|
|
Kurdish national rights and the Turkish breach
of honor
Kirmanj Gundi
This article consists of a historical-political
analysis on the Kurdish plight and their
struggle for national rights in Turkey. It
particularly sheds light on the brutal policies
of the Turkish state and the callus and inhuman
course of action of Western colonial powers
after the WWI germane to this ancient and
indigenous nation of Kurdistan.
Introduction
FORCED OUT OF THEIR HOMELAND, Mongolia in
the Asia steppes, Turkish nomads immigrated to
Asia Minor. En route to the new destination,
these Turkish tribes fought some bloody wars and
committed some astonishing atrocities that were
unprecedented to the region at that time. They
created bloodbaths in many places, particularly
in Iran, where they were confronted with mass
resistance. Ostensibly, these Turkish tribes
passed through Iran and Kurdistan, and
eventually reached Baghdad.
When in 1258, under Hulago, the grandson of
Jenghiz Khan, these Turkish tribes captured
Baghdad. Hulago destroyed Baghdad and
indiscriminately slaughtered innocent people and
burned all the scientific and scholarly books
that were products of centuries of hard work. At
that time, Baghdad was the center of Islamic
civilization and a guiding beacon for Christian,
Jewish, and Islamic scientists and scholars to
work and live together in harmony. After the
capture of Baghdad, the Islamic civil society
was superseded by the characteristics of uncivil
Turkish tribes, and the Islamic civilization was
destroyed. Since then Muslims have not been able
to retake Islam back to the glorious days of
prior to the Turkish invasion of the region.
After some forty years, when these Turkish
tribes converted to Islam, they already had
established control over the region. Later, when
they established Ottoman Empire and in the
centuries of their reign, using the name and
defense of Islam as justification, they were
able to use non-Turkish Muslims including the
Kurds to expand their empire.
During the rise of the empire in 1299 until its
dissolution in 1922, the style of the Ottoman
Empire governance, for the most part, was
premised on the mono-rule of the elder brother—meaning,
when the Throne was given to the elder son of
the Sultan, he could liquidate all the other
male siblings. This savage practice was premised
on the notion that by liquidating other male
siblings they would liquidate the slightest
chance for a power struggle among the brothers.
This notion led the Turkish monarch to believe
that the reign of the Sultanate would continue
unopposed at least from internal feuds.
For some 623 years, the Turkish Sultans reigned
the Ottoman/Islamic Empire with a such
heathenish culture that brother was killing
brother, despite their supposed adherence to
Islam, which prohibits such a practice.
Consequently, one could ask if this was the
mentality of the Turkish Sultans, how could they
promote the good Islamic values and protect
human dignity?
The demise of the Ottoman Empire coincided with
the appearance of the Western powers in the
region and several important international
treaties, which caused the division of the
empire. The most pivotal treaties were
the Sèvres and Lausanne treaties.
Treaty of Sèvres
THIS TREATY OF SUPPOSED PEACE between the allied
and associated powers including France, United
Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and Turkey was signed
in Sèvres, France on August 10, 1920. The
purpose of the treaty, allegedly, was to have
every ethnicity enjoy its national identity with
internationally recognized national borders.
However, the composition of the committee and
the conformation of Iran and others would have
made it difficult for the treaty to be
implemented.
In Article 62 it was determined that a
commission that consisted of three members
appointed by the British, French and Italian
governments would draft a geo-ethnic map that
shows non-Turkish areas. It stated, “… within
six months from the coming into force of the
present Treaty a scheme of local autonomy for
the predominantly Kurdish areas lying east of
the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of
Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and
north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria and
Mesopotamia, as defined in Article 27, II (2)
and (3). If unanimity cannot be secured on any
question, it will be referred by the members of
the Commission to their respective Governments.
The scheme shall contain full safeguards for the
protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other
racial or religious minorities within these areas…”
Further, the Treaty in Article 63 stated, “The
Turkish Government hereby agrees to accept and
execute the decisions of both the Commissions
mentioned in Article 62 within three months from
their communication to the said Government.” Furthermore,
the Treaty in Article 64explained, “If
within one year from the coming into force of
the present Treaty the Kurdish people within the
areas defined in Article 62 shall address
themselves to the Council of the League of
Nations in such a manner as to show that a
majority of the population of these areas
desires independence from Turkey, and if the
Council then considers that these peoples are
capable of such independence and recommends that
it should be granted to them, Turkey hereby
agrees to execute such a recommendation, and to
renounce all rights and title over these areas.
The detailed provisions for such renunciation
will form the subject of a separate agreement
between the Principal Allied Powers and Turkey.
If and when such renunciation takes place, no
objection will be raised by the Principal Allied
Powers to the voluntary adhesion to such an
independent Kurdish State of the Kurds
inhabiting that part of Kurdistan which has
hitherto been included in the Mosul vilayet.”
The Treaty of Sèvres was signed by the last
Turkish Sultan. However, it never was ratified,
because the Sultan referred to the pact as an
act of “Devils” and refused to honor the treaty
until the fall of the empire in 1922.
Nonetheless, Turks were not the only obstacle
before the implementation of the Treaty; the
Western powers, particularly Britain and France
that were the guardians of the treaty, who had
concocted it in order to divide the Middle East
and were the signatories of the Sykes-Picot
Treaty, anticipated the downfall of the
Sultanate. Therefore they took no serious steps
forward to implement the treaty. They were
hoping for more territorial gain in the region
after the dissolution of Ottoman Empire.
The Treaty of Sykes-Picot was an agreement
between the United Kingdom and France with
consent of Tsarist Russia. In this treaty,
Britain and France, expecting the imminent fall
of the Ottoman Empire,defined respective realms
of their influence and political-economic
control in Western Asia. The treaty effectively
divided the Arab, Armenian, and Kurdish
provinces of the Ottoman Empire into areas of
future British and French control/influence.
The Sykes–Picot Agreementwas concluded on May
16, 1916 and implemented after the WWI.
