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Mideast Mirror
October 16, 2012 Tuesday
Ankara's false pretensions
Ankara cannot claim to be concerned about democracy in Syria when it
is repressing its own Kurdish population, says Kamal Deeb in today's
Lebanese al-Akhbar
Before promoting itself as a model of democratic Islam that can be
emulated in the region, Turkey would do better to deal fairly with its
own Kurdish populace, argues a Lebanese commentator. It should also
refrain from acting as if the country's inhabitants all belong to the
same ethnicity and have the same faith.
BLACK HISTORY: "Despite its claims to be a democratic model for the
Islamic world, and that the U.S. administration has offered it as an
example of an Islamic state friendly to Israel that should be emulated
by all the countries of the Arab Winter, Turkey has a black history of
dealings with its minorities," writes Kamal Deeb in the left-leaning
Beirut daily al-Akhbar.
In the twentieth century, Turkey committed massacres against the
Armenians, killing one million of them. It committed massacres against
the Syriacs/Assyrians, who had a two-thousand years old civilization
in Mardin, Kilis, Nissibin, and Gaziantep.
The Turks forcefully displaced the Syriacs/Assyrians and killed many
of them. They forced hundreds of thousands of them to escape to Syria
and Lebanon. One need not confine oneself to gleaning information of
this from the history books. There are many families in Canada whose
old folk can still recall true eyewitness stories of what befell their
areas in Southern Turkey and along the borders with Syria.
Today, the Kurdish issue continues to give the Turks sleepless nights.
The Kurds constitute between 20% and 25% of Turkey's population. They
cannot be dealt with as an insignificant minority, along the lines of
the Armenians and Syriacs/Assyrians who were liquidated.
'Democratic' Turkey's attitude towards the Kurds today, especially in
the East of the country, is not that different from 'democratic'
Israel's attitude towards the Palestinians in the 1948 territories, in
the West Bank, and in Gaza
In my opinion, the reason why PM Erdogan's government has ignored the
Kurdish issue stems from two factors:
- First, the chronic supercilious, condescending and racist manner in
which the ruling authorities in Ankara have treated the Kurds since
the 1919 Paris peace conference. This is the same manner in which
secularist Kemalism has dealt with that issue - [Turkey's modern
founder] Ataturk said: There is no Kurdish people; there are only
mountain Turks - as have yesterday's army generals, and today's
'Islamic centrism' which deals with Kurdish activism via military
repression as a manifestation of terrorist action that threatens
Turkey's stability.
- Second, the Kurdish issue is viewed as a factor that weakens
Turkey's standing which today wants to lead the region towards a
'moderate Islam' that falls in line behind U.S. international policy.
>From Erdogan's perspective, this is not the time for Kurdish activism.
But like every other Turkish ruler who preceded him, there is no
appropriate time for Kurdish activism.
In this category as well is the attempt to silence any voice and
stifle any action that shifts the needle of the compass away from the
Syrian scene. This is because breaking Syria's back is the key to
leadership of the region, in the eyes of the Turkish government.
Official Turkey has thus adopted a media and diplomatic approach that
rapidly silences and discards any incident or tragedy anywhere around
the world. It intervenes with tens of governments around the world to
postpone their crises where possible. (For example, official Turkey
seems temporarily unconcerned about alleviating Israel's repression
and harsh treatment of the Palestinians; similarly, it seems
temporarily unconcerned about seeking accord between Northern and
Southern Sudan; and so on.)
Given that the Syrian issue has come to occupy the greater part of the
Ankara government's daily activities, it has become necessary to link
any domestic events - especially those linked to the Kurds - to
developments in Syria. But that is a logic that is akin to that we see
in myths. The truth is that there is an essential link between how
Turkey treats its Kurds and its remaining a democratic model of an
Islamic state with a growing economy. The Kurdish fuse threatens
Turkey's future; while the Syrian factor can be brought under control
by refraining from intervening in Syria's affairs.
