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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Sitting attentively in
the front row of a small, pink classroom, Hasbey
Koksal, a primary school teacher, learns how to
conjugate verbs in his mother tongue.
"I see. I saw. He sees. He saw," he repeats
emphatically with the rest of the class of 20, half
of them older than 40, learning Kurdish vocabulary
and grammar at a new private school on the outskirts
of this sprawling city in southeast Turkey.
"We're rediscovering ourselves and our culture,"
said Mr. Koksal, 47, who learned Kurdish as a child
but lacked the grammar skills to understand
literature or poetry. "It's like being an adolescent
again."
To the students at the academy, this simple lesson
was unimaginable just a few years ago.
From 1984 to 1999 the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
a guerrilla group, fought for independence in a
conflict that claimed an estimated 37,000 lives and
displaced millions.
Language banned
The Turkish government banned the speaking of
Kurdish dialects, and violators risked harassment
and prosecution. The only way to study Kurdish was
to attend clandestine schools in the basements of
homes.
To improve its prospects of joining the European
Union, Turkish parliament enacted reforms in 2002
allowing state-run Kurdish television and radio
broadcasts and permitting private language courses.
Although the measures carried symbolic weight, Kurds
said, they were enacted solely to placate the
European Union and did not change official
repression of cultural rights. "To teach in a
classroom is a dream come true," said Sakir Ozeydin,
an instructor at the school in Diyarbakir. "But this
institution is not going to solve the Kurdish
language problem."
The private school, which opened in September 2004,
was one of six in Turkey offering 10-week beginner,
intermediate and advanced courses in Kurdish, and
130 of its students have completed one of them.
"If someone tells you not to use your language, it's
like them telling you not to use your legs. It makes
you disabled," Yakup Yilmaz, 25, said during a tea
break at the school. "They cut off my legs and I'm
here to get them back."
A cultural renaissance
There is talk in this city among the hills of
Mesopotamia and on the banks of the Tigris River of
a cultural and linguistic renaissance.
Shops along Diyarbakir's boulevards blare Kurdish
music and prominently offer Kurdish films. It is now
much easier for parents to register Kurdish names
for their children, though they are prohibited from
using the letters Q, W and X, which don't exist in
the Turkish alphabet.
The Tigris and Euphrates Culture and Arts Center,
which opened two years ago, orchestrates Kurdish
plays and concerts and offers classes in vocal
training, cinema and guitar. "Before this center
opened, people forgot the details of Kurdish
culture," said music teacher Adnan Sevik. "We are
trying to revive it."
On a steamy Friday afternoon in May, old men sat in
the courtyard drinking tea and watching a dance
lesson incorporating traditional Kurdish motifs and
modern routines. They all tell harrowing tales of
police intimidation and imprisonment. Kadir Dogan
said police once broke his fingers for playing
Kurdish music on his flute.
Center closely watched
Local authorities monitor the center closely. The
managers must inform police of who will sing what
songs at their concerts. Twice, authorities have
searched the premises. Cases are pending against the
arts center for having banned books and attempting
to turn a profit by selling tea, Mr. Sevik said.
In the mid-1990s, radio stations were allowed to
broadcast Kurdish music as long as the lyrics
contained no political material. If Kurds wanted to
watch television in Kurdish, they had to turn to
European satellite channels.
In June last year, state-run Turkish Radio and
Television began airing a 30-minute news program in
different languages each weekday. "Our Cultural
Wealth" is broadcast in Kirmanci and Zaza Kurdish
two days a week and in Bosnian, Arabic and
Circassian on the others.
Broadcasts criticized
Many Kurds criticize the program, which sometimes
shows week-old news, as a token gesture for the
European Union.
Cemal Dogan, Gun TV's director, said it is
imperative that local channels air news and health
programs, because many older residents speak little
Turkish. Gun TV applied to the Radio and Television
High Council (RTUK) for a license in March 2004, and
six other regional channels have followed suit, but
none has received a yes or no.
