
Dr. Kirmanj Gundi is a professor of Educational
Administration and Leadership at Tennessee State
University.
•
Read more by the Author
July 16, 2012
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkish Prime Minister, once
again, in recent months uttered the above statement
and called on the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK)
to lay down their arms before he could consider the
halting of military offensive against them.
Introduction
Since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development
Party (AKP) won a decisive victory in the 2003
national election, to his credit, Erdoğan dedicated
his party and himself to pursue Turkey’s economic
and political interests. Additionally, he has
successfully shown the image of Islam as a
coexistent partner with the Western secularism.
Erdoğan has transformed Turkey to a modern global
economic power and a member of the G20.
However, as the leader of a mono-ethnic democratic
Turkey (a democracy in which Turks are the only
ethnicity that can claim their national identity),
and as an internationally renowned political figure,
Erdoğan sees himself as the defender of Muslims,
particularly the beleaguered and oppressed Muslims
in Gaza and Somalia. Reflecting upon his Justice and
Development Party, Erdoğan identifies justice as his
guiding beacon for resolving human suffering.
Although, charismatic and skillful politician, who
has enhanced the image of Turkey as a regional power
and an international key player, Erdoğan has been
more contradictory than any other Turkish Prime
Minister before him (his predecessors under the
military shadow maintained Ataturk’s concept and
followed Kamalism). Beyond Turkey’s borders, Erdoğan
pretends to be a man of “principles” and an advocate
of human rights from South America to Asia, and from
Palestine to Somalia. Nonetheless, at home he garbs
himself with an old Ottoman “sultanic” mask—and
allows cruelty to continue against the people of
Kurdistan. He wears a white-collar shirt of
democracy and acts as a defender of human dignity,
at the same time he defends the Ottoman Empire’s
record on Armenian genocide.
Erdoğan’s Justice and development Party has been
able to transform Turkey in regional as well as
international affairs. Nonetheless, Kurds in Turkey
still live as shadowy figures that are nothing more
than the reflections of Turkish identity. Kurds
still live under oppression and in destitution.
Turkish brutality from a
historical perspective
The Turkish-Islamic Ottoman Empire had, within its
jurisdiction, recognized Kurdistan as an
ethno-geographical entity of the Kurds like any
other non-Turkish national entity in the empire. In
the centuries of coexistence with the Ottoman Turks,
the people of Kurdistan maintained their national
identity in the vast Islamic Turkish realm.
Nonetheless, during the course of history, the
Turkish Sultanate gradually expanded its control and
tightened its grip over Kurdistan. In addition to
heavy-handed brutality, the Turkish Sultans imposed
a heavy tax burden on the people—which made life for
the Kurds almost unbearable. The Turkish Sultans
were also using religion to control Kurdish national
psychology. Thus, the Turkish motto of Muslim
brotherhood left no room for negotiation over
Kurdish national rights. For centuries, Turkish
Sultans maintained their power in Kurdistan. Turkish
inhumane treatment of the Kurds exceeded beyond any
imaginable civil standard.
Subsequently, under the leadership of Bader Khan
Pasha (1794-1868), Kurdish self-rule became a
reality. Bader Khan pioneered a modern national
struggle and that struggle began in 1812. He called
upon all the Kurds to unite for a greater cause of
Kurdish independence. He was able to liberate a huge
area of
Kurdistan. Bader
Khan ruled from 1815 until 1848 in the Emirate
of Botan. Its capital was the city of Jezirah.
In 1843, Bader Khan revolted against the Ottoman
Empire and declared Independence in his Emirate.
His reign also included parts of the Iranian
occupied Kurdistan. Bader Khan was able to unite
other Kurdish entities under a more visible
Kurdish identity. However, after several years
of intense war and heavy Turkish counterattacks
backed by British colonial support, Bader Khan’s
rule came to an end. He was sent into exile,
where he died in 1868.
