July 18: We were the second group from the leadership school to leave for the mountains. Rank and file and leaders alike of a great war, an assault battalion, starting out from the center of the world, from the origin of the ages in the tradition of the Kaaba and the exodus of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad – Christ and Prophet – before the living word of the Kaaba and for the liberation of humanity and the Kurds, forward toward the paradise of a promised land.

A long time later, I wrote an article about the tone and tenor of that time when we parted from the Party Chairman, before whom I vowed to free the name of Gurbet from its Exile, to transform the country by returning to the country’s origins in breaking with it, spiritually and materially, in the ancestral name of the Exile and that of the Homeland.

A serious, passionate sadness marked the departure of more than a hundred former and future leaders and candidates for command that came from the Caucasus, from Europe, from the metropolitan centers and from the four corners of Kurdistan, from the Party’s leadership school which is our Kaaba, our Black Stone, the cornerstone of our Mecca. The groups that will play a key role in transforming the country and putting an end to the July 2 Exodus of the Presidency (it has been 16 years) [French edition note: The reference is to the retreat of Abdullah Öcalan and PKK from Turkish territory into Syria and Libya ahead of the army’s 1980 coup d’état. The FPLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) established bases under influence of the PKK). Here the author is drawing an analogy to Hicret, the 622 A.D. emigration of Mahomet to Medina from Mecca] took to the high road, as described in prophetic writings. The first group left on July 16, the second on July 18, and the third on July 19. I had been very upset with myself on the platform in the presence of our Chairman as our conversation had not happened as I had hoped. The burden of all that had recently happened to me and the burden of being without the natural dignity and native character of my people embodied in the person of the Party Chairman (Party President during these years) weighed me down.

Everyone on the platform observed and listened to me closely. Before the Chairman, the bearing of each of the comrades’ testimonies of their commitment differed from mine. The ten years that I had passed, my apolitical disposition, the tactical skills that eluded me, my will to argue, reactive, rebellious, all these traits dropped into the discussion of promotion like a bomb. Then, the life story of my friend Alişer, whom I had known since he had joined the Party, and with whom I worked at the newspaper, moved us all. More on that later. The last words I spoke before leaving for the mountains concern me now, and I need to call them back.

Rewşen, my sister and comrade, is seated across from me. I study her. Head lowered, she takes notes. When the Party Chairman enters, the sound of my name would wake the dead. Rushed, returning to our civilian clothes, in the blink of an eye, I embrace and kiss Rewşen. She is taller than me, my arms reach around her neck. Into this kiss I press all the emotion that day after day has gathered in force. More, it is Agir, our trusted and treasured comrade, in whose form materializes our communal passion. The Chairman’s presence at the feet of one fallen, like Agir, on the field of honor, gives to our footsteps on the high road the highest responsibility.

After a brief meal and a short walk with the Chairman, we return and say our goodbyes to friends whose bitter and ardent hearts pound to the same drum as ours, my eyes falling shy of theirs. Should my eyes meet theirs, my tears will cast me down. The Chairman takes us in his arms just before we climb into the truck.

Then and there, I swear to myself: <<I will speak to the Chairman the next time with my head held high.>> The hand he raises to the window I take in my own, and as the truck pulls away, his palm slips from mine, and I no longer know what to call the tempest I once called my heart. My friends are weeping as I had wept six years ago, departing. This time, I hold back my tears. We’d smoked a cigarette in the Chairman’s car, we thirty comrades who set out in a state of joy and agitation on our way to a sixteen-hour trip by train. I say goodbye to the city, goodbye to the urban world. Six years earlier, I said my goodbyes to city life, but such a wish has no place on this day. After waiting on the platform of the old, weathered station, we advance slowly once on board the train. We keep a guarded eye.

The last night I never closed my eyes. I fell asleep at last after looking out the window for an hour or two. The sun was in the sky and the train rattling along the tracks when opening my eyes I saw the fields and hills of Kurdistan that even from inside the train everyone could see. The travelers changed their clothes and conversation. The land parched, houses clouded in dust. Once we arrived at the station, we split up into groups of 4 or 5 comrades to search for shelter among the people. Leaving was out of the question. MIT agents were everywhere.

We stated at the house of a fighter who was in the field, and for whom the Party looked after his family. Sözler, Zelal (Europe), Avesta, Rojbin and I stayed there for six days. We passed the time as best we could during the heat of the day, reading, eating a bite or two, watching TV and playing video games. I found the time to reflect on and analyze this or that, and benefit, without cigarettes. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Our friends stopped by often to visit us.

It was here that I chopped off my hair. We dyed our feet with henna. The hair cut was haphazard. Rojbin fared little better. It was the first time she’d cut her own hair.

On the sixth day, a small minibus came for us. We left the children who lived in the same house, Hogir, the youngest, and Botan, Keser, Bawer, as well as Fahriye, their mother.

In the minibus, we met up with other comrades. Zela was disappointed not to find her friend, Çiçicek.

The minibus sped up and crossed the Nusaybin and Bagok mountains, as well as rows of villages near Nusaybin. The poetry of Ahmed Arif at this moment moved me strongly: <<Even the animals commingle, say the elders, we are their lives.>>My heart beats hard: we are departing for Kurdistan, for the Mesopotamia of our dreams, and the music mounts. <<Comrade Zeynep, you’re going home at last>> Rengin Mardin, turning around, says to me. I seize his hand. My eyes fall on the Mesopotamian horizon divided by barbed wire and on the Assyrian frontier cut up in pieces, their history, their future. All this reminds me of the historic, renewed step our small group today is taking. Agir, Rewşen, my family, my people – I will overcome, I will create a paradise in these mountains. I am ready, body and soul, for this terrible, beautiful war. Is it possible that I will be prevented from reaching out, my heart, to Ko Sipi, or arrive too late? But I contemplate each curve, each bend, each treetop, each summit as though the next rise were Ko Sipi, and each comrade as though they were Agir and Rewşen.

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