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Suppressing Kurdish identity has failed.
Turkey must take a new approachErdogan's government must engage with
Kurdish political parties and the PKK if it is serious about resolving
this conflict
Fazel Hawramy
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 6 October 2011 09.00 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/06/turkey-kurdish-question-recep-tayyip-erdogan
Leyla Zana of the Kurdish BDP re-enters the Turkish national assembly
20 years after she was imprisoned for speaking her own language in her
oath. Photograph: AP
In 1991, a 30-year-old woman was sworn in as a parliamentarian in
Turkey's national assembly. After reciting the oath of allegiance, she
added a sentence in her own language. As a result, she was removed
from the building, stripped of her parliamentary immunity and
sentenced to 15 years in prison. Her name was Leyla Zana, Turkey's
first Kurdish female MP.
She served 10 years of her prison sentence and, last Saturday, Zana -
now a diminutive 50-year-old woman - entered Turkey's grand national
assembly as a Kurdish MP again. During the time she was in prison, not
much had changed for those trying to represent Kurds in Turkey. Even
today, teaching of the Kurdish language in primary and secondary
schools is not allowed.
In its second congress in Ankara last month, Zana's party - the
Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) - produced an eight-point
roadmap that centred around the democratic rights of Kurdish people,
including the cultural, linguistic and civil and political rights that
the Kurdish population of Turkey need to become equal citizens of the
state. The denial of Kurdish identity through assimilation and
continued repression of successive Turkish governments lies at the
heart of the Kurdish question, which has gone unresolved for more than
90 years.
In recent months, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
has been given a hero's welcome in the Middle East for standing up for
the rights of downtrodden Arab people and promoting Turkish democracy
as a model for Arab societies.
Back home, the civil rights of 20 million Kurds in Turkey have been
gradually eroded. The EU acknowledges this is "a serious cause for
concern" in a country where more than 3,000 Kurdish activists are in
detention. The EU has called on Turkey this week to bring its justice
system into line with international standards and amend its
anti-terrorism legislation.
On Tuesday, under the same anti-terrorism legislation, more than 120
members of the BDP, including the party's deputy leader, were
arrested.
So sensitive is Turkey to anyone acknowledging the plight of the Kurds
that the novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was charged and tried
for "public denigration of Turkish identity", after mentioning in a
2005 interview that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed
in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it".
Challenging Turkey's approach to the Kurdish question and other human
rights issues within the country is all but impossible. The
International Press Institute has expressed "serious concern" at the
continued imprisonment of at least 64 journalists and named Turkey as
the country with the "highest number of journalists in prison in the
world" - surpassing Iran and China.
In the west, coverage of the Kurds in Turkey is limited to the
activities of the PKK - an organisation that was set up in 1978 by a
group of Kurdish and non-Kurdish university students who decided to
take up arms and resist the assimilation policy of the Turkish state.
This conflict has continued for 27 years, costing the Turkish economy
about $300-$400bn. More than 30,000 Kurds have lost their lives and
the economy of the Kurdish region in the south-east of the country is
in tatters, leaving thousands of Kurdish youth unemployed.
Many people in Turkey, who are tired of this futile war in the Kurdish
region, hoped that the result of this year's general election for both
the Kurdish BDP and Erdogan's AKP would offer an opportunity to make
serious progress towards solving the Kurdish question. But the refusal
of Erdogan's government to let the five Kurdish MPs imprisoned on
trumped-up terrorism-related charges to take their seats in parliament
was a serious setback.
In return, and under enormous pressure from the Kurdish electorate,
BDP was left with no option but to boycott the parliament. Not long
afterwards, 13 Turkish soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a
suspicious fire which was blamed on the PKK. The PKK, which is usually
quick to take responsibility for the operations it carries out, denied
any involvement but Turkish journalists who are scared of being thrown
in prison for "treason" if they question the military version of
events ignored the PKK denial and blamed it on the organisation
anyway.
Turkish bombs started raining down on Iraqi Kurdistan and in the
Qandil mountains where the PKK fighters are based. Ironically, while
Erdogan was demanding an official apology from Israel for the flotilla
incident in 2010, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed, Turkish
planes dropped a bomb inside Iraqi Kurdistan, hitting a car carrying
seven civilians, in violation of international law. All the
passengers, including four children under the age of 12, were burnt to
death instantly. Amnesty International called on Turkey to investigate
the killings but, unsurprisingly, no investigation has been launched.
It should be clear to current Turkish leaders that the nine decades of
militaristic policies in suppressing and denying Kurdish identity have
failed. Turkey must realise that the Kurdish question requires a more
nuanced approach. Leaders in Europe should put more pressure on Turkey
to deal with the systemic discrimination that fuels Kurdish support
for the PKK.
If negotiations between Kurdish parliamentarians and the Turkish
government are to have a chance of success, the Turkish government and
the PKK need to declare an immediate ceasefire. The AKP government
should engage with the Kurdish political parties and the PKK's current
leadership in order to make progress towards solving the Kurdish
question. Ending this conflict and affording equal rights to all its
citizens should be a precondition for Turkey's membership of the EU.
