Özet:

Scholars have analyzed theories of the ‘New Man’ primarily as an ideological component of totalitarian systems. Based on the study of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the most important organization of the Kurdish movement in Turkey, this article goes beyond the frame of state ideologies to examine the relationships between theory and practice, and to evaluate the concrete effects of the New Man doctrine on PKK activists. The article examines political discourses within the PKK to help to understand how, beyond Marxism and nationalism, a specific construction of the New Man was institutionalized in the party. The party used a number of disciplinary mechanisms to do this; in particular, self-criticism played an important role in all branches of the organization. Evaluating the efficacy of these measures is difficult, but the article suggests that activists’ personal biographies and social trajectories help explain how and why some militants were (or were not) able to conform to the PKK ideal.

Anahtar Kelimeler: