Neither the passing of time, nor the memory killers, nor all kinds of aggression of the enemy can make us forget, Comrade Commander Ulaş. Today, we are going through times and periods when we need commanders more than ever. We saw how to embrace revolutionary tasks with all hands, to fight unwaveringly in the face of the enemy, to look into the eyes of the comrade with a smile, to hug the barefoot Kurdish boy warmly, in Commander Ulaş.
He carried on his shoulders the spirit of sacrifice of the generation of 68 revolutionaries. Its past carried the future, Gezi to Rojava, the glorious resistance of the mine workers of Soma to the Kurdish freedom struggle. We have seen the dreams of Commander Ulaş in every resistance land of Rojava. He carried the hope of the liberation of the struggling working class of Turkey from exploitation to the wind of freedom of the suffering Kurdish people. He raised his united anger against exploitation and oppression through his action.
When we think of Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu, the revolutionary claim comes to mind as if it were yesterday. We think of using weapons when necessary to use molotovs against the enemy, his organized apparatus of force. We think of his trembling voice speech at the ceremony held in memory of his martyred comrade. Wherever there is oppression, we think of rushing to organize unaccounted and extrajudicial resistance. Being at the forefront comes to mind!
Just as every oppressed geography and every poor land has a revolutionary pioneer full of labor and heart, Turkey and Kurdistan have countless pioneers and commanders who have been raised. Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu was a valuable comrade and a respected commander raised by the Black Sea.
While assuming the fearless command of the trip, he was at the forefront of the organization of the resistance, without the slightest hesitation or ambivalence. He became the symbol of the Expedition in the form of the Resistance. His hatred of the enemy and his determination to resist and fight made him a comrade and commander of his revolutionary organization, of which he was the leader, and then of all of us. Although he was the commander and comrade of the revolutionary organization he founded, he became a pioneer who managed to be the comrade of all revolutionaries and structures and deserved it.
Just as reformism, pacifism and the search for the establishment always emerge in the midst of the storms of the class struggle in Turkey and become a barricade in front of the exploited and oppressed working peoples of the working class, the reformist wind blowing before and after the Gezi process, the wave of the establishment and liquidationist ideas stood against and marched on the ground of revolutionary war. He advocated revolution in thought and ideas as well as revolutionary in practice.
He believed that it was not enough to know the world, society and to want freedom, and that it was necessary to take action and make a revolution, and he did what he believed. For this reason, he believed that he would not always face death, that if he had a revolutionary will, it was meaningless to fear death, and that if there was freedom, death would disappear. He knew that the most important step to happiness is to know yourself and to know how to live it, it is important to have self-confidence. He saw that the greatest mind was to know oneself rather than to know others. He sought freedom primarily in himself. As he discovered the freedom within him, he embraced great freedom. He adhered to this philosophy until his last breath. He drew his courage from knowledge and intellect. From the inescapable laws of necessity believed. He showed that it is not necessary to know too much, but to live as they know.
In his first steps, he challenged the reformist structure of the organization he was a part of, made a great break and advocated armed revolution. Then he challenged the in-order quests and ideas that were blowing outside. He both defended the armed revolution on intellectual grounds and became the executor and defender of the revolution with a Molotov when necessary, a gun when necessary, and a pen when necessary. With his determination to march on armed revolutionary ground and his activist practicality, he managed to gather and organize countless male and female revolutionaries around him. If the vanguard of the revolution is fearless and self-sacrificing, countless pole stars will cluster around him, seeking freedom and dreaming of salvation. It is the infallible law of the class struggle!
The oppressed, the laborers, the workers and the youth have always looked at the deep blue of the sky with longing and needing for a light that dares to break the darkness. As soon as they see that light, they unhesitatingly turn their faces to the spark and direct their direction to the light that breaks through the darkness. Isn‘t this what is expected of the vanguard, the commander?
Comrade Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu did not just think and speak differently from his peers. At the same time, more than anyone else, he advocated unity, solidarity and sharing among revolutionaries. If there is a revolutionary organization called HBDH today, Comrade Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu‘s share and effort in it is indisputably ahead. He did not stay in a narrow space in pursuit of small calculations and simple concerns. He advocated further, broader, more prominent, the spirit of unity and common struggle. And he worked to make it happen. He put his knowledge, experience and effort into the realization of HBDH. Which revolutionary who knows him closely and works with him has not witnessed his idea, practice and effort in solidarity, sharing and walking together?
With all our sincerity and honesty, we can state that Comrade Ulaş defended the organization of HBDH before anyone else and carried out the struggle for it. As well as being the blond-haired revolutionary of the Black Sea, he also managed to become the commander of the Kurdistan lands. With his practice, he won the sympathy and love of everyone with his willingness and determination to be ahead, to fight. Admittedly, we were comradely jealous of him. We came to terms with the question of not being able to be like him anymore. We experienced the stitch-by-stitch practice, the step-by-step walk, the uncalculated and carefree companionship with him.
We witnessed his child-naïve comrade gaze under his stern exterior. And every time we meet and practice. Even as the fierce waves of the Black Sea crashed against his face, we saw in his eyes the pure and pure gaze of bright-faced children resisting fascism in front of Moscow. He applied the immutable law of dialectics to his life and struggle.
Not everyone can easily succeed in becoming the beloved Mehmet of the Kurdistan lands and revolutionaries whose language they do not speak. Every freedom fighter who met him, without exception, looked at him with sympathy. Every revolutionary who chatted with him, talked and discussed with him, saw the purity in his eyes as well as his apparent harshness, noticed the sincerity in his gaze, the honesty in his purpose.
“The commander is the commander at the front” was one of the undisputed names of the principle of “Don‘t send someone else where you don‘t go“. As much as we saw him giving ideological-military training behind the front lines at the revolutionary headquarters, we also saw his stance on the front lines and his practice that gave confidence to his fighters. Comrade Ulaş, who succeeded in being the dialectic of theory and practice, word and action, commander and warrior, taught us a lot with his life and struggle. He kept the comradeship alive without calculation and without interest. Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu was a synthesis of comradeship that was as contemporary as it was historical. No tyrannical power, no liquidationist ideas can take it away from us, from us. He is with us. It is immaculate in our revolutionary ideals. It is in the most visible place of our glorious flag of unity and struggle, which is called HBDH. His self-confident stance and his goal-locked outlook give us confidence and courage today as it did yesterday.
It is an honor for us to walk the arduous path of revolution with him, to fight together in the trenches, to promise revolution. It is our duty to get to know him, to pave the way for the revolution together, to make secret illegal journeys and to make coup plans against the enemy. We receive this honor from Ulaş Bardakçı, from whom he took his name, from Kemal Pir, the international comrade of the Black Sea region, with whom he went to action without fear and calculation, from Baran Serhat, with whom he made the journey of organizing HBDH, from Comrade Doctor Ceren, from Comrade Aynur Adalı, who is a lover of Yılmaz Güney. We live and carry the honor of countless HBDH martyrs. We will continue to carry it.
Honor and glory to Comrade Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu!
HBDH