From: Baghdasarian
Turkey must take a new approachErdogan's government must engage with
Kurdish political parties and the PKK if it is serious about resolving
this conflict
Fazel Hawramy
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 6 October 2011 09.00 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/06/turkey-kurdish-question-recep-tayyip-erdogan
Leyla Zana of the Kurdish BDP re-enters the Turkish national assembly
20 years after she was imprisoned for speaking her own language in her
oath. Photograph: AP
In 1991, a 30-year-old woman was sworn in as a parliamentarian in
Turkey's national assembly. After reciting the oath of allegiance, she
added a sentence in her own language. As a result, she was removed
from the building, stripped of her parliamentary immunity and
sentenced to 15 years in prison. Her name was Leyla Zana, Turkey's
first Kurdish female MP.
She served 10 years of her prison sentence and, last Saturday, Zana -
now a diminutive 50-year-old woman - entered Turkey's grand national
assembly as a Kurdish MP again. During the time she was in prison, not
much had changed for those trying to represent Kurds in Turkey. Even
today, teaching of the Kurdish language in primary and secondary
schools is not allowed.
In its second congress in Ankara last month, Zana's party - the
Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) - produced an eight-point
roadmap that centred around the democratic rights of Kurdish people,
including the cultural, linguistic and civil and political rights that
the Kurdish population of Turkey need to become equal citizens of the
state. The denial of Kurdish identity through assimilation and
continued repression of successive Turkish governments lies at the
heart of the Kurdish question, which has gone unresolved for more than
90 years.
In recent months, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
has been given a hero's welcome in the Middle East for standing up for
the rights of downtrodden Arab people and promoting Turkish democracy
as a model for Arab societies.
Back home, the civil rights of 20 million Kurds in Turkey have been
gradually eroded. The EU acknowledges this is "a serious cause for
concern" in a country where more than 3,000 Kurdish activists are in
detention. The EU has called on Turkey this week to bring its justice
system into line with international standards and amend its
anti-terrorism legislation.
On Tuesday, under the same anti-terrorism legislation, more than 120
members of the BDP, including the party's deputy leader, were
arrested.
So sensitive is Turkey to anyone acknowledging the plight of the Kurds
that the novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was charged and tried
for "public denigration of Turkish identity", after mentioning in a
2005 interview that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed
in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it".
Challenging Turkey's approach to the Kurdish question and other human
rights issues within the country is all but impossible. The
International Press Institute has expressed "serious concern" at the
continued imprisonment of at least 64 journalists and named Turkey as
the country with the "highest number of journalists in prison in the
world" - surpassing Iran and China.
In the west, coverage of the Kurds in Turkey is limited to the
activities of the PKK - an organisation that was set up in 1978 by a
group of Kurdish and non-Kurdish university students who decided to
take up arms and resist the assimilation policy of the Turkish state.
This conflict has continued for 27 years, costing the Turkish economy
about $300-$400bn. More than 30,000 Kurds have lost their lives and
the economy of the Kurdish region in the south-east of the country is
in tatters, leaving thousands of Kurdish youth unemployed.
Many people in Turkey, who are tired of this futile war in the Kurdish
region, hoped that the result of this year's general election for both
the Kurdish BDP and Erdogan's AKP would offer an opportunity to make
serious progress towards solving the Kurdish question. But the refusal
of Erdogan's government to let the five Kurdish MPs imprisoned on
trumped-up terrorism-related charges to take their seats in parliament
was a serious setback.
In return, and under enormous pressure from the Kurdish electorate,
BDP was left with no option but to boycott the parliament. Not long
afterwards, 13 Turkish soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a
suspicious fire which was blamed on the PKK. The PKK, which is usually
quick to take responsibility for the operations it carries out, denied
any involvement but Turkish journalists who are scared of being thrown
in prison for "treason" if they question the military version of
events ignored the PKK denial and blamed it on the organisation
anyway.
Turkish bombs started raining down on Iraqi Kurdistan and in the
Qandil mountains where the PKK fighters are based. Ironically, while
Erdogan was demanding an official apology from Israel for the flotilla
incident in 2010, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed, Turkish
planes dropped a bomb inside Iraqi Kurdistan, hitting a car carrying
seven civilians, in violation of international law. All the
passengers, including four children under the age of 12, were burnt to
death instantly. Amnesty International called on Turkey to investigate
the killings but, unsurprisingly, no investigation has been launched.
It should be clear to current Turkish leaders that the nine decades of
militaristic policies in suppressing and denying Kurdish identity have
failed. Turkey must realise that the Kurdish question requires a more
nuanced approach. Leaders in Europe should put more pressure on Turkey
to deal with the systemic discrimination that fuels Kurdish support
for the PKK.
If negotiations between Kurdish parliamentarians and the Turkish
government are to have a chance of success, the Turkish government and
the PKK need to declare an immediate ceasefire. The AKP government
should engage with the Kurdish political parties and the PKK's current
leadership in order to make progress towards solving the Kurdish
question. Ending this conflict and affording equal rights to all its
citizens should be a precondition for Turkey's membership of the EU.
From: Baghdasarian