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Who is the biggest obstacle to the Kurdish
peace process in Turkey?
26.8.2012
By Dr. Aland Mizell
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Ekurd.net
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Muhammed Fethullah Gulen, is a Turkish preacher,
author, educator, and Sufi Muslim scholar living in
self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania (USA), he the founder and leader of
the Gulen movement.
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Read more
By Dr. Aland Mizell
August 26, 2012
And what is the role of the Kurdish people in the
new Middle East Projects?
For a long time, there have been intense clashes in
the Middle East between the attacking Kurdish
rebels’ Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) and the Turkish
Security Forces. This month has seen the longest
wave of attacks since 1984, battles which have
claimed thousands of lives so far. The Middle East
is burning, and the oppressive regime again is
looking at the outside causes of the fire but has
never looked at its own negligence. So who is the
biggest obstacle to the Kurdish peace process? Are
Gulenists the biggest obstacle to Kurdish autonomy
and the peace process? Or are the Kurds themselves
the largest impediment to Kurdish autonomy? Is the
BDP, the PKK, or the AKP party the greatest barrier
to the Kurdish peace process?
The war on the Kurds has been going on for a long
time, but what we see today is the intensification
of the war: psychological warfare, media propaganda,
threats and assassinations, kidnapping, and
bombings. What other sorts of evidence does an
observer need to believe that the Turkish government
and their allies have already started their war
against the Kurds? All of these acts of aggression
and belligerence are taking place while an intensive
media operation against Kurds is on track, and the
Gulenists media moguls affiliated with the hawkish,
pro-Gulenists think-tanks in the United States are
malevolently portraying a biased and distorted image
of the Kurds to their people with the aim of laying
the groundwork to get rid of the democratically
elected BDP political party, the sole defender of
Kurdish rights.
The BDP represents the only Kurdish party that does
not bow to Gulenists’ demands or to anyone who
refuses to obey Gulenists’ ideology and
Turkish-biased policy. What the issue is here is
that Kurds refuse to be enslaved to the theocratic
system headed by the Gulenists’ Turkish/ Islamic
thesis. Let me be clear; I condemn the killing and
whoever participates in it, but also I do not trust
the Turkish government or the religious groups who
claim that they are going to bring peace and justice
on the earth.
The Kurds have faced one incontrovertible fact of
real politics. They have no genuine predictable
friends or allies in the Middle East. Kurds have
historically tried to form allies with outsiders,
but often they choose the wrong allies. Over the
years the Kurds have looked for support from the
United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, and the
European Union. Most often these allies have decided
that it was in their interest to drop the Kurds in
favor of the regime the Kurds were against. Most
often, when they asked for help from outsiders, the
outsiders accused the Kurds of being agents of
foreign powers, but today Turkey is seeking help
from the European community and the United States to
accomplish its aspirations, particularly those
related to the Kurds.
The Kurds have many enemies for a variety of
reasons, and they have had for a long time. However,
among the obstacles to Kurdish independence have
been the Kurds themselves. The oppressors have kept
the Kurds divided into hostile and mutually
suspicious factions, so that Kurds will not be
united to seek their own national interests. The
oppressors know the rules of the game well because
they play them all the time with the “divide and
conquer” strategy used successfully. The main
Kurdish problem is often that they have failed to be
united and failed to learn from history the lessons
that it is easy to trust the smile of bad allies.
For example, the Gülen movement opens up civic
institutions in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq,
indoctrinating thousands of Kurdish children with
his ideology and establishing free tutoring centers
for poor students, more than twenty private schools,
a university, and hospitals in the territory of the
Kurdistan Regional Government. A rapidly expanding
economic relationship between Turkey and the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the
prospects and challenges Turkey faces as it tries to
exploit this economic relationship to gain political
leverage over the KRG is potentially a very powerful
political weapon, but it is a weapon that Turkey
will use in the future against the KRG. Turkey makes
the KRG depend on it. The expanding relationship
raises security questions, particularly for the KRG.
Turkey will exploit the economic relationship with
the KRG in ways that could undermine Iran’s role in
the Middle East and the PKK’s long standing
opposition to either side,www.ekurd.net
thereby unilaterally or coercively altering the
status quo across the region. Turkey and Iran are
competing for leadership in the Middle East, and the
only obstacle for Turkey to become the hegemonic
power is the PKK. As a result, Turkey is using
economic weapons to reduce the PKK’s presence there
socially, politically and economically. Is this
healthy for the KRG? It can be discussed.
