06-12-2009
By Roni Margulies
Among all these words of "friendship", "brotherhood", and "living together", there is a reality that goes unnoticed, unmentioned. The answer of the most fundamental question is being forgotten.
The question is this: Why did Kurds go up to the mountains?
The answer is obvious: Because of the policies of the Turkish state.
Probably not because they are fond of clean air and they like to die by getting bombarded while exercising in the arms of mother nature.
If there wasn't denial, oppression, humiliation, and violent policies of the state, neither "friendship" and "brotherhood" nor arrivals from the Habur [the border gate between Iraq and Turkey] would come up. We would be living without any trouble and not commit unapproved activities. Some of us would still be struggling against this state but the words "Kurd" and "Turk" would not be present in this struggle.
In short, the answer to the question "who is guilty" is "the state of Turkey".
When one forgets this basic question and its answer, it becomes easy to blame DTP of making a "show", bad mouth PKK because it's not laying down arms, and have a problem with every word Ahmet Türk or Emine Ayna [leaders of pro-Kurdish party DTP] says. It's also easier to complain about nationalistic inclinations among Kurds. It's easy to cry for the pain of the families of martyrs [Turkish]. It's easy to talk about how wrong armed politics and all nationalisms are.
Talk is cheap but let's not forget this: the only reason for the problems Turks have among themselves for the past 25 years and Kurds have among themselves for the past 80 years is the state of Turkey. Moreover it's not the "old state" in the Armenian issue but the current state that has been slapping our necks.
This state is responsible and guilty for the martyrs, turning a large portion of the country into a war zone and making it poor, and cutting from health and education services and pouring the money into war.
If Turkish writers, reporters, and politicians remember this fact before they criticize and blame Kurdish organizations and establishments, the [Democratic] Opening will have more chance of being successful. The Opening's success will be guaranteed if every morning kids say "I am a Turk, I am true, I am a hard worker, and the state is guilty of war" [daily school pledge of Turkish children].
There is no need to remind Kurds of this. I don't think they have the slightest doubt about why their children went to the mountains.
Kurds not only know why those who went up the mountains did so but also what they have accomplished today.
The example I give is easy for everybody to accept unwillingly.
Let me give you an example which is more easier to accept.
The Palestine Liberation Organization carried out it’s first military operation against the Israeli state in the October 1965.
It was an unsuccessful attempt. In the village of Beyt Şemeş a bomb was placed at a water canal and neutralized. During the bomb placement, Mahmud Hicazi was arrested.
The 45 years that followed the PLO carried out very bloody operations in and outside of Israel. In addition to those who were killed, they weren’t only Israelis. And because of all of this, the Palestinian people’s freedom struggle has showed little progress and it went doubtful. Isn’t it? Well, from one point of view.
The freedom of 1965, is just as far away as today. There is still not even a mini state, although they are for a democratic and secular Palestinian state. The fate of death, poverty and banishment for Palestinians continues.
But there is an important difference. When Israel was founded from 1948 till 1965, the ‘Palestinian question’ wasn’t recognized.
The world was without knowledge, the Israelis were happy and the region was silent. Today, everybody from Benyamin Netanyahu to China knows, that world peace and stability cannot be achieved without solving the Palestinian question.
In this way, the PLO was successful.
It's not right to do politics based on ethnicity, fine. Using weapons is wrong in every situation, alright. One must object to every kind of violence, good.
Ok, but what other choices the Palestinians had? Could the Israel state solve the situation with nice words in a persuasive way?
So tell me, what other choice did Kurds have? What other choice the Turkish state left them?
They used the only choice they had, they went up to the mountains. And they succeeded. Now they are celebrating.
Those who finds Kurds' celebrations inappropriate should briefly think who is the guilty one.
Originally published in Taraf. Translated with permission from the author.