The lack of a genuine commitment on the part of
the signatories of the of Treaty of Sèvres and
the British and French secret plans laid out in
Sykes-Picot agreement to divide the region, not
only dashed the dream of independence for the
Kurds, but also paved a way for the Lausanne
Treaty which created some arbitrary and
enfeebled states (i.e. not drawn to reflect true
demography of the region and its peoples) in
order to protect the interests of Western
colonialism.
Treaty of Lausanne
THE TREATY OF SÈVRES WAS soon paralyzed
and proven to be nothing but a sordid scheme of
the British and French to buy time with the
non-Turkish ethnicities in the Ottoman Empire by
suggesting that they would redraw the map of the
Middle East in the way in which every ethnicity
could have a national state of their own.
Although the Arabs benefited most from the terms
of the Treaty of Sèvres by gaining status as
nations after the demise of the Ottoman Empire,
the Kurds were the main victims of the political
maneuvering of the new Western colonial powers.
The more France and Britain tightened their grip
on the region, the less enthusiastic they became
about the full implementation of the treaty to
bring about future tranquility to the
historically most “disputed” area in the world.
They saw their interests in making the Treaty
of Sèvres defunct, and surpassed it with a newly
designed treaty, which gave them wider sphere of
influence in the region. France and Britain
along with Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania,
Yugoslavia, and Turkey were the signatories of
the Lausanne Treaty signed on July 24, 1923 in
Lausanne, Switzerland. To ensure that the Kurds
would not be represented in the new treaty,
British and French prevented General Sharif
Pasha, the only Kurdish diplomat at large from
representing the Kurdish interests at the
Lausanne Treaty negotiations. He was kept in
Syria and was not allowed to partake in crafting
of the treaty. Therefore, the new treaty was
signed without Kurdish concerns being addressed.
The new treaty literally gave the ownership of
the Northern part of Kurdistan to the newly
established Turkey.
The Treaty of Lausanne was good for the Turks,
but it was disastrous for the Kurds. It
recognized Anatolia as the new Turkish republic
with no mention of Kurdish national rights. The
treaty was ratified by the Greek government on
February 11, 1924, by the Turkish government on
March 31, 1924, and by the governments of Great
Britain, Italy, and Japan on August 6, 1924. It
was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on
September 5, 1924. It stated:
Turkey as the principal signatory of the treaty
was expected to honor and implement the articles
relevant to the non-Turk ethnicities. Further,
the treaty in Article 38 clearly defined
the Turkish responsibility towards non-Turk
ethnicities that were “shackled and forced” to
remain in the newly created Turkish republic.
Article 38 averred, “The Turkish Government
undertakes to assure full and complete
protection of life and liberty to all
inhabitants of Turkey without distinction of
birth, nationality, language, race or religion…”
The future Turkish form of government should
have been established on a Constitution that
would honor the “life and liberty to all
inhabitants of Turkey” and treat them equally
before the law. Ironically, Turkey premised its
foundation on a racist Constitution that
recognized no ethnicities other than the Turkish
ethnicity. In the new Turkish republic, the
Turks became the “lord of the land” and other
non-Turks were vassals of the Turks—exactly like
the era when the American colonial power
captured African blacks from Africa and
forcefully took and enslaved them in America—the
slave owners stripped the innocent Africans from
their native identity and gave them their own
European family names. Likewise, under the new
racist Turkish Constitution, the identity of the
Kurds was “transformed” to that of “Turks.”
Birth of the Turkish State
ACCORDINGLY, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE newly
established Turkish republic should have been
based on the “complete protection” provided by
the terms of the treaty for “life and liberty to
all inhabitants of Turkey without distinction of
birth, nationality, language, race, or religion.”
But, when on October 29, 1923, the new Turkish
republic was officially proclaimed with Mustafa
Kamal Ataturk being its first president, before
long, Mr. Ataturk and his government
categorically disregarded the concept of
equality of all inhabitants in the newly born
nation.
Turkish authorities under Mr. Ataturk then
disregarded their prior commitment to honor the
Lausanne Treaty and adopted what is best
described as a racist Constitution, in that it
referred to all citizens of Turkey as “Turks.”
In Article 69, the Constitution of the 1924,
stated, “All Turks [not citizens of
Turkey] are equal before the law and are
obliged to respect the law. All privileges of
whatever description claimed by groups, classes,
families, and individuals are abolished and
forbidden.” Sadly enough, in this portion of
Article 69, it appears that in the language of
this clause, was used by the majority culture
(Turks) to deny the identity of other
ethnicities (as ‘privilege’) or to contradict
“thecomplete protection of life and liberty
to all inhabitants of Turkey without distinction
of birth, nationality, language, race…” of
the Lausanne Treaty. The clause “without
distinction of birth, nationality, language,
race” of the Lausanne Treaty implied that ethnic
group identity would be safeguarded. In reality,
except for the Turkish identity, the identities
of other non-Turkish ethnicities were
constitutionally liquidated.
During his behind-the-curtain maneuver with the
allied nations to make the Treaty of Sèvres futile,
Mr. Ataturk visited Kurdistan, met with Kurdish
leaders, and promised to respect their national
rights after the Turkish Balkan War was over. He
promised them their rights in return for their
support of the Turks during the war. The Kurds
fulfilled their commitment, but after Turkey’s
victory in the Balkan War, Mr. Ataturk not only
did not keep his promise, but also adopted a
policy of physical destruction and cultural
annihilation vis-à-vis the Kurds. Months after
the adoption of the unbalanced and biased
Constitution in 1924, Ataturk’s government
unleashed its brutal and bloody campaign against
the Kurds. In 1925, they suppressed the Kurdish
national movement led by Sheikh Sa’eed Pîran—an
armed movement to secure the national rights for
the Kurds, the same rights which Mr. Ataturk
fought for in order to establish a new Turkish
national identity.
Ataturk’s forces in the North of Kurdistan (Turkish
occupied Kurdistan) massacred thousands of
defenseless Kurds including women, children, and
elderly. Additionally, they banned the words
“Kurd and Kurdistan” and referred to the Kurds
as the “Mountainous Turks,” and Kurdistan as
“East and South East of Turkey.” Speaking
Kurdish in public was considered as an insult to
the Turkish “honor" and punishable by
imprisonment. Later, other national movements
including the Xoyî Bûn led by General Ihsan Nuri
Pasha in 1931, and the Dersim uprising led by
Sayid Reza in 1937 were brutally put down.
