Opinion
The State, Intelligence and the Debates on “Controlled Opposition”: The Phenomenon of the PKK and Abdullah Öcalan
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It has been known since the 19th century that modern states act not only through military force, but at the same time through social engineering, psychological management and the production of “controlled opposition”. This subject is by now widely debated within political science, the history of intelligence and studies of colonialism. Particularly when the methods of the British Empire — from India to the Caribbean, from the Middle East to Africa — are examined, it is seen that states sometimes seek, rather than direct coercion, to produce actors who are managed from within. For imperial systems the greatest danger is national leaderships whose historical memory is strong, whose social legitimacy is high, and which possess an independent capacity for thought. Against these, movements that are managed, that are psychologically broken, ideologically bound to external centres, or that have established relations at various levels with the mechanisms of the state, are regarded as “managed” movements.
Within this framework the Kurdish question, too, has emerged not merely as an ethnic, cultural or regional question, but at the same time as a complex field that can be read within the framework of “reason of state”, intelligence strategies and the management of controlled crisis. When the policies of the Republic of Turkey towards the Kurdish nation are examined from its founding onwards, it is seen that not only methods of military suppression, but at the same time strategies such as social transformation, the dismantling of identity, the engineering of leadership and the production of a controlled political field are also in play.
In the early period of the republic the veins of the traditional Kurdish leadership represented by historical figures such as Şêx Seîd, Seyid Riza and Xalid Begê Cibrî were liquidated; tribal structures were broken up; religious and cultural centres were dispersed; the Kurdish language was erased from the public sphere. This process was not only a physical suppression, it also means the breaking of the memory of the natural leadership of Kurdish society. For within the logic of the modern nation-state, Ankara's fundamental aim was to obstruct the development of an independent Kurdish political consciousness.
From the 1960s onwards, the left movements rising across the world, anti-imperialist discourses and youth organisations influenced Turkey as well. Among Kurdish youth, too, socialist and Marxist tendencies grew strong. Yet the striking point of this period was that the traditional Kurdish national line was gradually pushed back, and in its place class-centred, internationalist ideological structures under the influence of the Moscow and Beijing lines came to the fore. In place of the historical and national character of the Kurdish cause, an understanding grounded in revolutionary violence and ideological cadre-formation grew strong.
It was precisely in this process that the emergence of Abdullah Öcalan and the formation of the circle around him became one of the most debated headings in the political history of Turkey. While the official narrative claims that the PKK is an entirely independent insurgent movement, various political circles, certain intelligence centres, journalists and researchers maintain that, in the process of the movement's emergence, structures of different kinds within the state may have played a role. At the basis of these claims lies the idea that the security networks defined in Turkey as the “deep state”, which operate outside official institutions, have in the past built manipulative influences over many organisations.
Particularly when the atmosphere of political chaos of the late 1970s is examined, there are significant academic studies which show that the right–left conflict in Turkey was, to a certain degree, manipulated by the security bureaucracy. NATO's Gladio structures, the counter-guerrilla debates and the anti-communist strategies of the Cold War era show that states sometimes prefer to manage radical movements rather than eliminate them entirely. For this reason, to see the emergence of the PKK merely as a spontaneous popular movement may be a deficient reading.
Abdullah Öcalan's student years in Ankara, his relations with political circles, and above all the sight of his movement's field of growth in periods when many radical structures were being crushed under heavy pressure, have for years brought many questions with them. Here the matter is not merely a simple debate about “agentry”. The most important question is this: why do states sometimes permit the growth of movements they cannot fully control?
The answer to this question lies hidden in the crisis-management logic of security states. For an independent national movement, one not installed from outside and built upon historical memory, is unpredictable for the state. Structures that are ideologically stuck within fixed moulds, however, whose organic relation with society is weak, or which have been militarised throughout, are more easily managed. Environments in which violence becomes permanent serve states in legitimising extraordinary security policies.
After the 1980 coup, when many political structures in Turkey were crushed, the PKK's transformation within a short time into a regional actor has been debated for years. The grave human rights violations that took place in Amed Prison created a great anger within Kurdish society; the PKK turned this anger into an organised armed movement. But at the same time the state's harsh security policies also helped the PKK to gain a social ground. In this way the war turned into a cycle that constantly reproduced itself.
