By Mufid Abdulla
21/12/2009
This is a response to the article posted on Sundayzaman.com dated 20th December 2009.
Anybody who travels to Turkey especially to the Kurdish part in the south of Turkey, realises the poor state of the living conditions for people living there. Many journalists have admitted that this amounts to a state of colonialism in the north of Kurdistan. The Turkish state has continued to treat people as second class citizens. If Frantz Fanon was born again today he would write the second part of his book ‘The Wretched of the Earth: the North of Kurdistan’. The Turkish state has made people ashamed to call themselves a Kurd because of the state of humiliation and stimulation of Kurdish nationalism. Let us consider Turk, Zia Gokalp, who had a lifelong ambivalent relation with the Kurds, but who opted for Turkish ethnicity and became one of the chief ideologues of Turkish nationalism. We have to ask who made Gokalp think and act that way?
The Turkish state is still a dominant military power with regards to politics. The state of the media there is nothing other than the reactionary of the state. Kurds in the south of Kurdistan should not be humiliated and deprived from all basic human rights. Our people in the north have never accepted these realities. The only chance for the Kurds to survive in the north of Kurdistan is via a struggle but the question remains, what kind of struggle would be allowed?
In light of recent developments in Turkey, the law operated by the state military junta has decided to ban the Kurdish party DTP Democratic Society Party on the 11th December 2009 on the pretext of its connection with the PKK.
The Turkish state at the beginning of this year called for the openness towards the Kurdish issue from the early stage, all observers have concluded that this situation is reminiscent of the Kurdish issue in the south with the Iraqi state in 1970, 1974, 1984 and 1991. During these years the Iraqi state and Ba’ath Saddamist Party, on the pretext of solving Kurdish issues, held several negotiations but in reality this was just to buy time and enhance their political and military situation, nothing else, which was the reason that all these negotiations did not and have not yet produced any results.
The Turkish state is repeating the same history. If this is not the case, then why when the PKK have shown their willingness to absorb these opportunities, in contrary to this situation, have the Turkish military state still continued their military operations in the south of Turkey? Lifting the ban on the Kurdish language, installing the Kurdish TV station; these are minor issues but the nation of 20 million people need their lives and the economy structure to be in place. Who are they in Turkey and how can they participate in their country’s development? The Democratic Society Party, DTP belongs to the Kurdish people in the north of Kurdistan. They were established in 2005, have got 20 seats in the Turkish parliament and control 98 councils. So who voted for the DTP? The DTP and their leaders are the sons and daughters of our people in Kurdistan. All mothers in their prayers are asking God to protect the heart of Ahmed Turk, to be alive, to protect that nation.
Firstly, in my response to his article ‘The Kurds’ turn’, Ekrem Dumanli in which he states that “the DTP claimed that it represented Kurds but it did not lend the slightest support to the government that ensured legal protection of Kurdish rights. Why? Because they were fearful of Ocalan.”
The DTP do not believe that the Turkish state is serious with regards to solving the Kurdish cause in Turkey. The DTP do not believe the talk in the air of changes in the constitution of Turkey which will solve Kurdish politics in Turkey. The DTP is not frightened of Ocalan but instead want to build a bridge between these people in the mountains and the civil societies in Turkey.
In another part of his article, Dumanli states that “The extremists who are inciting a Kurdish-Turkish clash want the country to be dragged into a state of emergency, martial law, coup and chaos. Anti-Kurds, who are urging people to take to the streets by saying “the country is dividing,” share the same sin.”
No, that is incorrect, it is the extremists in the Turkish state and military rule who do not believe in any peaceful solution to the Kurdish cause, not the DTP or PKK. The Turkish states of their democratic institution are ill-prepared and ill-advised because they are still under the influence of the ideas of the Ataturk, their Ottoman empire. Therefore, the constitution cannot be changed because of that reason. The PKK have opted for an armed struggle because they have had no other choices. The PKK represents the blood and beliefs of millions of Kurds in the north of Kurdistan and they believe that an armed conflict will not conclude the Kurdish cause, which could be possible if the German citizens were to join the PKK and go all the way to the mountains of Kurdistan and sacrifice their lives, if this in not the humanitarian cause. And still, thousands of people across Europe are queuing to join the PKK armed force.
Secondly, I would like to respond to the article by Mehmet Kamis “Vaccination against establishment order: Terror”. In this, Kames has tried to compare the Palestinian terror when the Qassam missiles were thrown, they did not serve the Palestinian issues but the war has ended. The Kurds cannot be compared with the style of Palestinian terror which has been waged. The Kurds have never incited terrorist activities and never hijacked aeroplanes or killed innocent people randomly. The Palestinian enemy in Israel is much more intelligent, if the Kurds could live in Israel they could solve their cause much better than they have in Turkey! The PKK are not a reactionary force but the national revolution is struggling for Kurdish rights and self determination. ‘No Peace, No War’ this is not a choice for Kurdish people who want to opt for it. We need a peaceful solution otherwise there will be no peace in the whole of Turkey. The armed conflict has not only burned the Turkish side, also the mother of the PKK freedom fighter has a story to tell. Ordogan’s speech last month in the Turkish parliament is evidence of my argument.
Finally, national liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation of Kurdistan is the process I have called decolonization which is always a violent event. The need for this liberation from Turkish colonialism exists in a raw, repressed and reckless state in the lives and consciences of colonized men and women in Kurdistan. There is confrontation between two forces, of course the Turkish state has coloured this confrontation by violence and have always wanted the violence to prevail. Otherwise, why did the HDEP Party close in 2003 and now the DTP Party? The Turkish military dominated state has no tool to deal with these parties because they have no constitutional democracy to deal with this Kurdish issue. AK Party, if you were not determined from the very start to smash every obstacle encountered then how did you ever propose to solve the Kurdish issue? Of course, the military apparatus in Turkey, who have made up their mind to make such an agenda into a driving force, have been prepared for violence indefinitely. The Turkish state is the regime of oppression. Challenging this regime continuously means the war will continue until the democratic rights for the Kurds are justly achieved.
