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Turkey: Broadcasting in Kurdish language
an insincere offer of reconciliation
16.1.2009
By Rauf Naqishbendi
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January
16, 2009
The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT)
commenced its official Kurdish-language television
broadcast on January 1, 2009, with the motto, “We
live under the same sky,” pretentiously advocating
the Turks’ peaceful coexistence with the Kurdish
minority. Given Turkish belligerence and their
long-standing experience in practicing genocide, one
wonders if they have finally opened their eyes to
the world, realizing that they can coexist
peacefully with others, versus their long-standing
mentality of committing genocide against defenseless
minorities living with them in the same country and
under the same sky.
One who is not familiar with the barbarism of the
Turks might be confounded as to why broadcasting in
the Kurdish language, in a country where one-third
of its population is Kurdish, is such a big deal. |
Rauf Naqishbendi |
One might wonder why
they made their prime minister at their first
opening session the headline news. It might also
seem that the Kurds are newcomers to Turkey , having
just arrived there, and the blessed Turks moved in a
hurry, kind-heartedly, to make accommodations. None
of these is true. The fact is that doing these
things doesn’t show how benevolent they are by
tolerating others, but merely highlights how brutal
they have been for nearly a century as they starved
Kurds from every human right, including the most basic
ones such as cultural freedom or the most natural
human entitlements, such as freedom to speak one’s
mother tongue.
The dehumanizing Turkish atrocities against humanity
have been known to the world for centuries, from the
time of the Sultans who placed white European women
in sex slavery, to the Turks’ genocide against
defenseless Armenians and Assyrians. They committed
genocide against these Christian minorities because
they didn’t resemble the filthy Turkish version of
Islam or the Turkish ideal for world domination.
They did so without any remorse. Even now the
Turkish right wing, and for that matter, most Turks,
dispute the number of genocide victims. They claim
that there weren’t 1.5 million Christian victims,
but rather that the actual number is in the ten or
hundred thousands. For argument’s sake, let us say
it was in the ten thousands. Doesn’t that deserve
confession and genuine remorse from the Turks? Or
are Christian lives trivial and not to be counted!
Turkish intolerance is still in progress against all
minorities in Turkey , and for a century their
primary target has been the Kurds, who are one third
of Turkey ’s population. Turks are known for their
expertise in committing genocide. Turkish genocide
against the Kurds, which was initiated in the
aftermath of World War I, is continuing as we speak.
They have been able to bring their calamitous anger
upon others because, in the past, the world, and in
particular the United States, has not only been mute
regarding Turkish barbarism, but rather has
supported the Turks monetarily and militarily. The
Turks, then, used this support to pursue their
fanatic behaviors.
President Elect Obama, should he desire to restore
America’s credibility and sense of fair foreign
policy, should spell out to the Turks, with no
reservation, that the United States cannot afford
for friends like Turkey to burden us with the
liability of human atrocities. He needs to demand
that the Turks act according to principles of human
decency so their past contradiction to human decency
not to be repeated and so that the Turks will embark
on a policy of tolerance and equality toward
minorities in Turkey and mutual respect to their
neighboring countries.
The damning disease that the Turks have been
miserably enjoying is their unfounded national
pride. What is about Turkish pride that causes them
to so highly estimate themselves? As far as humanity
is concerned,www.ekurd.netthe Turks haven’t been
contributing any meaningful enhancements to the life
of mankind. What have they invented or what
scientific or technological achievements are they
are so proud of? There are none. The only thing they
have been known for and are good at is brutality and
their national experiments with genocide.
Now they fake their feelings to show the world that
they have let 20 million Kurds have a TV broadcast
in their language after centuries of their
occupation of Kurdistan. This is utterly
pretentious. They have done so only to provide for
their membership in the European Union, because a
prerequisite for their membership, as required by EU,
is the mandate that the Turks must treat minorities
in Turkey tolerantly and humanely. Another reason to
have this new TV station is to compete with the
popular Rozh TV, broadcasted by the Kurdish Freedom
Fighters, Kurdish Worker Party, the PKK.
The creation of Kurdish television to compete with
the PKK is just another step in the Turks’
persistence in continuing their bloody violence
against Kurdish rebellions who demand democratic and
peaceful existence for all its citizens. In so
doing, the Turks’ refuse to resolve their
differences without bloodshed and avoid civilized
dialogue that the PKK is pleading for. The world
already knows that the Turks are a violent people;
therefore, why should they think that they are
fooling the world. They are dumbfounded because they
fool no one but themselves.
Having a TV station alone will not meet the Kurdish
demand for justice, and it will not halt the Kurds’
struggle for equitable national rights. Let the
Turks continue television broadcasting of a Turkish
script in the Kurdish language,www.ekurd.net
and the PKK will fight
to the end of their aim, that is, life with liberty
and human treatment with dignity.
Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for
Kurdish Websites, American Chronicle ,
americanchronicle com and has written
Op/Ed pages for the Los Angeles Times. He has just
completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden Of The
Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his
experience and the subsequent 1988 bombing of his
hometown with chemical and biological weapons by
Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people's
suffering. Rauf Naqishbendi is a software engineer
in San Francisco Bay Area.
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