On October 20, 1927, in Ankara, in his speech to
the Turkish youth, Mr. Mustafa Kamal Ataturk
stated, “Turkish Youth, Your first duty is to
preserve and to defend Turkish Independence and
the Turkish Republic forever.” Further, on
October 29, 1933, on the tenth anniversary of
the republic, Mr. Ataturk promulgated, “Happy is
he who says ‘I am a Turk.’” Such a statement by
Ataturk as the head of state can only define him
as a person of a deeply chauvinistic view and
who had no regard for human dignity beyond
Turkish identity.
Ataturk’s racist school of thought continued its
influence among the Turkish nationalists, and
consequently plagued the new republic in a
recurring cycle of fear, distrust, and hate. Its
impact became more patent after the military
Coup D’état and the subsequent adaptation of the
new Constitution in 1961. In Section Four:
Political Rights and Duties, I. Citizenship in
Article 54, the Constitution proclaimed, “Every
individual who is bound to the Turkish State by
ties of citizenship is a Turk.”
Such an amendment in the Constitution literally
was the “constitutional genocide” against all
the non-Turks in Turkey, particularly the Kurds
who are the second largest ethnic nation after
the Turks and who had been struggling for
decades to create a better environment in which
their national identity was recognized and
respected. Predictably enough, the new
Constitution brought more misery to the Kurds—persecution,
imprisonment, torture, and oppression of the
Kurds continued. Every measure of uncivilized
forcible means was implemented in
Kurdistan-Turkey. The Kurds were further driven
deep into a more economic and cultural
destitution. The Turkification policy through
assimilation and physical destruction in
Kurdistan was aggressively implemented.
Moreover, in another military Coup D’état in the
1982, Turkey remained as a country under Turkish
supremacy and mono-Turkish culture over all the
other non-Turkish inhabitants. The new
Constitution in Chapter Four, I. Turkish
Citizenship, Article 66 (as amended on October
17, 2001), states “Everyone bound to the Turkish
state through the bond of citizenship is a
Turk.” The only difference between this piece of
the Constitution and the piece of the
Constitution of 1961 is the word “ties,” changed
to “bond.” The chauvinistic school of thought
remained unchanged. According to such a
xenophobic Constitution, for example, if an
American citizen marries a Turkish citizen and
later obtains Turkish citizenship he or she
becomes a “Turk” and “not a citizen of Turkey.”
This racist Constitution continued to teach hate
and cynicism to the Turks that they are the
masters of the country and all the other
non-Turks are inferior to them. Consequently,
such a discriminatory teaching has always been a
huge obstacle before the greater majority of the
Turks to realize that Turkey is not a
homogeneous society, but rather it is a “mosaic”
of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups with two
major ethnicities, Turks and Kurds also
including Armenians, Arabs, Laz, Dönme, Greeks,
and Jews.
Although, Turks might not be aware of its
negative impact, they are the main victims of
such a myopic teaching under the Turkish
Constitution. This Constitution has prevented
them from realizing the truth about Turkey and
restrained them from getting to know other
non-Turks who have different nationality and
cultural backgrounds. Therefore, as long as
Turkish legal sources and political mindset stem
from such a bigoted Constitution, Turks will
never be able to transform Turkey into a
tranquil and prosperous society that looks
forward to a brighter future rather than living
in the fearful past unless they rid themselves
of and leave behind the cycle of hate, and
establish internal trust and genuinely believe
in the equality of all races/ethnicities.
Kurdish people and the Turkish school of thought
TURKEY’S LARGET NON—TURKISH ETHNICITY, the Kurds,
have been living in the Eastern and South
Eastern provinces—the same geographical area
that their ancestors inhabited when Xenophon
first mentioned the Kurds/Medes in the fifth
century B.C.E.—the century in which the
forbearers of modern Turks were still living
their nomadic and primitive life in Mongolia and
possibly had not heard of the Kurds.
Turkey has not only systematically tried to
suppress and trivialize Kurdish identity and
culture, but also has used the census to
under-report the Kurdish population in
Kurdistan-Turkey. The largest Kurdish population
worldwide live in Turkish occupied Kurdistan.
The rest of the people of Kurdistan live in the
adjacent contiguous regions of Iran, Iraq, and
Syria. Nonetheless, Turkey’s censuses, like the
censuses of other occupying countries, for
political purposes, do not register Kurds as a
separate ethnicity. Consequently, there is no
accurate data on their total number. The 1995,
the Turkish census estimated Kurds in Turkey at
about 12 million. However, the figure used by
the Kurds is that the number exceeds 25 million
Kurds living in Turkey.
Additionally, since the founding of the Republic
of Turkey, as noted earlier, the government has
sought to diminish the significance of ethnic
and linguistic distinctions. During the 1930s
and 1940s, the government had aggressive
policies to disguise the existence of the Kurds
statistically by classifying them as "Mountainous
Turks." However, in the 1980s, they replaced the
pseudo-label of “Mountainous Turks” in favor of
a new epithet, "Eastern Turks." Turkish
officials started using all the means available
to them including the so-called “Scientific
Institutions” and encouraged some Turkish
scholars to suggest that the Kurdish language,
which (they agreed) is part of the Indo-European
languages and is closely related to Persian, was
actually a dialect of the Turkish language.
Well, one could argue, if the Kurdish language
that is “closely related to Persian” was a
dialect of Turkish language, are not the Turks
by proxy claiming that the Persian language is
also a “dialect” of the Turkish language?
Consequently, one may also ask, do the Turks
know that if words of Arabic, Kurdish, Latin,
and the Persian origin were removed from their
“unique” Turkish language, it would, probably,
be difficult for the Turkish language to claim a
language identity?