The possibility of economic weapons or sanctions is
an inevitable consequence of the establishment of
economic relations. Without economic exchanges,
there would be no economic weapons or sanction at
all. Gulenists see the Kurdish question as an
economic issue; Gülen himself believes that once a
ruling power solves the Kurds’ economic problems,
that the Kurds will be fine. Consequently, Gulenists
are using the card of the Sunni religion to get
close to the KRG and to make sure the KRG will not
support the PKK as well as will not ally themselves
with Iran. Therefore, an economic jihad is the most
powerful jihad for Gülen, so with this weapon his
followers opened the Albaraka Bank in Erbil, the
fourth Turkish bank that is active in Erbil. The KRG
is entangled with a poisonous snake. The KRG oil
pipelines and infrastructure from KRG to Turkey are
extremely important yet not without dangerous
consequences.
In regard, then, to the main cards available for
regional players, they have: 1) the reduction of the
PKK’s influence in the region; 2) the KRG’s
independence; 3) the KRG’s economic dependence on
Turkey rather than on Israel, Iran or western
countries; 4) the impetus to convince the KRG not to
support the PKK until Turkey eliminates the PKK, the
BDP, and the KCK; and 5) semi-autonomy of the Kurds
in Turkey. But, at the same time, Gülen asked the
Turkish military and its overt and covert allies, to
destroy all the PKK members, saying that he wished
that their homes would be burned down. He estimated
the number of members to be 50,000. Not only that,
but his media and lobbyist groups daily and nightly
worked to close Roj TV in Europe and even went after
any civic organizations that defend Kurds. By
contrast, Gulenists’ school curriculum is
antagonistic toward nationalism, but Turkish
nationalism is the exception. His followers are not
permitted to be nationalistic, but ironically they
can promote Gulenists’ ideology and be loyal to
Gülen and to Turkey.
Since 2006 Turkey/Gulenists have been putting their
hands on the KRG’s resources, and now they are
working all together to reach their goal of
controlling the KRG. The reason the KRG is important
is because of its economy. Actually it would be easy
for Turkey to accept the Kurdish region in Northern
Iraq, in other words, the independence of the KRG,
and then it would be not be difficult for them to
overthrow the Barzanis. The coup would be simple
because there is so much division, despair, and
corruption within the Kurdish region. After the
takeover, the Turkish Gulenists can put in place
their own puppet president. That is the strategy on
the Gulenists’ and Turkey’s top future agenda. Turks
have always determined that Mosul should be part of
Turkey in accordance with a national pact. Ankara
also sought to deploy the Turkic card as a means to
undermine the Kurdish claim to Kirkuk by insisting
that Kirkuk belongs to a multi-ethnic community,
thereby precluding an exclusive Kurdish claim to the
city of Kirkuk.
Abraham Lincoln said, “I will prepare and some day
my chance will come.” The Kurds should prepare. The
recent developments in the Middle Eastern countries
are unprecedented. These developments will determine
the future path of the Kurdish people. Today’s world
is in a transition, and it is going to be very
different from what it has been in the twentieth
century. In today’s globalized world the power to
this point wielded by national governments has
significantly declined. Some of this power is
passing on to the supranational agencies like the UN
and its subsidiaries. Some power is going to sub
national ethnic, linguistics and religious groups as
the weakening of nationalism occurs. As a result,
this provides more opportunities for minorities. But
the Kurdish minorities could doubly benefit, because
our world is increasingly becoming without poles.
Instead of super powers we have major players. Most
of the Kurds live in the Middle East and
increasingly are becoming important for the destiny
of major powers. The features of these changes are
economic betterment and increasing self-reliance in
the management of social, economic, and political
affairs. How much are the Kurds themselves
responsible for the current state of insignificance?
What prevents them from playing the desired role at
the present is the greater Middle East project. This
project gives a great chance to the Kurdish people
to be an inclusive and major voice while they
prosper economically too.
This historical moment should be the demise of the
idea that Turkey belongs only to the Turks. Kurds
should maintain vigilance in the face of the plot to
bury the Kurdish issue. All Kurds should be vigilant
about the dangerous plot to hide the main issue of
the Kurds from view and to create a false reality
through provoking division among the Kurds and other
people for the agitator’s own interests. Turkey is
trying to cause division among Kurds by playing up
insignificant religious differences, by creating
false threats, and by fabricating realities. The
Kurdish people should focus their efforts on
maintaining and promoting unity and brotherhood, and
not trust the will of the major power in the region.
They have played this same movie before, and they
are re-running it again. Since the creation of the
PKK all of the Turkish party, Islamic groups, and
secular groups have defended the same line. Why
should I believe what the Turkish governments says
is the truth?