The empire’s mistreatment of the Kurds continued
even after the defeat of Bader Khan’s movement
and the regaining of total control over
Kurdistan. As a result, several years later in
1853, Izaddin Yazdansher, another Kurdish
prominent figure rebelled against the
mono-Turkish rule, which had disguised its true
identity under the veil of Islam. Yazdansher’s
rule over the liberated areas included Botan and
areas of what is now occupied by Iraq. His rule
lasted until 1864. Eventually, the Turks’ also
brutally brought an end to Yazdansher’s rule.
Several years later, in 1878, Sheikh Ubeidullah
Nahri revolted against the Ottoman Empire, and
soon his influence spread to a vast area in the
Iranian occupied Kurdistan. To quell Nahri’s
power and influence, in 1881, Iran and Turkey
joined forces and vanquished the Kurdish revolt.
Nahri was captured and sent into exile to the
city of Medina, Saudi Arabia, where he died in
1892.
Further, at the turn of the 20th century, Sheikh
Abdulsalam Barzani (an elder brother of the late
General Mustafa Barzani), who was a Kurdish
figure and the religious leader of Barzan
region, contacted various Kurdish tribal leaders
in Kurdistan, and was able to successfully
coordinate their effort. He challenged the
Ottoman Empire in order to establish Kurdish
legitimate sovereignty. Sheikh Abdulsalam’s
revolt was also defeated. The Turkish Ottomans
hanged him in Mosul in 1914.
Kurds under the modern
Turkish state
The Sykes-Picot treaty decisively ended the
existence of the Ottoman Empire. However, the
disintegration of the Empire not only did not
palliate Kurdish misery, but also increased
calamity for the people of Kurdistan. After the
demise of the Empire in 1923, and the subsequent
birth of the Turkish republic—the grip of
Islamic Turks was replaced by the grip of
Turkish ultra-nationalists.
Once the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into
pieces—and as the mission of the Western powers
in the Sykes-Picot treaty was completed—Turkey
was granted the ownership of Northern Kurdistan.
Consequently, in 1924, the Turkish republic was
born with a provision in its Constitution that
still reverberates to the present day. The
provision echoes “Everyone bound to the Turkish
state through the bond of citizenship is a
Turk.” Such a discriminatory Constitution,
eventually, became the roots of all “evil” in
Turkey. Under this provision,www.ekurd.net
Kurdistan disappeared from the world map—the
ancient Kurds were stripped of their own
identity and were given a pseudo-name—they were
classified as "Mountainous Turks." Under such a
vile Constitution the Kurds were forced into a
ferocious economic and cultural destitution.
Speaking in Kurdish in public became an “insult”
to the so-called Turkish “honor,” and carried a
prison sentence.
This policy of constitutional genocide became a
norm and a recipe for the Turkish military,
police/security forces and judicial system to
inhumanely humiliate and viciously oppress the
Kurds. In 1924, the Turkish government headed by
Mustafa Kamal Atatürk employed the most brutal
measures by applying the policy of Turkification
of the non-Turkish ethnicities of which the main
target was the Kurds. To resist the Turkish
racist policy, Şêx Se’îd Pîran sparked a
momentarily-successful mutiny against savage
Turkish practices, but a massive Turkish
counterattack encircled him. The movement was
defeated and by mid-April Sheikh was imprisoned
in (Amed) Diyarbakir.
To control the so-called “Independent Tribunals”
for prosecuting Kurdish elites, and perpetuating
its policy of oppression across Kurdistan, the
Turkish government adopted the practice of total
oppression and surveillance as described by
George Orwell “the Big Brother state constantly
monitors the population to detect dissidents. It
uses oppressive political discourse and
euphemistic political terminologies in public
appearance to disguise morally disgraceful ideas
and actions.” In the wake of such a
reprehensible policy, thousands of Kurds were
hanged without even counting wholesale
extrajudicial retribution against Kurdish
civilians.
The savagery and repression of the 1924 revolt
was accomplished with a brutality which was
similar to the Armenian genocide a few decades
before. Entire villages were razed or burnt to
the ground—and villagers including men, women
and children killed.