Because of the large size of the Kurdish
population in Northern Kurdistan, the bigoted
Turkish state has always perceived the Kurds as
a threat to Turkish national unity. Thus, since
the inception of the republic, every Turkish
government has emphasized the strategy of
assimilating the Kurds through the suppression
of the Kurdish language/culture! Yet, despite
official attempts over several decades to impose
the Turkish culture upon them, Kurds have
retained their native language and refused the
Turkification policy of the racist Turkish
state.
In spite of the peaceful Kurdish approaches to
find a viable political solution to the Kurdish
claim, the Turks have escalated their brutality
against the people of Kurdistan. Particularly in
the wake of the military coup led by General
Kenan Evren in 1982. The military junta took its
ferocious measures of violence to an
unprecedented level of oppression since
Ataturk’s reign including mass killings,
arbitrary arrests, persecution, imprisonment,
torture, and execution.
As a result of the inhumane and belligerent
Turkish oppression and “constitutional genocidal
policies” against the people of Kurdistan, the
Kurds were left with little or no option to
defend their national integrity but to unleash
an armed struggle “only” to preserve their
God-given identity. Consequently, in the wake of
the Turkish repressiveness, Kurdistan Workers'
Party (Partîya Karkerên Kurdistan “PKK”) under
the leadership of Mr. Abdullah Ocelan was
established and refuted the Turkish policy of
denial against the Kurds. The PKK exhumed the
close-to-lifeless Kurdish identity in Turkey and
put it back on the Turkish, regional and
international political stages.
Birth of the PKK
TURKISH ATROCITIES IN KURDISTAN COMPELLED the
Kurds to look for another option to slow down,
if not stop the Turkish policy of annihilation
in Kurdistan. Partîya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK)
was given birth in 1978, and soon was known as
one on the most disciplined political-military
organizations ever established in the history of
the Kurdish nation. It soon became a force to be
reckoned with in Turkey. The PKK, under the
leadership of Mr. Ocelan, adopted a
leftist-nationalist ideology (as leftist
ideology was popular in the region at the time)
and practiced guerrilla warfare against the
Turkish oppressive state. Before long, the
impact of the PKK’s activities compelled Turkey,
although reluctantly, to acknowledge the Kurdish
“problem” in Turkey. Although the PKK began with
the motto of an independent state for the Kurds,
but later it retreated from its prior goal and
relinquished its leftist ideology, and settled
for cultural/national recognition and rights for
the people of Kurdistan in Turkey.
Turkish authorities, assuming that they had
suppressed and uprooted the Kurdish national
ambition after the suppression of the Kurdish
uprising in 1937, not only categorically
rejected the PKK as a Kurdish entity, but also
stigmatized it as a “terrorist” organization.
Against all odds and Turkish repressive measures,
the PKK was able to withstand its ground against
the racist Turkish state and continued its
activities. The PKK reeducated the people of
Kurdistan about their national identity, rich
culture, and their proud ancient history.
Turkish State and the PKK
IN THE WAKE OF THE TURKISH MILITARY COUP OF 1982
and the Turkish brutality that followed in
Kurdistan, the Partîya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK)
armed itself in 1984 and renewed the decades-old
struggle for self-determination. This was the
first Kurdish national movement after some 47
years.
The Turkish response to the Kurdish demands
proposed by the PKK had a reactionary measure.
They adamantly remained in their closed biased
school of thought and continued their
chauvinistic policies toward the people of
Kurdistan. The initiation of the armed
insurrection by the PKK was faced with fierce
Turkish military campaigns in Kurdistan. After
some five years of bloodshed and the killing of
both Kurds and Turks—the Turkish government
began to feel the burden and dire consequences
of the bloody conflict. In 1989, Mr. Turgut Özal
became the president of Turkey, and, for the
first time since Ataturk’s era, he used the term
“Kurd” in public to refer to the so-called
“Eastern Turks.”
As a visionary leader, President Özal
acknowledged the presence of the Kurdish people
in Turkey and conceded that if the Turkish
government would not take a proactive measure to
find a peaceful political solution for the
Kurdish issue, others (referring to external
forces) might do it for Turkey. He was in favor
of having a dialogue with the PKK. However, the
myopic mentality of the Turkish Generals and the
old school of Turkish politics vehemently
opposed his vision and practical approach. Not
long after President Özal’s view for a political
solution was noticed by the Turkish political
and military elites, he mysteriously died on
April 17, 1993. His successors continued to
employ the ultra-nationalist tradition of
Turkish politics and atrocities in
Kurdistan-Turkey.
Despite this ongoing campaign against them, the
PKK leadership occasionally, has unilaterally
ceased hostility with a hope of finding a
political solution and called on the Turkish
authorities for dialogue and a peaceful solution
to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. However, every
time the Turks have trivialized the PKK’s call
and warned the PKK to lay down their arms in
order to benefit from “government amnesty.” In
reality, this call for government amnesty was
a means to get them to surrender to the
repressive Turkish state. The PKK’s position was
to continue its armed struggle to defend the
national identity of the people of Kurdistan.
As mentioned above, the PKK’s calls for a
political settlement fell on deaf ears—the
Turkish authorities preferred a military
solution—bloodshed and widening the cycle of
hate and distrust in Turkey’s society continued.
They maintained their prejudicial and cynical
campaign against the PKK as a “terrorist”
organization.
Although there is no universal definition for it,
“terrorism” refers to acts of violence that are
intended to create fear in society without
havinglegitimate goals or objectives.
Terrorists disregard the values of human rights
and violate human dignity. Terrorism has no
popular support and terrorists are hated by the
masses. Contrary to the common Turkish
perception—the PKK has a nationalist agenda for
the ancient Kurds—the agenda that is supported
by legal concept for a people’s right to self
determination, the UN’s Declaration of Human
Rights, the UN general platform, and democratic
values and principles. The PKK was created to
draw the world’s attention to the repressive
Turkish policies against the people of Kurdistan.
The PKK is a product of the Turkish racist
constitutional oppression of the Kurds. If
Turkey had a balanced Constitution, recognized
the Kurdish existence, and respected Kurdish
national identity, the PKK would not have to
come into existence in its present form. If it
were in existence under a tolerant Turkish
Constitution, it probably would be nothing more
than a political faction.
