|
A Message For Two Friends...
8.6.2007
By Gerald A. Honigman, eKurd.net Contributing Writer
|
|
|
|
June
8, 2007
Don't do it! There is a better way.
Recent reports tell of Turkey crossing the Iraqi
border in pursuit of Kurdish terrorists tied to the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
I will call them terrorists, even though I have
misgivings doing so.
Since their victims have included innocents, in
addition to military targets, I will do this.
I have misgivings because Arabs who deliberately
target Jewish innocents are routinely called
“militants” by the same folks who are quick to call
Kurds terrorists. And even the Kurds’ terrorists
don’t seek the destruction of Turkey…just justice
for their people. Now think about what Hamas,
Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Abbas and his
sweet-talking Fatah Arafatians, and so forth have
planned for Israel--with or without the disputed
territories.
I don’t advocate violence against the Turkish
military either, the latter has been, after all, the
tool by which the subjugation of about one fifth of
Turkey’s seventy million people who are Kurds has
been carried out. |
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive
doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and
conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has
lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly
debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been
published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and
websites all around the world. |
Over the past century in particular, after the
collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the wake
of World War I, the Kurds were renamed Mountain
Turks, had their language and culture outlawed, etc.
and so forth to insure that the new, constricted
Turkey which arose with Mustafa Kemal--Ataturk--would
suffer no further geographical losses
I applaud the Turks for many reasons.
When Spain was holing inquisitions and exiling some
of my own relatives, the Turks took them in.
Turkey has been a valuable ally of America and has
resisted Islamic extremism better than any other
Muslim country.
Turkey has relatively good relations with
Israel…especially when its relations with
neighboring Syria take a dive.
So, I truly wish nothing but good for our Turkish
friends.
But friends should be able to disagree and remain
friends.
Not long ago, when Israel went after Hamas terror
masters, Turkey was quick to criticize Israel and
lecture her about the need to create the Arabs’ 22nd
state and second, not first, one in
“Palestine”--Jordan having surfaced on some 80% of
the original April 25, 1920 territory over the past
century.
Turkey knows full well what the Arabs’ plans are for
the Jewish State, yet makes these demands anyway.
As I’ve pointed out before, Turkey is almost forty
times as large as Israel geographically and eleven
times as large in population. Despite this, it sees
nothing wrong, after demanding the creation of the
Arabs’ 22nd state, with telling thirty million truly
stateless Kurds--who have been massacred and
subjugated in all the lands where they have lived in
the new nationalist era--that they must remain
forever in that stateless condition because of the
potential threat independence in Iraqi Kurdistan
might have to Turkey. The Turks fear the effect this
will have on their own large, adjacent Kurdish
population.
The fear is well founded, and I understand it.
A look at what is now happening in Kosovo/Kosova is
a case in point.
The Turks defeated the Serbs there in 1389. What
would later be named Albania became Muslim with
continuing Turkish conquests of the region.
Turn the clock ahead six centuries, and ethnic
Muslim Albanians have spread outside of their
independent state of Albania into an ethnically
fractured Yugoslavia held together only by the glue
of Marshal Tito. When he died, all knew that
Yugoslavia’s days were numbered.
Indeed…America led the dismemberment.
Some say that America needed to show that it was
supporting Muslims elsewhere since it was also in
conflict with them in so many other places.
And now, there is a drive to create an independent
Muslim Albanian Kosova in traditional Serb lands…in
addition to the already existing Muslim state of
Albania.
So, such things do happen.
But if a Turkey which dwarfs Israel in size and
population has reason to fear this, then what is
Israel to say?
One fifth of Israel is Arab…like the fifth of Turkey
which is Kurd. Yet the Jews are told by virtually
all--including Turks--that they must allow yet
another Arab state, dedicated to their destruction,
to be set up in their backyard.
Keep in mind that even the PKK doesn’t seek Turkey’s
destruction.
