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RECONCILIATION PROCESS AND END OF DICTATORSHIP
Daily Sabah, Turkey
June 6 2014
Markar Esayan
06 June 2014, Friday
Turkey's most revolutionary democratic initiative in the last century
is the reconciliation process that aims to end the outlawed PKK's
clash and resolve the problems faced by Kurdish citizens of Turkey.
The questions of the Armenians and Alevis, as well as many others, are
not only the shortcomings of a mentality that was adopted during the
establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, but are also heavy
historical burdens for us. While the Ottoman Empire was regressing
and falling apart in the face of the West, it lost its civil peace
and social balances due to aggregation of some reasons too knotty
to be mentioned here. As the state authority weakened, the demands
for rights and security of various communities evolved into a big
commotion. The state was therefore in uncharted waters and resorted
to such artificial, violent and destructive methods as the Imperial
Edict of Gulhane to save the day.
This means that while Turkey unearths the Armenian, Kurdish and Alevi
questions today, it does not only tussle with traumas nourished
by 80 years of Kemalist oligarchy, but also much older ones whose
germs were sown in the 19th century. In particular, handling the
Alevi question means stirring up trauma that is at least 300 years
old. This task is shouldered by a Sunni-based religious government
and its influential leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The situation may
confuse the minds of our Western companions for two primary reasons:
The first is that they still continue to evaluate the East and Islam
through outdated colonial clichés. According to this perspective,
the East is ontologically incompatible with democracy. The stereotype
of the irrational and sluggish Eastern man who is prone to violence
and superstition is still alive in the subconscious of Westerners.
Furthermore, there are puzzling codes of power struggle that are going
on between the religionists and the Kurds who represents Turkey's
reformists and totalitarian secularists who stand for obscurantism.
The totalitarian seculars do not accept equality with religionists,
Kurds, minorities and Alevis. They have serious power that has been
achieved through 80 years of privilege. They get backup from the
Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party
(MHP) in the fields of media, business and politics. The situation
became more complicated when the superstructure of the Gulen Movement,
which strove to seize critical institutions of the state and align
itself with the totalitarian seculars when Erdogan rebuffed them,
came into play.
Thus, this alliance that constitutes two-thirds of the media and is
engaged in close relations with nongovernmental organizations, offers
the West a picture of the struggle in Turkey as they wish. This
alliance, which is essentially totalitarian but seems modernist
in appearance, easily garners sympathy in the West. However, the
situation is much more different than they narrate.
There is the reconciliation process that has been at the core of this
struggle for almost two years. Completing the reconciliation process
successfully means that the totalitarian and secular oligarchy loses
its last stronghold. They consider the belligerent PKK as the most
influential opposition against the Justice and Development Party (AK
Party). That is why this process, which was declared publicly on Jan.
3, 2013, has been targeted by the totalitarian secular media and the
superstructure of the Gulen Movement since day one. From the outset
of the process, the "intellectuals" who are well respected in the
West launched a campaign to sabotage it. On the one hand, they said
to the Kurds, "Ocalan renounced the 30-year struggle to Erdogan for
the sake of nothing" and on the other they incited Turks by saying
"Erdogan granted the east of the country to the PKK."
They offered provocative broadcastings during the Gezi crisis to
invite Kurds onto the streets and to conflict with the state. These
sections hamper the Kurdish question and advocate the massacres that
were conducted by the state and burning of Kurdish villages in the
past. However, they suddenly begin to engage in so-called advocacy
for the Kurds. Fortunately, the experienced Kurdish people were not
deceived by this hypocrisy.
Then they started to instigate the Alevis. Yet again, some so-called
secular and democrat writers invited the Alevis into clash by forming
sentences like "Kurds fought and acquired their rights; you too fight
against the state and have your rights." They never cared about the
Alevis. To them, the death of young Alevis in the streets is nothing
but a potential instrument to topple the AK Party from power.
On May 19, 2014, during a summit at the Office of the Prime Ministry,
it was decided to open up a new phase in the reconciliation process.
Within the context of this four-stage plan, a formula of how the PKK
will first withdraw from the borders, lay down arms and then return
to the country, is being discussed with the participation of Kurdish
political representatives. The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party
(HDP) committee that visited İmralı prison recently said Ocalan was
happy with the progress of the reconciliation process. The committee
highlighted that the government took two radical steps on the issue:
The first is the government's resolution to base the process on
legal grounds; while the second is that the negotiations go beyond
bureaucracy and are carried out between political representatives.