What if the recent bombing in the province of Gazi
Antep was an inside job – a definite possibility
because the PKK did not claim the bombing but rather
condemned it? In the past, for example, the Turkish
military and government have done so many dirty
works and assigned them to the Kurds claiming that
the Kurds did them. Why should I believe this is not
also the government doing it? Also, Gazi Antep is
close to Syria, and one of Turkey’s main concerns is
the Syrian Kurds because the current declaration of
autonomy has made Turkey nervous; consequently,
Turkey is using the current bombing as an excuse to
create a safe haven by force. What is happening in
Turkey the government is doing, but just claiming
that the PKK has perpetrated the violence to
increase rage and hate against the PKK and those who
support the PKK or the BDP. Is the main goal of the
Turkish government and those who defend the Turkish
Islamic thesis and the government lie just to get
their people to back them up? Could this be true
because they know the BDP is the only party that
could defend Kurdish rights in a democratic way? The
irony is that the Turkish government and Gulenists
label any Kurd who is struggling for his/ her
freedom and basic rights a terrorist.
Due to arrogance and ignorance, most Turks do not
understand why the Kurds are angry or even stop one
minute to ask themselves who created the PKK or why
the PKKs are in the mountains. Most Turks keep
insisting the Kurds have obtained all their rights.
It is true that Kurds do not have any problems in
Turkey as long as they do not say, “I am a Kurd,”
but once they state that identity, want to give a
Kurdish name to their sons or daughters, or learn
the Kurdish language and culture, then there is a
problem. Most Turks read history selectively. They
do not see the colossal damage the Turks have done
to the Kurdish heritage, history, culture, and even
religion. Most of the Turks have not read Kurdish
history, particularly not from the side of the
victims of their oppression. They have also not read
the chronicles of their own rulers and generals
about how they oppressed and deprived the Kurdish
people of life and liberty.
I believe Gülen and his followers are going to be
the biggest obstacle to the Kurds autonomy and also
the greatest impediment to the peace process,
beginning with the PKK because Gülen and his
followers within the state believe that the military
is the solution to the Kurdish problem. Whereas the
ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is
pro dialogue and negotiations with the PKK, these
Gulenists say they are really pro dialogue but, if
they are, then why are they against Prime Minster
Erdogan’s ordering the MIT to negotiate with the PKK?
And why do the Western countries buy into this
deception? Turkish society operates in a highly
polarized, political climate, one flooded with
conspiracy theories on any given topic. Hence facts
are often lost amid speculations. Recently, a
frequent target has been the BDP and those who
support them. For three decades Turkey has
disseminated misinformation, but has still not been
successful, so now Turkey is trying the same game to
kill more of its own citizens but to make it appear
as if the PKK committed the acts in order to make
civilians not support the PKK. Turkey well knows
that as long as Kurdish citizens support the PKK,
Ankara cannot defeat the PKK militarily.
The second aim or goal of the Turkish government is
to make the BDP in conflict with the PKK, thereby
dividing them, but the BDP cannot have credibility
without the PKK, and the PKK cannot have more
support without the BDP. Therefore, the only
solution to the Kurdish problem is not a military
but rather a political solution; it is not
economical freedom but rather social freedom that is
needed. The Gülen movement is more dangerous to the
Kurdish movement than others, since he is a master
at tickling both religious and nationalistic
hormones to attract and manipulate masses. Gulenists
have already indoctrinated lots of poor Kurdish kids
in Turkey, and now they are continuing to do so in
the KRG region. Gülen is teaching Kurdish children
that Turks are God’s chosen people to represent
Islam and to rule the world, bringing peace and
prosperity. However, Gulenists, like their Imam,
have several personalities. The first personality,
which is the visible one and the one known by the
people, is that of a humble, spiritual leader,
loving and even more, tolerant. Another personality
of the Gulenists is that they desire to have total
control and domination using the Machiavellian
principles of forging secret plans and establishing
political alliances through soft power to pursue his
long term goal of bringing back a Sunni theocratic
Ottoman Empire.
Gülen truly believes that Arabs, Persians, Asians,
and others do not represent Islam well; Turks are
the best representative of Islam and indeed the
chosen people, promoting a purification of Islam.
For Gulenists there is no Kurdish problem and only
in a few things there are problems, so he thinks the
main problem is economic. The reason behind this
conclusion is that it could be remedied easily.
However, Gulen prayed passionately for the
destruction of the PKK and those who support it.
Surely, any human being would not want innocent
people to be killed, and I too condemn all the
killings whether perpetrated by the PKK or the
military, but the problem is a religious leader who
advocates tolerance, harmony, peace, and love but
promotes more hate and encourages more killing.
Therefore, this kind of approach is the main
obstacle to peace. A struggle that has gone on for
decades, one that has seen too much hate and
distrust, can make it hard to imagine that the Kurds
will or can live under the sovereign authority of
the Turks, Arabs, or Persians unless forced to do
so. The only solution to this problem will take
either the form of semi autonomy or federalism.
Dr. Aland Mizell is with the University of
Mindanao School of Social Science, President of the
MCI and a regular contributor to the Kurdish Media.
You may reach the author via email at:
aland_mizell2@hotmail.com
Copyright
© 2012 Ekurd.net
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