Despite the potential for problems, justice does not
demand that Kurds should remain forever stateless in
the nationalist age. Kurds lived in the area for
millennia before imperialist Turks arrived there
from Central Asia or imperialist Arabs arrived after
bursting out of the Arabian Peninsula. Both would
occupy and settle Kurdish lands. An independent
Kurdistan was promised after World War I in
Mesopotamia before it was aborted on behalf of
British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. If
expansionist Albanians can lay claim to Kosovo, then
what are Kurds due in lands they have lived in since
biblical days?
So, what’s to be done?
There is no doubt that the Kurds must do what the
Arabs refuse to do…
They must show their Turkish neighbors that an
independent or highly autonomous
Iraqi federal Kurdish region will not be a threat.
They must have serious discussions with the PKK
about what the greater good for Kurdistan will
require. That means Kurdish leaders must get their
own acts together as well…beyond protecting their
own virtual fiefdoms. And, if need be, they must use
military force to subdue their own extremists.
Hopefully, it will not come to this. And nothing
will be expected in this regard if the Turks don’t
show that they will be willing to grant Kurds the
same right to have in one of which they expect
Israel to allow Arabs to have almost two dozen of.
Notice, please, while we’re on the subject, the
absence of voices in academia and elsewhere…the same
ones demanding that 22nd Arab state, knowing full
well its murderous intentions regarding Israel.
In the late ‘70s, the only time my tenured professor
at Ohio State University even mentioned Kurds is
when he mocked their aspirations while telling of
his travels through Turkey. Like many others, he
knew who buttered his bread and who and who not to
put under the high power lens of moral scrutiny.
This was the same guy who lionized the Arab quest
for state # 22 and Hitler’s good buddy, the Mufti of
Jerusalem.
There is room for coexistence and cooperation if
both peoples can get beyond their fears. Besides
real problems with the PKK (for which Turkey shares
part of the blame), there already are real benefits
materializing for Turks in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Turkey can establish good, working ties with Kurds
who, like Turks, can also hold their own heads up
high as a free and proud people. Both have a history
of opposing Islamic extremism, though some are to be
counted amongst both populations…more with the Turks
than with the Kurds.
Kurds from Turkey, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere
wanting to live in an independent Kurdish state can
have in Iraqi Kurdistan what Jews have in a reborn
Israel.
Like formerly truly stateless Jews, Kurds have
suffered greatly because of this statelessness.
Renaming Arabs “Palestinians” does not change the
fact that Arabs have almost two dozen
states--conquered from mostly non-Arab peoples. If
there is a rough analogy to the Jews, it is the
Kurds, not the Arabs.
Both Turks and Kurds must examine each others needs
and fears.
The future can be a promising one for both peoples.
While Arabs of different stripes blow each other
apart, Turks and Kurds have mostly shown that they
want no part of this sort of thing.
Think of the possibilities which can arise if both
peoples can get themselves to grant each other the
humanity and respect both deserve.
The realm of the Turks will not see itself
geographically split again. The Kurds must
understand this. But this does not mean that Kurds
should be suppressed in Turkey. To insure Turkey’s
integrity, the Turks have demanded Turkification of
all who live there. This needs to be moderated.
Imagine the outcry if Israel was doing this sort of
thing to its Arabs.
Ironically, Kurdish autonomy or independence in
Iraqi Kurdistan has the potential to ease these very
problems…under the right conditions.
Having the potential to live in a Kurdish-ruled area
will give Kurds everywhere less grievance and reason
to resort to violence.
Will there be risks and problems?
Of course. There is much that will be needed to be
worked out. And all thirty million Kurds will not
fit into Iraqi Kurdistan.
But reasonable people can come up with reasonable
solutions.
My advice to my Turkish friends…
Invade Iraqi Kurdistan?
Don’t do it!
There is a better way… .
eKurd.net,
Copyright by Gerald A. Honigman. You may reach the
author via email at: honigman6 (at) msn.com .
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has
done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern
Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab
propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured
on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has
publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles
and op-eds have been published in dozens of
newspapers, magazines, academic journals and
websites all around the world. Visit his
website at
http://www.geraldahonigman.com/
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 