In 1934, Turkey passed the Resettlement Law
aimed at assimilating non-Turkish ethnicities
within the country. This law included forced
relocation of non-Turkish ethnicities within the
country. The intention was to assimilate them
into the Turkish “melting pot.” In 1935, the
Tunceli Law was passed to apply the Resettlement
Law to the newly named region of Tunceli,
historically known as Dersim and populated by
Alevi and Zaza Kurds.
Following public meetings in January 1937, a
letter of protest against the law was written
and sent to the local governor. The emissaries
of the letter were arrested and executed without
a trial. This triggered another revolt, the
Dersim revolt, which was led by Sayid Reza
against Turkish oppression. However, Turkish
forces soon overwhelmed the rebels, and brutally
crushed the revolt. Kurds lost momentum to
effectively challenge the Turkish state. The
Turkish government literally massacred the
people of Dersim in the late 1930s—a massacre
for which Erdoğan apologized in the late 2011.
Subsequently, for about nine decades Kurdish
people in Turkey have been carrying the badge of
“dead men walking,” with literally no
self-identity except for what was perceived of
them by Turkish chauvinism. For instance, in
June 1930, during the inauguration of Sivas
railroad, İsmet İnönü, the then Prime Minister,
who was once talking about Turkish-Kurdish
brotherhood, said, “Only the Turkish nation has
the right to ask for its national rights in this
country. No one else has such a right.” In May
1932, Mahmut Esat, the so-called Justice
Minister at the time, averred, “Turks are the
only landlord of this country; those who are not
from pure Turkish race have only one right and
that is servitude.” In 1971, Nihat Erim, the
then Prime Minister stated, “Except the Turkish
nation, we do not see another nation in Turkey.
All who live in Turkey are Turks. Kurds do not
exist in Turkey.”
Since its inception, the racist Turkish state
dropped an “iron curtain” on the Kurdish issue
so the outside world would not see or hear their
pain. Internally, the Turks used an “iron fist”
to brutally put down any notion of the Kurdish
identity. In the wake of such a “Dark Age”
mentality dozens of thousands of innocent Kurds
were either imprisoned, murdered, or internally
displaced. Thousands of Kurdish villages were
ruined by the Turkish state. People in the
Turkish occupied Kurdistan were intentionally
left in poverty. The policy behind this cruelty
was and has been to force Kurds to migrate to
the Turkish cities to live and work—another
inhumane approach to depopulate Kurdistan.
Kurdish humiliation and enslavement under the
Turkish xenophobic and discriminatory
Constitution continued. For the people of
Kurdistan, the Turkish state was transformed
into a large “prison” in which the Kurds became
a shadowy presence hidden behind Turkish
identity, and continued to suffer with literally
no gateway out.
It was not until 1984, did the Kurds think of an
armed movement to curb atrocities of the Turkish
state. In 1984, after some sixty years of the
Kurdish “burial” by the Turkish state, the PKK
redefined the Kurdish status in Turkey. Through
its armed struggle and massive national support,
the PKK exhumed the Kurdish “dead body” out of
the Turkish “graveyard” and revivified the
Kurdish national spirit. The PKK once again put
the Kurdish political and cultural status on the
stage of world politics.
Turkey and the PKK
In 1984, when the PKK started an armed movement
to stop the Turkish policy of genocide against
the people of Kurdistan, the Turkish immediate
“reactionary” response was—we will crush them.
The Turkish political and military machine
announced the “oath of annihilation” against the
PKK rebels and all those who were associated
with the movement including civilians who had a
bit of sympathy for the rebels.
Estimated lives lost in the Turkish-PKK conflict
exceed 45,000 casualties. Although bloody
conflict, millions on the Kurdish side in the
greater Kurdistan believe that the PKK has
brought awareness to the Kurdish people to
reclaim their national dignity in the face of
the Turkification policy. These Kurds do not for
a nanosecond want to even mention the costs.
They believe “freedom is not free.” Thus, they
are willing to pay the ultimate sacrifices to
live with their own national integrity.