Further, to put the definition of “terrorism” in
perspective, one could argue which side fits the
definition of terrorist, the Turkish state that
constitutionally has a policy of systematic
genocide against the people of Kurdistan or an
organization that was forced into an armed
struggle to stop the genocidal Turkish policies
in Kurdistan-Turkey? The answer, I believe, is
clear.
Thus, as long as the Turkish authorities
continue their stubborn and repressive policy of
denial against the people of Kurdistan, the
Kurdish national struggle will continue whether
through the PKK or other Kurdish national
organization(s). Moreover, the Kurdish political
leadership in Northern Kurdistan should take
these demonstrations that occasionally erupt in
various cities in Kurdistan-Turkey, mainly in
Diyarbakir, out of their sporadic status and
organize future demonstrations that are not
sporadic, but rather are planned and coordinated
under a unified leadership. These demonstrations
must spread to and include majority of cities
and towns of Kurdistan, if not all. The Kurdish
political leadership should adapt a Gandhi style
non-violent movement across Kurdistan. They
should organize these demonstrations in the way
in which even “stone throwing” will not be
allowed. They need to prepare the masses to just
“sit-in” and non-violently disobey inhumane
Turkish course of actions. Using such a peaceful
approach to continue the Kurdish national
movement will gain more support for the cause
regionally and internationally with minimal
sacrifice.
At such time when the Turkish government
constitutionally acknowledges the Kurdish
existence and respects Kurdish national and
democratic rights, then, if the PKK continued
its armed activities against the Turkish state,
only then can the PKK be blamed and should bear
the burden of guilt. But, as long as it is the
terrorist Turkish state that constitutionally
justifies genocide against the Kurds,
subsequently, it is the Turkish state that is
“guilty until proven innocent.”
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development
Party/Government and the Kurdish Issue
THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY (DJP)—Adalet
va Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) in Turkish, is a
center-right political party in Turkey. The
party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members
of parliament. Its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
is Prime Minister, and another AKP member,
Abdullah Gül is President. The AKP was
established in 2001, and in the November 2002
election, it became the largest political party
in Turkey.
The AKP party, by all means, is the most
successful Turkish political party ever
established since the demise of the Ottoman
Empire. This party promoted Turkey’s image at
the regional and international levels. Although,
it continued the inherited policy of striving to
become a member of the EU, it expanded Turkey’s
political and economic relationships with
countries around the world. In the wake of such
a wise policy, the AKP leadership, changed the
political mentality of the Turkish people and
showed that it is not necessary to “beg” the
Europeans for an EU membership in order to have
status in the global political and economic
arena.
The AKP party, before long, transformed Turkey
into a global economic power—and became a member
of the G-20 (group of nations that are economic
power/superpower). This proved especially
vexing to other EU members who were not yet able
to achieve membership in the G-20, which Turkey
so readily achieved.
Politically, under the AKP party, Turkey became
a strong voice in the region and occasionally,
Erdoğan’s government “cast ballots” against
Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian
plight. Although triumphant in certain areas,
the AKP government under Mr. Erdoğan’s
leadership has had a muddle and mixture of
hypocrisy in its domestic and foreign policies.
While Mr. Erdoğan has been one of the strongest
voices of support for the Palestinian cause in
the non-Western world and showed concern for
Palestinian children—he has been continuing the
war against the people of Kurdistan and denied
Kurdish children to claim their Kurdish names;
because under the Turkish Constitution only
Turkish language/culture is allowed; anything
outside of the Turkish culture is prohibited.
Whilst showing sympathy for Palestinian
children, the so-called Turkish “anti-terror
law” was amended as recently as 2005 under Mr.
Erdoğan’s tutelage. This law allows Turkish
security forces to crackdown on Kurdish children
and labels them as “terrorists.” In 2006, a few
months after a demonstration against Turkish
brutality began in Diyarbakir, Turkey's Supreme
Court ruled that the 2005 anti-terror law now
could be applied to children of 15 to 18 years
of age. Since then, Turkey has been putting
Kurdish children on trial in “Heavy Penal
Courts.” These courts are authorized to review
and try cases of organized crime, terrorism and
state security. In 2006, the Turkish Supreme
Court modified the interpretation of the
anti-terror law, and updated it to “whenever
somebody is involved in a demonstration, carries
a flag or does any other kind of propaganda for
an illegal organization, he or she is considered
to be part of this organization and defined as a
‘terrorist’.”
To show his support for this amended inhumane
piece of theConstitution, Mr. Erdoğan threatened
the Kurds against participating in any
demonstration against the Turkish government. He
stated, “whether men, women or children, the
security forces will react with disproportionate
force.’' Thus, in a subsequent demonstration,
ten Kurds were shot, among them were five
children.
To be clear, this Anti-terror law allows the
Turkish security forces to severely punish
Kurdish “children” for “throwing stones” and
equating throwing stones with “armed
resistance,” and the charge of affiliation with
a banned organization. Hence, Mr. Erdoğan should
be reminded of the statement of a Kurdish mother
whose teenage daughter was jailed in
Diyarbakir’s “heavy security” prison for
throwing stones at the Turkish forces during the
unrest. She stated, “How would Mr. Erdoğan feel
if it were his teenage daughter jailed and
labeled as a “terrorist” for throwing stones?”
Perhaps only Mr. Erdoğan can provide an answer
to this Kurdish mother.
After amendments were made to the country's
anti-terror law, children who are charged as
terrorists could receive up to 50 years in
prison. Since 2006, when the crackdown on
Kurdish children began—according to official
figures in 2009, there were 2,622 minors serving
time in Turkish prisons. Considering that
Turkish atrocities in Kurdistan have continued,
the imprisonment of Kurdish children has not
abated. This is Turkey’s human rights record
that has full political blessing of some of the
Western “democratic” nations.
Ironically, the AKP government and its so-called
“Judicial system” fail to recognize that 90
percent of the imprisoned Kurdish children are
students. These under-age students are likely
not able to even define “terrorism.” If they
knew the definition of terrorism, they probably
would draw attention of the prosecutor(s) and
others in the Turkish judicial system to the
inherently racist Turkish Constitution as a
basis under which Turkey has become an
oppressive state.