The striking point here is this: throughout history the Republic of Turkey has harshly suppressed many national, intellectual and independent structures of the Kurdish nation; yet over time the line of the PKK moved into the centre of the Kurdish political field. This situation is not seen as a coincidence by many Kurdish intellectuals. For the historical Kurdish national movement had rather a pluralist structure, preserved the balance among the tribes, leaned on cultural memory and possessed local legitimacy. The PKK, however, developed a centralist, ideological and monist organisational model.
One of the striking aspects of this model is that at times it comes into conflict with the traditional social fabric of Kurdish society. Tribal structures, religious circles, independent Kurdish intellectuals and differing political tendencies have often been targeted with the accusations of “betrayal”, “collaboration” or “liquidationism”. In this way alternative fields of leadership within Kurdish society have narrowed, and the understanding of a single-centre movement has grown strong.
Some researchers claim that states favour precisely such structures. For single-centre and excessively ideological organisations weaken the natural pluralism of society. In this way the differing political options that could emerge from the internal dynamics of the nation are suppressed. Controlled environments of war, moreover, both strengthen the security bureaucracy and serve to keep society permanently under a climate of fear.
When the 1990s in Turkey are examined, this situation is seen with clarity. The murders by unknown assailants, the JÎTEM debates, the evacuation of villages and the state-of-emergency regime traumatised Kurdish society on the one hand; on the other, the armed line of the PKK became more visible. The more the war between the state and the organisation grew, the more the democratic and independent Kurdish political field narrowed. In this way the Kurdish question was read solely along the axis of security.
The capture of Abdullah Öcalan in 1999 through an international operation deepened these debates still further. The Kenya process, the role of international intelligence networks, and the new political language that developed afterwards on Îmralî, were interpreted by many as a “controlled transformation”. In particular, the discourses Öcalan developed after his capture — the distancing from the idea of an independent state, and his new paradigm which takes the territorial integrity of Turkey as its basis — were seen by some circles as consistent with the long-term strategic aims of the state.
The point one must pay attention to here is that one must keep away from conspiratorial and narrow approaches. No large social movement can be explained solely by an intelligence project. The PKK, too, is a complex movement in which thousands of people have taken part, which has a heavy social counterpart, and which has its regional and international dimensions. Yet this reality does not mean that states do not develop strategies of manipulation, management or controlled crisis over movements.
When the literature of political science is examined, it is seen that states sometimes, rather than eliminating entirely the structures they regard as a threat, hold them within defined limits and thereby reproduce their own security architecture. This situation is not particular to Turkey alone. From the guerrilla movements of Latin America to the radical organisations of the Middle East, complex relations between state intelligence and armed movements have been examined in many instances.
The most tragic point for the Kurdish question is this: for a hundred years the Kurdish nation has constantly been caught between two great pressures. On one side, the reason of state that carries out policies of denial and assimilation; on the other, militarised organisational structures which have often suppressed the natural pluralism of Kurdish society. For this reason the field of independent Kurdish thought, free intellectual production and the field of an alternative national politics have always been narrowed.
Today, when one looks back at the past, these questions still preserve their importance: if the Republic of Turkey truly wished to liquidate the PKK entirely, why was the environment of war that lasted for decades constantly reproduced? Why, instead of strengthening the democratic, civil and independent lines of Kurdish society, were these lines often suppressed? Why did the war turn into a mechanism that permanently feeds both the security bureaucracy within the state and the organisational structure?
It may be that definitive answers to these questions will not fully emerge for years. Yet historical experiences show that states often do not merely produce enemies; at the same time they create controlled fields of threat in order to legitimise their own existence. For security states, a condition of permanent crisis is one of the instruments for reproducing political power.
The Kurdish question, too, from this angle, is not merely a struggle for an ethnic right; it is at the same time a multi-layered problem interwoven with the security paradigm of the modern state, with intelligence mechanisms and with strategies of social engineering. It is for this reason that the phenomenon of Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK cannot be explained solely through romantic revolutionary narratives, nor through the official theses of the state. A deeper, critical and historical reading is needed.
The most important matter for the future of the Kurdish nation is the rebuilding of fields of independent thought capable of passing beyond these cycles of war of the past. For a nation can sustain its existence not by weapons alone; but through thought, through memory, through cultural continuity and through free intellectual production. Societies that remain trapped within the monist paradigms of states, of organisations or of external powers face, over the long run, the risk of losing their capacity for historical subjecthood.
For this reason every serious analysis of the Kurdish question must examine not only the visible wars, but at the same time the relations of power behind the curtain, intelligence strategies, the methods of psychological warfare and the processes of leadership engineering. For in the modern era wars are waged not only at the front; they are conducted within minds, within identities and within social memory.