Life is beautiful in struggle. It moves forward with victory in hearts that overflow with the love of an honorable life.
To live with pride, knowing that every step you take creates firm foundations. To run without pause toward the peaks where cries of victory rise. To breathe from those heights the unmatched joy of freedom. To leave something of yourself to life. To desire, from the heart, a spiritual, beautiful, and hard-to-reach purpose. To dream, and to bring the dream into reality. This, my guerrilla, is the truth of these mountains, and its name is freedom. And you, at the summit of what is hardest to reach, are free through the love of truth. You bound yourself to freedom with hope, love, and resistance, and for this purpose you fought with great determination.
In the mountains of freedom, your aim was to reach maturity and fulfillment for a great cause. You longed to enter every storm that gives birth to the revolution of freedom and to fight there heroically. You are now the companion of the Egids, whose dervish-like lives found meaning in the philosophy of “a morsel of bread and a cloak.” You are a witness to the labor engraved in the hands of the women of Kurdistan, and to the courage carried in their hearts. You are a militant who walks with virtue in the footsteps of the Apoist revolutionaries, deepening as though you had reached your own perfection.
Kemal was an Egid youth from the Serhed region, a land of majestic mountains and plains, possessing a breathless beauty. Before Kemal was born, his family migrated to the metropolises, and he opened his eyes to life in Istanbul: a city that, for some, is a place of dreamy hopes, and for others, a city that swallows them whole. His family was among those who had migrated too early from their lands, lands where every season carried another beauty within itself.
For years, Kemal lived in foreign lands, longing for a homeland whose soil he had not truly known. Most of all, he wanted to see the rebellious Mount Ararat of his homeland, Ağrı. That mountain in Kemal’s homeland spends all four seasons with its head wrapped in mist and snow, as if mourning the suffering of its people. Although Kemal was the child of a land that had always cradled uprisings and embraced thousands of heroic Kurdish youths, he grew up in foreign places, far from his truth, his identity, his language, and his culture.
He encountered the heart-burning voice of the dengbêj very late, and he became attached to those melodies that moved him deeply. Through the stories of heroes who had become legends in his homeland of Ağrı, he began to recognize his Kurdishness. He could not accept the hopeless, continuous migration of his people to the metropolitan cities, nor the fact that they were forced to receive education in a language other than their own. From then on, speaking another language became heavy and difficult for him.
Being alienated from his own language, culture, and land pushed him into contradictions and searching. When he began to learn his own reality, an awareness of the enemy also developed within his being and memory. As he witnessed what his people endured, his honor, pride, and conscience refused to accept what was happening, and he could no longer accept an ordinary life for himself. He began to research the lives of the guerrillas fighting in the mountains of Kurdistan for the freedom of the Kurdish people. He saw that the freedom guerrillas of Kurdistan reached martyrdom by fighting freely against the enemy for the sake of truth. This created a deep impact in Kemal. His conscience could not remain silent before all of this, and he too wanted to become another name for anger in the cause of freedom. That anger would unite within him and flow upon the enemy.
Kemal began to carry out youth activities in the cities. By striking the enemy in every street and carrying out effective actions, he organized Kurdish youth. Yet none of this was enough to cool the anger in Kemal’s heart. Kemal knew that he could reach his denied self, his true essence, only on the soil of Kurdistan and only in the mountains of Kurdistan. With the excitement and hope he nurtured in his heart for freedom, he turned his direction toward the ranks of Kurdistan’s freedom struggle.
I was a foreign traveler in the depths of the seas. As if I were a captive of foreign hands, far from my homeland. I kept myself alive with the longing for home that ached within me like the sound of a sorrowful flute. Otherwise, to stand against this world, which could swallow a person in a single bite, is difficult as a Kurd. We were the targets of barbed wires, mined fields, restricted roads, and shameless bullets. Our voice and breath were stifled by dirty hands and bloodstained boots. They stained our will with blood. Yet as Kurds, we still continued to walk upright, with our honor, head held high, even if alone and without support. What always gave us strength was our values, which we carried with pride, our dignity, and the passion for freedom in our hearts. Against the denial of our people’s reality, stretching back nearly a century, we have always fought in uprisings. Until our last breath, until the last drop of our blood, until the last cell in the body, we continued to fight and to win.
In 2011, Kemal left the desertified humanity of Istanbul and, in the mountains of Dersim, the lodge of dervish-like people, met Kurdistan for the first time. Reaching Kurdistan was, for Kemal, the first step toward meeting his own reality and freedom. In the mountains of Kurdistan, the dwelling place of guerrilla life, Guerrilla Kemal was almost enchanted by every guerrilla he encountered: by the weapons in their hands and their majestic stance in gabardine clothes. The word “heval,” spoken before his name when they called him, became the most meaningful word to reach his ears and was engraved deep in his heart. As their heval, he had now become a partner in their lives, their will, their hopes, their dreams, and their wars.
With endless devotion and hope, Kemal held onto this word that came from the heart, and through it he would create himself anew. In the cold of Dersim’s vast mountains, in their mysterious beauty that draws people to itself, and in their struggle, he would live as a guerrilla, as a piece of their souls. In the lives of the mountain-hearted guerrillas, flowing with enthusiasm and excitement like the waters of Munzur, he would make great efforts to reach truth and meaning. They would adorn Kemal, and Kemal would adorn himself in the lodge of their lives, with harmony, generosity of spirit, love, and victory. In every action and every clash, comradeship would be the strongest armor he could rely on. Every feeling he nurtured and strengthened, he would carry into an ocean of knowledge in the freedom of the people. Guerrilla Kemal would live his two years of guerrilla life in Dersim in this way: meaningful, full, and strong, as a powerful militant.
