Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Before every election, some political parties often make the same argument again and again, each claiming they are the only group able to justly represent the Kurdish people. As a matter of fact, the DTP (Democratic Society Party - Turkish: Demokratik Toplum Partisi - DTP) and others, who shared the same mentality in the recent past and who successfully implemented the tragic fiction of “Groundhog Day” into real life, are more inclined to publically announce their goals now than they have been in the past. As known, the movie “Groundhog Day” is the story of a weatherman who finds himself living the same day over and over again due to the fact that he makes mistakes on what he needs to do. The last representative of pro-Kurdish politics, the DTP does not spend the effort to look for their mistakes and correct them, for they are unaware of the existence of their faults. Otherwise, why must such routine issues be rehashed again and again? For instance, why does a DTP member of parliament provoke the students in the school where s/he teaches by speaking against the Prime Minister and inciting a student protest? Or, why does another DTP MP angrily challenge the state and imply an uprising?
Changed Turkish Politics, Unchanged pro-Kurdish Perspective
Several incidents have appeared during the March 29 local election campaigns that indicate how people insist on their mistakes. The DTP uses a strategy combining anger, rowdiness, threats, and stress in the middle of its campaign, which is not surprising. In this perspective, all local events and celebrations related to Kurdish people are turned into wailing ceremonies and are protested with stones and sticks.
While cooperating children throw stones at policemen, break windows of workplaces and public buildings, and attack journalists, the DTP does not accept any responsibility for their actions. However, when these children receive multi-year punishments, this becomes the first issue in the DTP’s agenda. Whoever uses speeches such as “Do not rub us the wrong way, we are not responsible for what will happen, this will cost Turkey a pretty penny, do not try our patience, we can’t label the PKK as terrorists,” should know that these words ruin the public order and incite people against the state. If these words produce action, they will confront law enforcement. However, this is inevitable, for as Maslow says, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
Pro-Kurdish politicians in Turkey missed a significant period of time during which many new developments in Kurdish politics occurred. It is more understandable that there is a vicious circle because some politicians restrained the Kurdish politicization to pro-Kurdish band. Pro-Kurdish politicians behave as if everything were nearly immobilized in Turkey. Yet, Turkey and the perception of politics in Turkey have changed and developed in the recent past. Turkey’s social and economic fabrics were built in different ways. Turkey has begun to address the issues of terrorism and increasing the life quality of Kurds as two different subjects. Additionally, Turkey has had intellectual alterations regarding the struggle with both terrorism and terrorists. Turkey showed encouragement by starting to face itself. Turkey asked many questions –Where we were wrong? How could we solve these problems? –during this period of time. It was decided to decrease the detention period, start a zero tolerance policy on torture, start very hypercritical operations, and research the terrorists’ location. Many such developments occurred in Turkey and it still works on several projects like “Home coming.” In short, Turkey’s understanding of productive solutions was changed; however, the ones standing on the pro-Kurdish line didn’t recognize this period and are trapped in the past.
Have pro-Kurdish Politics Moved Forward?
It is possible to observe the change in Turkish political life by looking at the recent past. Turkey liberated the Kurdish language; moreover, state-run television began Kurdish broadcasting. During the European Union process, wide liberal expansions have been begun and pro-Kurdish politicians received seats in parliament. These liberal moves were supported by economic investments in the region. However, pro-Kurdish politicians still insist on their roughneck behaviors. From the perspective of pro-Kurdish politicians, the infrastructure works, economic developments, and trying to find essential solutions to health problems are all tools for exploitation.
Turkey is now in a period of continued effort to realize cultural rights through the implementation of comprehensive projects. The ironic part of the issue is even during this period, the same problems are raised as if nothing has changed from the past. Since the Kurdish broadcasting has begun, supporters of Kurdish politics have tried to reflect it as Turkey’s propaganda. It is known that Kurdish people in the region are tired of violence, do not support high-tension, and have endeavors for their daily life. One of the most important indicators of the issue is Kurdish people stay away from the street fights even though there is grievous provocation. Thereby, it is understood that they are not and will not be on the side of violence and anger. Yet, pro-Kurdish politicians who say they do politics on behalf of the Kurdish people ignore this situation. Nothing has changed between Leyla Zana’s agitated speech in the parliament in 1991 and the 2009 local elections. Otherwise, there is no way to understand Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir’s words: “They recognized our language, they recognized our identity, and now they will recognize our lands.”