Turkish areas near Syria gained much as a result of Ankara's [former]
openness to Damascus. But these areas are suffering from economic
stagnation today. They have become focal points and a cesspool for
fighters from around the world, including extremist groups such as
al-Qa'ida and others. Extremist Turkish Islamist activists are
exploiting them with over a hundred thousand armed elements crossing
into Syria so far. Moreover, these border areas have become sites for
Syrian refugees.
But the fact is that the Kurdish question has existed in Turkey for
over a hundred years, as in the other countries in the region where
the Kurds are present. Turkey's government cannot ignore the ethnic
and sectarian factors within its own territories or behave as if the
Turkish Republic today is a country whose population has a single
confessional faith and belongs to one and the same ethnicity.
Up till today, and under the fake cover of democracy, repression
continues to rule the day in Turkey. The army continues to carry out
its incursions into Kurdish areas. It blows up homes and kills
hundreds of people, and border areas in Iraq and Syria are also
invaded. But these reports pass as if they were unimportant because
the international media is immoral; it only adopts the causes that
serve the neo-liberal hegemony.
In Istanbul, opposition journalists and writers are arrested whether
writing about the Kurds or the Armenians. Nor should we forget Nobel
Laureate Orhan Pamuk who escaped Turkey after writing an article about
the massacre of the Armenians. A publisher who published a translation
of a book was imprisoned for two years because it referred to massacre
against the Kurds in the 1990s backed by Bill Clinton's
administration.
In fact, all Turks - Kurdish or not - know the reality of what is
happening in Kurdish areas. They advise you to watch the films of [the
late] Kurdish director Y?lmaz Güney who was exiled to Europe, that
portrays the misery of daily life in Eastern Turkey, where the people
live in similar conditions to those of the Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza .
Those who claim to back the Palestinian cause must make sure they are
not Israel's primary ally in the region. And those who claim to back
the so-called Arab Spring should act fairly inside their territories
towards the just Kurdish cause.
"After all, the Kurdish nation has a right to determine its fate
freely. It has its own civilization, language, and culture rendering
one of the world's noble nations," concludes Deeb.
October 16, 2012 Tuesday
Ankara's false pretensions
Ankara cannot claim to be concerned about democracy in Syria when it
is repressing its own Kurdish population, says Kamal Deeb in today's
Lebanese al-Akhbar
Before promoting itself as a model of democratic Islam that can be
emulated in the region, Turkey would do better to deal fairly with its
own Kurdish populace, argues a Lebanese commentator. It should also
refrain from acting as if the country's inhabitants all belong to the
same ethnicity and have the same faith.
BLACK HISTORY: "Despite its claims to be a democratic model for the
Islamic world, and that the U.S. administration has offered it as an
example of an Islamic state friendly to Israel that should be emulated
by all the countries of the Arab Winter, Turkey has a black history of
dealings with its minorities," writes Kamal Deeb in the left-leaning
Beirut daily al-Akhbar.
In the twentieth century, Turkey committed massacres against the
Armenians, killing one million of them. It committed massacres against
the Syriacs/Assyrians, who had a two-thousand years old civilization
in Mardin, Kilis, Nissibin, and Gaziantep.
The Turks forcefully displaced the Syriacs/Assyrians and killed many
of them. They forced hundreds of thousands of them to escape to Syria
and Lebanon. One need not confine oneself to gleaning information of
this from the history books. There are many families in Canada whose
old folk can still recall true eyewitness stories of what befell their
areas in Southern Turkey and along the borders with Syria.
Today, the Kurdish issue continues to give the Turks sleepless nights.
The Kurds constitute between 20% and 25% of Turkey's population. They
cannot be dealt with as an insignificant minority, along the lines of
the Armenians and Syriacs/Assyrians who were liquidated.