Additionally, Turkey under the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) headed by Erdoğan,
although more flexible than all its predecessors
towards the Kurdish issue in Turkey, has not
been genuine in finding an authentic strategy to
recognize the Kurdish cultural and political
identity. The AKP leadership, perhaps, wants to
subject the Kurds to various developmental
programs while continuing its hostilities and
warmongering mentality against the PKK. The
Turkish leadership must understand that this
Policy does not comply with reality and it won’t
bear fruit because, the PKK has the support of
its people. It fights to stop Turkish oppression
of the Kurds. Further, as long as the AKP
leadership continues to use various political
“catchphrases” to deal with the Kurdish issue
without making necessary changes in the
Constitution, Turkey will remain in the cycle of
cynicism; and the dire Turkish-Kurdish conflict
continues.
Further, if indeed the AKP leadership is sincere
and wants to resolve the Turkish-Kurdish
conflict, why doesn’t it create some legal means
in the Turkish Parliament to start genuinely and
in the open negotiating with the PKK and/or the
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)’s leadership?
The BDP is a legal party in Turkey and has
dozens of its members in the Turkish Parliament.
To resolve an ethnic problem, you must engage
with members of the respective ethnicity. Turkey
cannot engage in a genuine negotiation, while it
continues to circulate in the cynical cycle of
hate and distrust. Turkey must adapt a new set
of beliefs that is premised on the fact that the
Kurds are not pro-violence and want peace. They
have armed themselves only to stop the Turkish
inhumane policies against their national
existence.
Furthermore, since the 1990s, the PKK
occasionally and unilaterally has declared a
ceasefire against the Turkish state to pave a
way towards a peaceful-
political
solution. Every time the PKK’s call for a
peaceful approach fell on deaf ears. The Turkish
response always was, “Lay down your arms in
order to benefit from the state immunity.”
Turkey resumed hostilities and widened the
Turkish-Kurdish tension. As a result, more
innocent Turkish-Kurdish blood was shed. In its
war against the PKK, the Turkish military
observed no international treaty on fair
treatment of prisoners. They violated every
ethical, legal, and human right standard, and
treated the PKK prisoners in a worst possible
way. The Turkish military even humiliated PKK’s
dead corps—an act that once again reminded the
world of Turkish savagery.
To demand that PKK give up, Turks should change
the current Turkish Constitution so that Kurds
and Turks are equal before the law—a
Constitution that disapproves violence on both
sides (Turks and Kurds alike). Turkey must stop
play political “blame games” and should look for
a genuine remedy. One side cannot and should not
ask to disarm the other side while
constitutionally, inhumane racist policies
continue. Under Erdoğan and his AKP leadership,
Turkey has implemented some “politically
correct” programs vis-à-vis the people of
Kurdistan, however, for a genuine peace to
happen, the AKP leadership should find a way out
of political slogans and into the constitutional
solution. Turkey must inscribe the Kurdish
identity into the new Constitution—an act of
which Erdoğan and the AKP have been unable to
practice.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: a
man of contradictions
In his third term, Erdoğan has shown more often
than not that it is difficult for him to balance
his national ambition with hard core Kurdish
reality. His biggest contradiction stems from
the way in which he tries to portray himself as
a man of “principles.” He talks about democracy,
justice, and human rights while falls short of
providing a tangible legal recognition of the
people of Kurdistan.
Constitutionally, before Erdoğan assumed
premiership, Kurds were buried alive. When
Erdoğan took office in 2003, and until now under
his leadership, Kurds still constitutionally
don’t exist. So one could ask, what is so
significant about Erdoğan’s political game?