RTUK demanded a viewer profile survey, which was
conducted by the Diyarbakir governor's office and a
local university, but it was deemed inadequate
because it did not give the number of speakers of
the region's languages and dialects, said Sebnem
Bilget, an RTUK spokeswoman. A state institute for
statistics is supposed to carry out another survey,
but she did not know whether it had begun.
Station suspended
"The real mentality of the state is shown in our
application process," said Mr. Dogan, whose station
had its license suspended for a month in September
for broadcasting a live municipal meeting where two
members unexpectedly spoke Kurdish.
Most Diyarbakir residents praise the European Union,
which is to begin the formal negotiation process
with Turkey in October, for raising the state's
treatment of its Kurds as an issue and for pressing
the government to change its policies. The changes
are compulsory to meet the Copenhagen criteria, a
necessity for EU membership that includes "respect
for and protection of minorities."
"There have been changes in legislation but we would
like to see that they are properly implemented and
then become broader," said European Commission
Enlargement spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy. "What is
important to us now is observing that these cultural
rights are respected."
A pervasive sentiment among Kurds is that reforms
are cosmetic and that the government's attitude has
not changed.
"They are done only for the EU, so that the state
can say, 'Look we are allowing Kurdish to be
spoken,'?" said Celil, a 23-year-old law student who
until recently taught Kurdish classes secretly twice
a week. "Turkey treats these reforms like
'homework.' They should be doing them for their own
people, not because the EU asked for it."
'Recognized' minorities
It is still illegal to use Kurdish in the public
domain or at government sites or functions. Offices
of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DEHAP)
are raided routinely and several high profile
members have been arrested and tried for inciting
separatism.
In Turkey, the only recognized minorities -- spelled
out in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty that created the
Turkish Republic -- are Jews, Greeks and Armenians.
The roughly 14 million Kurds, one-fifth of Turkey's
population, do not have constitutionally guaranteed
rights.
"We will give our Kurdish brothers and sisters
individual rights, but will never accept that those
individual rights will become group or political
rights," said Emine Sirin, an independent member of
parliament.
Learning Kurdish in state schools is out of the
question because the Turkish language is a symbol of
national unity, said Onur Oymen, a member of
parliament from the opposition Republican People's
Party.
EU attention faulted
Many politicians and ordinary citizens are
frustrated by what they perceive as inequitable
attention lavished on the Kurds in the southeast by
the European Union and human-rights activists.
Turkey has many other ethnic groups, but the
European Union focuses only on the Kurdish
situation, said Mr. Oymen. "Excessive protection of
one ethnic group is racist," he said.
After a five-year cease-fire brokered following the
arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK
resumed attacks in June 2004 and clashes with
government forces are rising in frequency and
intensity. The group bombed a train in southeastern
Turkey this month, killing five persons. A separate
organization, the Kurdish Freedom Falcons, took
responsibility for a bomb blast Saturday at a resort
on the Aegean coast that killed five persons
including two foreign tourists.
Outside pressure felt
What the military and government fear is not the
armed struggle, but the unarmed struggle for Kurdish
independence through pressure from the European
Union and nongovernmental organizations, said Burak
Bekdil, a political commentator.
Government officials spoke of their concern that the
call for political and cultural rights is just a
screen for greater autonomy and, eventually, an
independent Kurdistan. "DEHAP thinks that by using
the EU, they can carve up Turkey and have an
independent state," said Mr. Sirin.
During the tea break at the private language school,
there is no talk of separation or rebellion. The
heated discussion focuses on the cost of tuition,
roughly $75 a month and more than most can afford.
Seventy percent of the students are unemployed,
estimated Suleyman Yilmaz, the school's director.
Most people would rather just continue learning from
their parents or meet in neighbors' homes, said Mr.
Ozeydin, the teacher. The government is using this
low turnout to create an image that no one wants to
learn Kurdish and as a justification for not
extending Kurdish cultural rights, he added.
"Why should we have to pay to learn our mother
tongue?" Mr. Ozeydin asked.
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