In Turkey, the AKP Party’s image is somewhat
different than the image it has created
abroad. Under the AKP party, Turkish officials
continued prosecuting and persecuting mainly the
Kurds for using languages other than Turkish.
Consequently, many Kurdish citizens have been
prosecuted on charges relating to the public use
of Kurdish and spreading separatist ideology,
because speaking Kurdish is considered a
“separatist” act by many Turkish oligarchs.
In recent years, speaking or reading Kurdish
apparently is no longer a cause for arrest, but
at an official level, there remains an ensconced
bias against the use of the Kurdish language.
Imprisoned Kurds still are required to
communicate with their lawyers and visiting
family members in Turkish, even if they do not
speak/understand the Turkish language.
According to Today’s Zaman (Friday, June
3, 2011) issue, members of the Doğubeyazıt
Municipal Council in Ağrı province were given
one-month and 20-day jail sentences, for naming
a park in their district after Kurdish poet and
philosopher Ehmedê Xanî. Along with them, the
district's mayor was sentenced to six months in
prison. According to the prosecutor who took the
park's name case to the Doğubeyazıt “Criminal
Court” of 1st Instance in 2008, the letter “X”
in Xanî's name was problematic; because the
letter “X” used in “Xani” was perceived by the
Court as a violation of an earlier republican
era law on the Turkish script which only allows
the Turkish alphabet to be used in Turkey.
While using the letter “X,” under the Justice
Ministry of the AKP party is a “crime” which
must be dealt with in the Criminal Court, Mr.
Erdoğan alluded to Xanî's “Mem û Zîn, as “an
epic love story, [that] is considered as one of
the most important works in Kurdish literature.”
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan quoted lines
from it during an election rally, and the
Ministry of Culture and Tourism published a
Turkish translation. Mr. Erdogan’s mentioning of
Xanî's work, perhaps was to gain more Kurdish
vote. However, he was not criticized for
praising Xanî's work that contains the
prohibited “X” from Kurdish literature.
Murat Roha Özbay, a lawyer for the defendants,
said that the letters, X, W and Q, although not
included in the 29-letter Turkish alphabet, are
used frequently in all public agencies with no
legal consequences. He noted that the
state-owned Kurdish language TRT 6 station
frequently made use of the “banned letters.” He
said the court ruling was hypocritical, adding,
“If it is really a crime, then we will file
criminal complaints against the Interior
Ministry and the Ministry of Culture and
Tourism. Although, the sentencing was later
suspended, the Turkish officials intended to
remind the Kurds during this three-year long
trial, that in Turkey “only” Turkish
culture/language is allowed.
Additionally, Erdoğan’s manipulative “real
politick” towards the Kurds continued. He
pioneered an opening of a state sponsor
television channel—TRT 6—in Kurdish—and on
January 1, 2009, the TRT 6 was launched. He even
visited Diyarbakir and in “Kurdish”
congratulated the Kurds on the new TV station.
Turkish officials claimed that the new channel
will help contribute to build unity of Turkey's
citizens. But the fact of the matter is that the
notion behind the creation of the TRT 6 was to
counter the PKK satellite channel Roj
TV. However, the TRT 6 does not broadcast under
the “Kurdish” language, but rather it broadcasts
under an “unknown” language (i.e. unidentified
language). Imagine, the TRT 6 operates 24/7 in
Kurdish, but cannot mention the identity of the
language it uses. Here, one could argue, how
could the Turks use this TV channel to “build
unity” among Turkey’s citizens when they do not
show enough courage to first acknowledge the
identity of the language used by the TRT 6 and
the reality of Kurdish existence? Further, how
can they be so confident that their TRT 6 will
have impact on the Kurds in Turkey when there
are more than a dozen of Kurdish satellite
televisions broadcast worldwide not only in
Kurdish, but also for preserving the Kurdish
identity? Do the Turks think that the Kurds in
Kurdistan-Turkey really care about a Turkish
“mouthpiece” television that is state-monitored
propaganda machine? The Turks were not sincere
in their approach, if they were, they should
have used KRT, which stands for “Kurdish Radio
and Television,” and not TRT, which is an
abbreviation for “Turkish Radio and
Television.”
Moreover, the Turkish decision to create TRT 6
did not seem to reflect the Turkish good-will
gesture to promote Turkish-Kurdish relation for
long. On February 24, 2009, about two months
later, Mr. Ahmet Turk, the Head of the then
“Democratic Society Party (DTP),” started
speaking in Kurdish in the Turkish
Parliament. He stated, “Kurds have long been
oppressed because they did not know any other
language. I promised myself that I would speak
in my mother tongue at an official meeting one
day,” he said to a standing ovation from his
party in the Turkish Parliament.
The state controlled TV immediately stopped
broadcasting, and the parliament speaker, Mr.
Koksal Toptan, stated after Mr. Turk spoke, "The
official language is Turkish. This meeting
should have been conducted in Turkish." However,
Mr. Turk said he gave the speech in Kurdish in
recognition of UNESCO world languages week.
Later, Mr. Turk was harshly criticized by the
state controlled media and even physically
attacked by Turkish nationalists.
Similarly, in 1991, Mrs. Leyla Zana, the first
Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament,
spoke the latter part of her oath of office in
Kurdish. She later was stripped of her
parliamentary immunity, and charged with
subversion and having links to the PKK. She
served 10 years in prison. I believe one could
ask an ethical question here, when there is 24/7
Turkish state sponsored Kurdish Television—when
Mr. Erdoğan as the Turkish PM speaks a few
Kurdish words in Diyarbakir, why then it is
“taboo” for Mr. Ahmet Turk or any other Kurdish
officials in Turkey to speak their ancient
mother language? One could clearly see how
hypocritical and myopic Mr. Erdoğan and his
government have been in their purview with
regard to the Kurdish status in Turkey.