While on the one hand, he negotiates with the
PKK leadership, and on the other hand, he
adheres to the military mentality to resolve the
Kurdish issue. Further, one could argue, if
Erdoğan is serious enough about finding a real
solution to the Turkish-Kurdish disharmony, why
doesn’t he start with changing certain
provisions in the Constitution that are the root
cause of all “evil” in Turkey, and have
prevented Turkey from developing into a
full-fledged democratic society. If he is
genuine, he should emphasize the constitutional
change that embraces the Kurdish political and
cultural identity. Whenever such a pragmatic
step was taken, everything else would become
secondary and would easily be resolved on the
negotiating table. When this happens in Turkey,
then there will be no need to negotiate with the
PKK in secrecy. In order to find a real solution
to the Turkish-Kurdish tension, Erdoğan needs to
show more courage. He needs the support of the
vast majority of both Turks and Kurds—without
such courage the support of many who may agree
with a political rapprochement would remain a
distant dream.
Despite his talk of democracy and liberty
abroad, Erdoğan has been unable to fasten his
genuine reform belt, and adhere to the same
policies at home. Occasionally, Erdoğan has
vowed to push for a military solution until the
last Kurdish rebel lays down his or her weapons;
he recently reiterated this same shortsighted
view, “the PKK must lay down their arms before
he could consider the halting of military
offensive against them.” Erdoğan has allowed his
military forces several times to cross borders
into the Kurdistan region in Iraq to fight the
PKK forces. Unsurprisingly, every time he
preferred military operations over negotiations,
his military troops returned to their bases
unsuccessful. Thus, Erdoğan must realize that
military operations have not worked in the past
and won’t work in the future. He should be
reminded that the classic definition of insanity
is to keep doing the same thing over and over
and expect a different result. It seems that it
is difficult for Erdoğan to find a path out of
narrow Turkish nationalistic ego and into a more
humane and practical approach. The PKK is not
what Erdoğan and his Turkish state want to want
to show to the world. The PKK struggles for its
oppressed people in Northern Kurdistan and
cannot be easily defeated, because it enjoys
massive Kurdish support. Turks must understand
and accept this reality.
On the contrary, to advance his image in the
Muslim and Arab world, Erdoğan has taken up the
mantle of the Palestinian cause—harshly
criticizing Israel for its human rights
violations in Gaza—accusing Israel of war crimes
against humanity. Erdoğan has used his new
position against Israel, undoubtedly, to boost
his diplomatic position in the Islamic
countries.
Perhaps Erdoğan’s harshest poke at Israel’s
human rights record came when he fulminated
against the Israeli President, Shimon Peres,
during a televised session at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 31, 2009.
Erdoğan criticized the Israeli President with a
previously prepared condemnation for his
government’s “inhumanity.” Erdoğan stated, “I
find it very sad that people applaud what you
said. There have been many people killed. And I
think that it is very wrong and it is not
humanitarian.” Erdoğan’s harsh attack at the
World Economic Forum came after weeks of similar
denunciations accusing Israel of “savagery” and
“crimes against humanity.” Erdoğan believes
Israel’s ability to maintain its superiority in
the region is because of the double-standards of
the United States and other Western powers.
While he has been mocking Israel and accusing it
of “savagery” abroad, at home his Turkish state
has been practicing “savagery” and “crimes
against humanity” versus the Kurds since the
inception of the Turkish Republic. Thus, one
could argue, for Mr. Erdoğan to play such a
double-standard politics so well, he must be
ignorant to believe that the world does not know
of Turkish policy of oppression of the Kurds.
Apparently, he might think that preaching
humanity and democracy beyond Turkish borders
would mask the policy of constitutional genocide
of the Kurds at home. Additionally, while he
likes to carry the badge of a man of “integrity”
and advocate “justice” for the “oppressed,”
under his administration more than three
thousand Kurdish children under the legal age
have been imprisoned—and accused of “terrorism.”
Perhaps Erdoğan is another political leader who
can exercise a “mastery of treachery” in the
modern era as he tries to be a man of peace
abroad, whilst adhering to the policy of
“injustice,” and “underdevelopment” regarding
the Kurds at home.