It is tragic that some people who do not work up a sweat to solve problems, complain about the shed blood while they also profit from it. Turkey is working hard to distinguish the innocents from the terrorists and their demands from the state. Turkey backs the supremacy of law in counter-terrorism and pays attention to the detention period as Europe’s developed countries do. Although changes and developments have been made regarding this issue, pro-Kurdish politicians expend a great deal of effort to snarl the progression. Above all there has been only one civilian casualty in the last 23 cross-border operations (one of which was an 8-dayground operation), but pro-Kurdish people insist on finding similarities with Israel’s Gaza invasion and operation. As I have mentioned in earlier articles, if showing the parallelism between Israel’s way of combating terrorism and Turkey’s is not due to a lack of information, it is definitely a conscious distortion.
Changed International Conjuncture, Unchanged pro-Kurdish Politics
It seems that pro-Kurdish political understanding thinks it would be profitable for Kurdish people to be involved in the fight, to use stones and sticks, to be a part of the tension instead of reaping the benefit of the world’s blessing as prosperous, happy, and civilized nationals. Nevertheless, the tension strategy of pro-Kurdish politics bumped into the ballot boxes of the July 22nd, 2007 elections. The DTP persistently follows the same strategy for the upcoming March 29 local elections, showing they have not learned from previous elections. Starting from that case, it can be said that the pro-Kurdish politics were driven by three issues. First of all, they didn’t manage the municipalities properly; therefore, they do not have any governance platform from which to persuade the people to support them in the upcoming elections. Secondly, it is not possible for them to say, “Our folks sent us to the parliament and we improved these things for them,” so there is no political difference in the region. In this perspective, pro-Kurdish politics have no important activities besides achieving Ocalan’s comfort in prison. Therefore, during the election campaign, there is no constructive policy that they could take from the roof of parliament as a gift to their supporters. The lack of policy to produce resolutions for problems during the political life of a parliamentarian, or a mayor who is obliged to serve to the citizens, does not lead to the improvement of citizens’ quality of life and instead increases tension; this leaves few alternatives. Pro-Kurdish politicians’ failure to evolve politically and their unchanging position left them in the shadow of terrorism. In this manner, the vicious circle that pro-Kurdish politics inevitably self-surrender separated from the direction of Turkey and the Middle East. This is why pro-Kurdish politics become more marginalized day-by-day and may find themselves less in the Middle Eastern basin. As Turkey and Turkey’s Kurdish people take place in peace with a constructive policy instead of tension, the supporters of pro-Kurdish politics are becoming isolated in Europe as well. In this respect, both Talabani and Barzani have given consensus messages to Turkey. These two leaders referred to Turkey as the Kurdish people’s link to a prosperous and comfortable future in the Middle East and told Turkey’s Iraq representative, “Turkey and Iraq are two important countries of the region and they are strategic partners. Nobody can damage this, including the PKK.” One other such important statement is the EU’s request from the DTP to put distance between the PKK and itself. The EU stated several times to pro-Kurdish politicians that politics and violence, terrorism and democracy could not coexist. The United States’ behavior is not so different than the EU’s. The Bush administration also expressed that democracy and violence could not survive together. There is no doubt that the Obama administration will give statements at least on this level.
Conclusion
The March 29 local elections campaign of pro-Kurdish politics is disconnected from both local and international conjuncture. It is obvious that there is no success in the shadow of anger, threats, and violence. Turkey and the Middle East have changed, and Europe-Turkey relations have reached a different level. However, the pro-Kurdish politicians who run the local election campaigns have remained in the Cold War era. While the hero of “Groundhog Day” sleeps every night with the dream of waking up to a new day, the pro-Kurdish politicians view staying in the same day as a good thing. We will see if they can awake to a new day on March 30.
Translated by Salih Dogan (JTW)
Edited by Kaitlin Mackenzie (JTW)
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