'Democratic' Turkey's attitude towards the Kurds today, especially in
the East of the country, is not that different from 'democratic'
Israel's attitude towards the Palestinians in the 1948 territories, in
the West Bank, and in Gaza
In my opinion, the reason why PM Erdogan's government has ignored the
Kurdish issue stems from two factors:
- First, the chronic supercilious, condescending and racist manner in
which the ruling authorities in Ankara have treated the Kurds since
the 1919 Paris peace conference. This is the same manner in which
secularist Kemalism has dealt with that issue - [Turkey's modern
founder] Ataturk said: There is no Kurdish people; there are only
mountain Turks - as have yesterday's army generals, and today's
'Islamic centrism' which deals with Kurdish activism via military
repression as a manifestation of terrorist action that threatens
Turkey's stability.
- Second, the Kurdish issue is viewed as a factor that weakens
Turkey's standing which today wants to lead the region towards a
'moderate Islam' that falls in line behind U.S. international policy.
>From Erdogan's perspective, this is not the time for Kurdish activism.
But like every other Turkish ruler who preceded him, there is no
appropriate time for Kurdish activism.
In this category as well is the attempt to silence any voice and
stifle any action that shifts the needle of the compass away from the
Syrian scene. This is because breaking Syria's back is the key to
leadership of the region, in the eyes of the Turkish government.
Official Turkey has thus adopted a media and diplomatic approach that
rapidly silences and discards any incident or tragedy anywhere around
the world. It intervenes with tens of governments around the world to
postpone their crises where possible. (For example, official Turkey
seems temporarily unconcerned about alleviating Israel's repression
and harsh treatment of the Palestinians; similarly, it seems
temporarily unconcerned about seeking accord between Northern and
Southern Sudan; and so on.)
Given that the Syrian issue has come to occupy the greater part of the
Ankara government's daily activities, it has become necessary to link
any domestic events - especially those linked to the Kurds - to
developments in Syria. But that is a logic that is akin to that we see
in myths. The truth is that there is an essential link between how
Turkey treats its Kurds and its remaining a democratic model of an
Islamic state with a growing economy. The Kurdish fuse threatens
Turkey's future; while the Syrian factor can be brought under control
by refraining from intervening in Syria's affairs.
Turkish areas near Syria gained much as a result of Ankara's [former]
openness to Damascus. But these areas are suffering from economic
stagnation today. They have become focal points and a cesspool for
fighters from around the world, including extremist groups such as
al-Qa'ida and others. Extremist Turkish Islamist activists are
exploiting them with over a hundred thousand armed elements crossing
into Syria so far. Moreover, these border areas have become sites for
Syrian refugees.
But the fact is that the Kurdish question has existed in Turkey for
over a hundred years, as in the other countries in the region where
the Kurds are present. Turkey's government cannot ignore the ethnic
and sectarian factors within its own territories or behave as if the
Turkish Republic today is a country whose population has a single
confessional faith and belongs to one and the same ethnicity.
Up till today, and under the fake cover of democracy, repression
continues to rule the day in Turkey. The army continues to carry out
its incursions into Kurdish areas. It blows up homes and kills
hundreds of people, and border areas in Iraq and Syria are also
invaded. But these reports pass as if they were unimportant because
the international media is immoral; it only adopts the causes that
serve the neo-liberal hegemony.
In Istanbul, opposition journalists and writers are arrested whether
writing about the Kurds or the Armenians. Nor should we forget Nobel
Laureate Orhan Pamuk who escaped Turkey after writing an article about
the massacre of the Armenians. A publisher who published a translation
of a book was imprisoned for two years because it referred to massacre
against the Kurds in the 1990s backed by Bill Clinton's
administration.
In fact, all Turks - Kurdish or not - know the reality of what is
happening in Kurdish areas. They advise you to watch the films of [the
late] Kurdish director Y?lmaz Güney who was exiled to Europe, that
portrays the misery of daily life in Eastern Turkey, where the people
live in similar conditions to those of the Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza .
Those who claim to back the Palestinian cause must make sure they are
not Israel's primary ally in the region. And those who claim to back
the so-called Arab Spring should act fairly inside their territories
towards the just Kurdish cause.
"After all, the Kurdish nation has a right to determine its fate
freely. It has its own civilization, language, and culture rendering
one of the world's noble nations," concludes Deeb.