In the June 2011 Turkish parliamentary
election, six imprisoned Kurdish politicians,
nominated as independent candidates for the
pro-Kurdish Freedom and Democracy party, were
elected to the Turkish parliament. Among these
imprisoned politicians are Faysal Sarıyıldızfrom
Sirnak, Gülseren Yıldırım from Mardin, İbrahim
Ayhan from Urfa, Kemal Aktaş from
Van, Selma Irmak from Sirnak, and Hatip
Dicle, from Diyarbakir. These were lawfully
elected representatives. Rather than being able
to take the oath of office for which they were
democratically elected, they have been held in
prison. Erdoğan’s government has stubbornly
maintained its hard position and rejected the
calls for their release. These future Kurdish
deputies who have been held in prison have the
support of the “rule of law” through their
democratic election. Therefore, they should be
freed and allowed to take the oath of office.
Turks cannot continue using a “pretext” of
having affiliation with an outlawed organization
against Kurdish activists. By refusing the
release of the imprisoned Kurds, the Turkish
government has continued to be entrapped in
Turkish chauvinism, which has brought nothing to
Turkey but imprisonment in its excruciating
phobia. Thus, the Turkish government must be
reminded that the Turks cannot be part of the
solution to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict if they
maintain using their unwise approach towards the
Kurdish issue and try to have everything
resolved on their terms without listening to the
Kurdish side.
Further, Mr. Erdoğan has been outspoken against
Germany about the Turkish minority living in
that country, and warned Germans not to
assimilate the Turks in Germany into the German
culture. He called the policy of assimilation
“inhumane.” Well one could ask Mr. Erdoğan how
could he justify his position against Germany
vis-à-vis the policy of assimilation of the
Turks when that has been his government’s
practice against the Kurdish people in Turkey?
Perhaps in today’s morally corrupt global
politics it is possible for one to be a democrat
and advocate of human rights abroad, but an
oppressor at home.
Mr. Erdoğan and his AKP Party have a pro-Islamic
ideology, and apparently have a modern world
view—nonetheless, they are still bound by a
mono-Turkish mentality protected by the Turkish
Constitution. Therefore, Mr. Erdoğan as a
follower of Islamic teaching and principles
should be reminded that Islam, vehemently, is
against racial inequality.
The Turkish Constitution is premised on a racist
intention—and racism whether in the open or
hidden, is a malicious and evil characteristic
among human societies, which Islam (and other
religions) seek to eliminate. It is clear from
the verses of Quran—the holy book of the Muslims
(including Mr. Erdoğan) that in many places in
the Quran, God commands human beings that the
differences in gender, color, tribes, races, or
traditions should not be used as a pretext for
unjust and inhumane treatment. Almighty God
calls for an end to racial discrimination among
societies. He says:
Oh Mankind, we created you from a single pair of
a male and a female, and made you into tribes
and nations so that you may know each other (not
that you despise each other). Verily, the most
honored of you in the sight of Allah is he who
is most righteous of you. (Quran, Chapter 49,
Verse 13)
God clarifies the reason for creating human
beings into different races, tribes, and
nations. He removes any doubt to implicitly and
explicitly convey His message: "That you may
know each other."
This holy verse left no ambiguity for Mr.
Erdoğan and his AKP Party leadership/government
to thoroughly comprehend that racial
discrimination is against God’s
will. Consequently, one feels compelled to say
that Mr. Erdoğan as a “democrat” clearly
violates democratic principles and human rights,
and as a fellow “Muslim” he certainly breaches
his own faith by ignoring God’s command for
racial/ethnic equality.
Furthermore, although America and other
hypocritical Western nations refer to Turkey as
a “symbol of democracy” in the Islamic world,
and have given the Turks a “Certificate of
Support,” the Turkish democracy is not a
democracy—it is a monocracy—and best, it can be
defined as “Turkocracy.”
The Capture of Mr. Abdulla Ocelan
ON FEBRUARY 15, 1999, MR. OCELAN was captured in
Kenya with the help of Israeli Mossad and the
CIA, and was handed over to the Turks. He was
immediately transferred to Turkey. Early in the
morning circa 3:00 am he arrived in Turkey while
handcuffed and strapped to a seat.
Nevertheless, there are some conflicting
accounts of how Mr. Ocelan was captured. At the
time, the BBC reported he was lured out of
hiding by those who promised him safe passage to
Holland. Greek foreign minister Theodoros
Pangalos stated, “Ocelan was tricked into
leaving his hiding place.” Interestingly, one
could ask how and who tricked him while he was
under Greek supervision, if indeed, Greeks were
not complacent if not cooperative with the
abductors? According to the Greek Embassy, Mr.
Ocelan “chose” to leave the embassy “despite”
their advice, and went with “the Kenyan
authorities to the airport." However, according
to a guard at the residence, and Kurdish guards
who were with Mr. Ocelan, he was snatched out of
the embassy by Kenyan security men.
Thus, Mr. Ocelan’s capture was not as easy as
Mr. Bulent Ecevit, the then Turkish Prime
Minister, stated when he informed members of the
press on February 16, 1999. He said, “We had
stated wherever he might be in the world, our
state would be able to capture him.” The fact of
the matter is that it was a “mission impossible”
for Turkey to even know Mr. Ocelan’s exact
whereabouts let alone being able to capture him
in a faraway continent, abduct and take him back
to Turkey. Mr. Ocelan’s capture took place as a
result of CIA and Mossad cooperation with the
full knowledge of then-US President Bill
Clinton. This was the action of a President of a
nation that claims to be the guardian of human
rights and oppressed people, and protector of
democracy.
Prior to his capture in Kenya, Mr. Ocelan
odyssey began in 1984 when the armed struggle
began against the oppressive Turkish state and
he was forced to leave Turkey and flee to
Syria. Later, he was forced to leave Syria and
sought asylum in Italy, Netherlands, and
Russia. He was turned away by each of these
countries. Clinton’s administration applauded
the actions of these nations. The US government
exerted its influence to make sure that Mr.
Ocelan could not find a sanctuary. This was an
ugly chapter written by the US
administration—but it was not the first time
such a chapter was written—in 1962 the CIA
assisted the apartheid South African regime in
finding Mr. Nelson Mandela, who was, at the
time, like Mr. Ocelan, also labeled as a
“terrorist.”