In 2013, Leader Apo was making great efforts to mature the possibilities for a solution in Kurdistan. On this basis, he called on the guerrilla forces in the north to withdraw. During this process, the guerrillas responded with great commitment to every decision that would strengthen Leader Apo’s hand, and the withdrawal process took place despite the enemy’s ambushes and attacks. Kemal trained himself early regarding the enemy’s games and became a mature guerrilla. When he reached Botan, he insisted on staying in the Cudi area. His comrades valued this wish and insistence, and Kemal remained in Cudi.
In 2013 and 2014, as ISIS gangs attacked Rojava, guerrilla groups were sent from the mountains as reinforcements to protect the Kurdish people and the peoples of Kurdistan. After carrying out guerrilla life for a period in Cudi, the young Guerrilla Kemal crossed from Cudi to Rojava with a guerrilla group and joined the historic struggle in the city of Kobanê. As a guerrilla in the Rojava Revolution, he fought with great passion and an iron will. He took part in many campaigns and actions, fulfilling his role with great success. In the close-quarters war waged to defend the people against ISIS, Guerrilla Kemal fought fearlessly and bravely. In one clash, he was severely wounded and taken out of Kobanê for treatment. Shortly after his treatment, the brave Guerrilla Kemal returned once again to the Cudi area of Botan. After staying in Cudi for a while, he was sent to ideological academies because of the need for education.
At the Haki Karer Academy, on the basis of Leader Apo’s defenses, he deepened himself in order to reach the standards of Commander Egid. Alongside this, he experienced important deepening in the line of women’s freedom, educating himself so that he could live and struggle on a correct basis with his female comrades. He strove to free himself from the damage created in him by the enemy mentality, to create the principles of freedom within himself, and to build strong bonds in comradeship relations. He developed himself in respect, love, and trust toward his female comrades. In response to the sincerity of comradeship he showed, his female comrades also respected and valued him in the same measure.
After his education, because of the experience he had gained in the war against ISIS, Kemal was assigned to the Kirkuk-Makhmur area. Through the strong practice he displayed along the Kirkuk-Makhmur line, he became a guerrilla respected, taken as a standard, and loved by his comrades. With the experience and accumulation he carried, he struggled to protect both his comrades and the people there. Sensitive, intelligent, agile, and serious, Kemal became an example to his other comrades through his militant standards. In the military field, whether with weapons he used or had not yet used, he wanted to bring himself to the level of a specialized guerrilla. On this basis, he proposed going to the Martyr Mahir academies.
Within the Martyr Mahir academies, he entered the Martyr Egid specialization school. With the specialized training he received, the intelligent Guerrilla Kemal became a skilled guerrilla. He was a militant who read, researched, and constantly educated himself in order to become a guerrilla capable of carrying the burden of the new period’s style and tactics. His sensitive, sincere, serious, and honest approach drew the attention of his comrades, and Kemal took part in some important confidential organizational work. Through the practice he displayed there, he made a major contribution to the organization’s work.
In the final months of 2019, Kemal joined the northern concentration groups in order to be able to go once again to the Bakur area. From the comrades he met in these groups and the education he received, he drew lessons and experiences for himself. However, because of some health problems caused by his injury, and because of the needs of the area, he was assigned to the Medya Defense Areas. Although he had a strong desire and effort to carry out guerrilla life in Bakur, the honest militant Kemal, ready without hesitation for every duty and responsibility according to the organization’s needs, carried out activities in the Medya Defense Areas.
There, he assumed duties and responsibilities at the level of team command. He became the owner of a participation worthy of the trust the organization had placed in him. He joined every task with great morale, enthusiasm, and a sense of responsibility. In his work, he was a sensitive, meticulous, and disciplined guerrilla. While the brave Guerrilla Kemal and his comrade Dewran were carrying out a mission assigned to them by the organization, they joined the caravan of martyrs together as a result of a treacherous enemy attack. The final words Kemal spoke became a great source of morale for his comrades in the struggle:
“We have always laughed in life, and we will always laugh. Even though there was an attack today, we created our morale. We danced the halay, sang songs, and read poems. The enemy could not break our morale. Our heads are always held high. And we will succeed. As Yılmaz Güney said: ‘We will certainly win.’”
So spoke the brave Guerrilla Kemal. He carried a great belief in winning and succeeding.
Two paths were drawn before the Kurdish people in their search for a truthful life. One was to disappear into the darkness under the curse of betrayal; the other was to walk on the line of the Apoists, as a key to freedom, like an Egid, dedicating oneself to every particle of one’s land and fighting with self-sacrifice. The heroic Guerrilla Kemal chose to fight by becoming selfless on the path of his people’s freedom. In Kurdistan, the land of paradise, he forbade himself from living like a hollow spirit. On the honorable path of the Apoist guerrillas, he dedicated himself to the revolution moment by moment.
He rose like a bright light over all forms of denial. With courage as lofty as Mount Ararat, he broke the chains of denial placed upon his language, his land, and his culture. He shed sweat, tears, and blood to become a balm for the pain of his land thirsting for freedom, and to promise his people a truthful life. Kemal became a seed; he fell into the soil and became the herald of a brand-new life. The dry lands found in his body the hope of revival. Kemal mingled with the air, crossed the seas, and in the end reached the lodge of truth of the free and wise human being, and became illuminated.