In his trip to Cologne, Germany in February
2008, Erdoğan told a crowd of more than 20,000
Turkish immigrants that "assimilation is a crime
against humanity" responding to the German
concern about the lack of interest among the
Turkish immigrants to merge into the German
society. He urged them to resist assimilation
into the Western culture. In March 2010, Erdoğan
called on Germany to open Turkish-language grade
schools and high schools. Additionally, during a
similar visit to Germany in February 2011, while
speaking to a crowd of more than 10,000
immigrants in the German industrial city of
Düsseldorf, Erdoğan encouraged Turkish
immigrants to first, teach their children to
read and write in Turkish before German. Further
he said, "We are against assimilation. No one
should be able to rip us away from our culture
and civilization." Erdoğan calls the German
policy for promoting German language “within”
Germany “inhumane.”
Indeed, Erdoğan is a man of all-out
“contradictions” and not a man of “principles.”
While he urged the Turkish immigrants in Germany
to teach their children Turkish language first,
and warned Germany against assimilating his
people into the Western culture—and he referred
to “assimilation” as a “crime against humanity”
he knew that his fellow Turkish immigrants were
in Germany on “Work Visas,” and had no legal
rights since they had no legal status in
Germany. Nonetheless, whilst taking such a stand
against Germany—in Turkey, since 2003, after he
was elected Prime Minister, he has continued
some eight decades old legacy of assimilation
against the Kurds. Although, he attacks Germany
for the so-called German intention of
assimilating Turkish immigrants, he knows that
Germany as a democratic country has no such
policy to forcefully assimilate the non-German
people. Further, despite the fact that Erdoğan
said assimilation is a crime against humanity,
he still presides over the government that
operates under one of the most racist
constitutions in the human history—a
Constitution that by far has exceeded all the
essence of assimilation and has uprooted the
roots of Kurdish identity in Turkey.
Further, on June 6, 2011, in a meeting he had
with the delegation of representatives of
Egypt’s young revolutionaries in Turkey, Erdoğan
addressed the young representatives on democracy
and said that “democracy is guaranteed rights
and basic freedoms, especially for women and
children and that they should select a president
with characteristics like honesty and sincerity,
so that the people will gain a lot of support.”
Perceptibly, politicians are known to utter
statements even if they are not “true” or they
may not have their hearts in the concept, which
they express. He said, democracy guarantees
basic “rights” for “women and children.” Well,
if Erdoğan believes in the concept of which he
uttered to the young Egyptians,
why then, under
his so-called “Justice and Development” party
and government, Kurdish children are barred from
carrying Kurdish names? In Turkey, the Turkish
law requires all Kurdish children to have
Turkish names. Here, one could argue, is it not
possessing a Kurdish name a basic right a
Kurdish child should enjoy under Erdoğan’s
“democracy?” When in Somalia in August 2011,
Erdoğan was holding a child in his arms and
trying to soothe the agony of Somali women
(which was very humane thing to do).
Nonetheless, there are hundreds of Kurdish women
(some under the legal age) who serve time in
Turkish prisons—accused of supporting the PKK
without any viable evidence against them. When
he talks about “humanity,” it would be wise to
remind Erdoğan that “common humanity” is the
same for all women and children whether they are
Turkish, Somalis, Armenians, Palestinians, or
Kurds.
It seems Erdoğan’s view of Islam influences his
rubric for determining what constitutes
terrorism or war crimes. If a leader is Muslim,
then in Erdoğan’s opinion he “cannot commit
genocide” or terrorist acts because Islam
forbids such evil acts. This was Erdoğan’s way
of defending Sudan’s warmonger Omar al-Bashir
for his genocide and destruction of Darfur.
Erdoğan indicates that an Islamic leader cannot
commit genocide, which by proxy, he implies
that, in his view, only Western or other
non-Muslim leaders could commit such an evil
act. Well, again one must say to him, either he
is ignorant of his own Turkish-Ottoman Empire’s
genocide of Armenians in 1915, or an arrogant
Turkish politician whose Islamic purview
determines what constitute genocide. Further,
Erdoğan believes when an Islamic faction such as
Hamas that fights Israel—such a group cannot be
called “terrorists,” but rather, they should be
called “freedom fighters.” Because in Erdoğan’s
rubric Hamas is an Islamic group that fights a
non-Islamic Jewish state. One could argue with
him, how then an Islamic state such as Turkey
can oppress another Muslim people within its
borders. How can he justify the Turkish
oppression of the Kurds? Further, according to
Erdoğan’s formula, although their members and
affiliates come from Muslim families, the PKK
are terrorists, because they fight the Islamic
Turkish state.