Conclusion
AFTER THE DEMISE OF THE OTTOMAN
Empire—acting as the “Turkish quisling”—the
Western powers betrayed their initial position,
which was engraved in the Treaty of Sèvres that
had granted the Kurds their nationhood state.
Through their cynical maneuvers, modern Turkey
came out of the womb of the Treaty of Lausanne
to serve and preserve the Western colonial
interests and influence at the expense of the
Kurds. France and Britain allowed for the Treaty
of Lausanne to supersede the Treaty of Sèvres,
and granted the ownership of Northern Kurdistan
to the mono-culture Turkish state. The Treaty of
Lausanne offered minimal rights to the people of
Kurdistan—recognizing that there were Kurds
living in Turkey. Nonetheless, the racist school
of thought of Ataturk not only breached the
honor they had pledged even in the Lausanne
Treaty to recognize Kurdish rights, but also
created constitutionally genocidal policies
against them—a brutal policy that exists to
date. Sadly enough, all these atrocities
happened on the Western watch.
For Turkey to go beyond its xenophobic past is
to find a way out of the plague of radical
“Turkish nationalism.” To achieve this, Turkey
must adhere to the democratic and human rights
principles, and the Turks need to rid themselves
of the “ego” of a superior race/ethnicity—and
see themselves as an ethnicity that is neither
inferior nor superior to any other
ethnicities—and see themselves and others as
equals. Only then can Turkey find serenity at
home and a decent place among the family of
nations.
Since the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, some 88
years have passed—only in recent years the Turks
have started to offer a limited talk about the
Kurds who are, as mentioned, the second largest
ethnicity of more than 25 million in Turkey.
This reminds the world that even if “right now”
Turkey amends its Constitution, acknowledges and
respects the Kurdish national and cultural
rights, Turkey is still some 88 years behind.
What Turkey has done for 88 years is no less
than a breach of honor of its own dignity by
denying the reality of the Kurdish existence.
They talk about democracy, but practice
repressive policies towards the Kurds. However,
for the Turks to have a genuine democracy and
prosperous future—they need to free themselves,
as mentioned, from the “ego” of oppressing other
people—because one cannot be free while
oppressing others. Their brutal and inhumane
behavior with regard to the Kurds have insulted
the universal “common humanity.”
Turks should know that just as after the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the non-Turkish
lands were returned back to the native people,
they must realize that this land they now call
it “East/South East of Turkey” in reality is
“Northern Kurdistan” and belongs to the ancient
indigenous Kurds. And sooner or later, it will
have to be given back to its native people.
Finally, it is imperative to remind the Turkish
state of a historical lesson. After some 27
years in prison when he was labeled as a
“terrorist,” a moment of truth arrived; the
whole world watched to see the triumphant return
of Mr. Nelson Mandela. He left his prison gate
and returned as a national hero. As the Kurd’s
own freedom fighter, Mr. Ocelan might have the
same or similar destiny (God grant him longer
life). Mr. Mandela’s continuous struggle in
prison—without wavering or compromising the
integrity of his people—demarcated the beginning
of the end of ugly “apartheid regime” of South
Africa. I believe, it is equally fair to say
that the Kurdish struggle will continue until
the ugly “Turkish apartheid rule” ends in
Kurdistan. Turks must realize that they can no
longer constitutionally genocide one of the most
ancient ethnicities in the world. They must know
that freedom belongs to those peoples who in the
words of a Kurdish poet, Bla “do not live to
die, but die to give life” to their future
generations. Therefore, the people of Kurdistan
are elated to have paved such a glorious path
towards freedom through their struggle to secure
life for future generations.
Kirmanj Gundi is a professor at the Department
of Educational Administration and Leadership at
Tennessee State University.
References
-AK
Party Website: http://eng.akparti.org.tr/index.html
-Ataturk
Web. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PKK. http://pkk.ataturk.org/capture.shtml
-Ataturk
quotes and speeches. All About Turkey.
(Website).http://www.allaboutturkey.com/ata_speech.htm#2
-Brief History of Republic of Turkey. http://www.bartleby.com/65/tu/Turkey.html--http://www.umich.edu/~turkish/links/reptr_brhist.html)
Retrieved on May 29, 2011
-Holly Quran: Chapter 49, Verse 13.
-Islam: Empire of faith. Documentary film.
-Islam & Racism. (2001). http://www.inter-islam.org/Prohibitions/RACISM.htm#views
-Jailing
Kurdish Children to Undermine Dissent
By Daan Bauwens “http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49558” Inter
Press Service News Agency:http://www.ipsnews.net/index.asp--July
27, 2011.
-KURDISTAN
COMMENTARY.
Thousands march for Kurdish language rights. 22
February 2011 by KB.http://kurdistancommentary.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/thousands-march-for-kurdish-language-rights/
-Mongabay.com. http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/turkey/SOCIETY.html
retrieved on May 30,
2011.
-Nichole
Sobecki. (2009). Turkey's forbidden tongue. Global
Post website:http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/turkey/090305/turkeys-forbidden-tongue.
March 5,
2009.
-Per Fagereng. (1999). The Capture of Abdullah
Ocalan: Having their way with the Kurds.http://wafreepress.org/39/capture.html
-Serbesti
Website: SOCIETY FOR THREATENED PEOPLES.
Göttingen, June 14, 2011http://www.serbesti.net/showentry.php?sNo=25680
-The Standard for fairness and Justice.(2011).http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/specialreports/InsidePage.php?id=2000038855&cid=259&story=The%20capture%20of%20Abdullah%20Ocalane.
-TRT
6 website: http://www.odyovi.com/turkey/ankara/free-online-kurdish-tv/watch-live/trt-kurdish-tv-trt-6-tv
-Turkish
Constitution of 1924.
-Turkish
Constitution of 1961.
-Turkish
Constitution of 1982.
بۆ ناردنی کۆمێنت یا روانگه و
بۆچوونی خۆت لهسهر ئهم بابهته، لهم فۆرمه
کهلک وهرگره
|
|
