

Janaka Palapathwala (Singer)

Janaka

Valentine’s Day should not be the only day we speak about love.

From the moment we are born into this world, we seek love, first through the very drop of our mother’s milk, then through the boundless care of our Mother and Father, and the embrace of family.

Love is everywhere. All living beings, even plants, respond in affection when they are loved.

As we grow, we learn to love, and to be loved. One day, that love inspires us to build a new family of our own.

Love has no beginning and no end. It flows through every stage of life, timeless, endless, and eternal.

Natasha Rathnayake (Singer)

We don’t have any special plans for Valentine’s Day. When you’ve been in love with the same person for over 25 years, you realise that love isn’t a performance reserved for one calendar date. My husband and I have never been big on public displays, or grand gestures, on 14th February. Our love is expressed quietly and consistently, in ordinary, uncelebrated moments.

With time, you learn that love isn’t about proving anything to the world or buying into a commercialised idea of romance—flowers that wilt, sweets that spike blood sugar, and gifts that impress briefly but add little real value. In today’s society, marketing often pushes the idea that love is proven by how much money you spend, and that buying things is treated as a sign of commitment.

Real love doesn’t need reminders or price tags. It lives in showing up every day, choosing each other on unromantic days, and nurturing the relationship intentionally and without an audience.

This isn’t a judgment on those who enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day. It’s simply a personal choice.

Melloney Dassanayake (Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2024)

I truly believe it’s beautiful to have a day specially dedicated to love. But, for me, Valentine’s Day goes far beyond romantic love alone. It celebrates every form of love we hold close to our hearts: the love for family, friends, and that one special person who makes life brighter. While 14th February gives us a moment to pause and celebrate, I always remind myself that love should never be limited to just one day. Every single day should feel like Valentine’s Day – constant reminder to the people we love that they are never alone, that they are valued, and that they matter.

I’m incredibly blessed because, for me, every day feels like Valentine’s Day. My special person makes sure of that through the smallest gestures, the quiet moments, and the simple reminders that love lives in the details. He shows me that it’s the little things that count, and that love doesn’t need grand stages to feel extraordinary. This Valentine’s Day, perfection would be something intimate and meaningful: a cozy picnic in our home garden, surrounded by nature, laughter, and warmth, followed by an abstract drawing session where we let our creativity flow freely. To me, that’s what love is – simple, soulful, expressive, and deeply personal. When love is real, every ordinary moment becomes magical.

Noshin De Silva (Actress)

Valentine’s Day is one of my favourite holidays! I love the décor, the hearts everywhere, the pinks and reds, heart-shaped chocolates, and roses all around. But honestly, I believe every day can be Valentine’s Day.

It doesn’t have to be just about romantic love. It’s a chance to celebrate love in all its forms with friends, family, or even by taking a little time for yourself.

Whether you’re spending the day with someone special or enjoying your own company, it’s a reminder to appreciate meaningful connections, show kindness, and lead with love every day.

And yes, I’m fully on theme this year with heart nail art and heart mehendi design!

Wishing everyone a very happy Valentine’s Day, but, remember, love yourself first, and don’t forget to treat yourself.

Sending my love to all of you.

Features

Banana and Aloe Vera

Published

16 hours ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

To create a powerful, natural, and hydrating beauty mask that soothes inflammation, fights acne, and boosts skin radiance, mix a mashed banana with fresh aloe vera gel.

This nutrient-rich blend acts as an antioxidant-packed anti-ageing treatment that also doubles as a nourishing, shiny hair mask.

* Face Masks for Glowing Skin:

Mix 01 ripe banana with 01 tablespoon of fresh aloe vera gel and apply this mixture to the face. Massage for a few minutes, leave for 15-20 minutes, and then rinse off for a glowing complexion.

* Acne and Soothing Mask:

Mix 01 tablespoon of fresh aloe vera gel with 1/2 a mashed banana and 01 teaspoon of honey. Apply this mixture to clean skin to calm inflammation, reduce redness, and hydrate dry, sensitive skin. Leave for 15-20 minutes, and rinse with warm water.

* Hair Treatment for Shine:

Mix 01 fresh ripe banana with 03 tablespoons of fresh aloe vera gel and 01 teaspoon of honey. Apply from scalp to ends, massage for 10-15 minutes and then let it dry for maximum absorption. Rinse thoroughly with cool water for soft, shiny, and frizz-free hair.