Conclusion
The drum of Turkish atrocities has been beating
for centuries against the people of Kurdistan.
During the Ottoman Empire, the empire’s strategy
was to use Islam with Muslims who had
non-Turkish roots to prevent them from
challenging the Islamic Sultanate. The empire’s
Islamic brotherhood was the most effective
weapon against any notion of challenging the
Islamic Turkish Sultans. As a result, the people
of Kurdistan were ensnared in the so-called
Turkish “Muslim brotherhood.”
Even after the demise of the Ottoman Empire and
in the new republic of Turkey—under every
Turkish government including Erdoğan’s
government, the people of Kurdistan remain
stripped of the most basic human rights.
Additionally, Erdoğan, like his predecessors,
has continued hostilities against the people of
Kurdistan, which has resulted in the loss of
thousands of Kurdish and Turkish lives. Instead
of looking for a genuine constitutional change
to forge a peaceful legal-political solution,
Erdoğan maintained the superiority of his
egoistic and myopic national sentiment, and
occasionally called for the PKK to surrender.
However, it would be wise for him to come to
terms with reality and realize that the issue is
not the PKK, but rather it is the issue of the
identity of 25 million Kurds in Turkey who are
still suffering as a result of racist policies
of the Turkish state.
Further, while some observers echo Erdoğan’s
view that “the PKK and Öcalan should wake up to
reality and bury in history the guns and armed
struggle,” they should be fair enough to equally
demand that Erdoğan and the Turkish political
and military authorities wake up to reality and
bury the racist Turkish Constitution in the
graveyard of history. Only then can a genuine
peace be established. Only then can Kurds and
Turks live side by side in peace and prosperity.
In private, Erdoğan in his meetings with certain
Kurdish leaders admits that “the era for denying
the existence of Kurdish people is over. It is
behind us.” Although in private, it is nice to
hear that Erdoğan talks on reconciling with the
historical truth about the people of Kurdistan,
nonetheless, he should have enough courage to
take this “reality” to his Turkish parliament
and say—my fellow citizens, for centuries we
have denied freedom to the Kurds, it is time to
face the truth and accept the reality of the
Kurds—and that, the era of denying the existence
of the Kurds is over. He should say to his
people that we can no longer practice such
undemocratic and inhumane politics. He needs to
discuss this matter with Turkish politicians,
legislators, and military and not in the
confined walls with Kurdish leaders. He needs to
prepare his people for such a historic move of
reconciliation.
Therefore, for an undisputable peace to be
established between the Turks and Kurds, it is
crucial for the Turkish authorities to step out
of the bloody cycle, hate, and cynicism. They
should acknowledge the reality in which Turkey
exists, and that is Turkey consists of two main
nationalities, Turks and Kurds, and other ethnic
minorities. Furthermore, both the Turkish
government and the PKK should realize that they
live in a time in which wisdom requires both
sides to work towards finding a common ground on
which coexistence is possible—a coexistence that
is premised on mutual respect and understanding.
For the AKP leadership to silence the PKK guns,
they should first change the Constitution, and
return the rights and identity to the Kurds.
Once this has happened, as Nelson Mandela once
so famously said, “all the Kurdish guns will be
silenced.”
References:
Abbas, Mohamed. (2011). Turkish PM’s Visit to
Boost Morale in Somalia. http://www.hiiraan.com/op4/2011/aug/19963/turkish_pm_s_visit_to_boost_morale_in_somalia.aspx.
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Dr. Kirmanj Gundi is a professor at the Department of
Educational Administration and Leadership at
Tennessee State University. You can visit Gundi's
blog at http://kigundi.blogspot.com/
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