Now the government is preparing for an initiative to solve the problems
of Alevis. Probably, after a little while, problems faced by Alevis
such as the freedom of worship will go down in history.
Although the era of dictatorship is being permanently closed in Turkey,
Dogan Media Group and the Gulenist media are against the government's
history-making steps to solve century-long handicaps.
http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/markar_esayan/2014/06/06/reconciliation-process-and-end-of-dictatorship
Daily Sabah, Turkey
June 6 2014
Markar Esayan
06 June 2014, Friday
Turkey's most revolutionary democratic initiative in the last century
is the reconciliation process that aims to end the outlawed PKK's
clash and resolve the problems faced by Kurdish citizens of Turkey.
The questions of the Armenians and Alevis, as well as many others, are
not only the shortcomings of a mentality that was adopted during the
establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, but are also heavy
historical burdens for us. While the Ottoman Empire was regressing
and falling apart in the face of the West, it lost its civil peace
and social balances due to aggregation of some reasons too knotty
to be mentioned here. As the state authority weakened, the demands
for rights and security of various communities evolved into a big
commotion. The state was therefore in uncharted waters and resorted
to such artificial, violent and destructive methods as the Imperial
Edict of Gulhane to save the day.
This means that while Turkey unearths the Armenian, Kurdish and Alevi
questions today, it does not only tussle with traumas nourished
by 80 years of Kemalist oligarchy, but also much older ones whose
germs were sown in the 19th century. In particular, handling the
Alevi question means stirring up trauma that is at least 300 years
old. This task is shouldered by a Sunni-based religious government
and its influential leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The situation may
confuse the minds of our Western companions for two primary reasons:
The first is that they still continue to evaluate the East and Islam
through outdated colonial clichés. According to this perspective,
the East is ontologically incompatible with democracy. The stereotype
of the irrational and sluggish Eastern man who is prone to violence
and superstition is still alive in the subconscious of Westerners.
Furthermore, there are puzzling codes of power struggle that are going
on between the religionists and the Kurds who represents Turkey's
reformists and totalitarian secularists who stand for obscurantism.
The totalitarian seculars do not accept equality with religionists,
Kurds, minorities and Alevis. They have serious power that has been
achieved through 80 years of privilege. They get backup from the
Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party
(MHP) in the fields of media, business and politics. The situation
became more complicated when the superstructure of the Gulen Movement,
which strove to seize critical institutions of the state and align
itself with the totalitarian seculars when Erdogan rebuffed them,
came into play.
Thus, this alliance that constitutes two-thirds of the media and is
engaged in close relations with nongovernmental organizations, offers
the West a picture of the struggle in Turkey as they wish. This
alliance, which is essentially totalitarian but seems modernist
in appearance, easily garners sympathy in the West. However, the
situation is much more different than they narrate.
There is the reconciliation process that has been at the core of this
struggle for almost two years. Completing the reconciliation process
successfully means that the totalitarian and secular oligarchy loses
its last stronghold. They consider the belligerent PKK as the most
influential opposition against the Justice and Development Party (AK
Party). That is why this process, which was declared publicly on Jan.
3, 2013, has been targeted by the totalitarian secular media and the
superstructure of the Gulen Movement since day one. From the outset
of the process, the "intellectuals" who are well respected in the
West launched a campaign to sabotage it. On the one hand, they said
to the Kurds, "Ocalan renounced the 30-year struggle to Erdogan for
the sake of nothing" and on the other they incited Turks by saying
"Erdogan granted the east of the country to the PKK."
They offered provocative broadcastings during the Gezi crisis to
invite Kurds onto the streets and to conflict with the state. These
sections hamper the Kurdish question and advocate the massacres that
were conducted by the state and burning of Kurdish villages in the
past. However, they suddenly begin to engage in so-called advocacy
for the Kurds. Fortunately, the experienced Kurdish people were not
deceived by this hypocrisy.
Then they started to instigate the Alevis. Yet again, some so-called
secular and democrat writers invited the Alevis into clash by forming
sentences like "Kurds fought and acquired their rights; you too fight
against the state and have your rights." They never cared about the
Alevis. To them, the death of young Alevis in the streets is nothing
but a potential instrument to topple the AK Party from power.
On May 19, 2014, during a summit at the Office of the Prime Ministry,
it was decided to open up a new phase in the reconciliation process.
Within the context of this four-stage plan, a formula of how the PKK
will first withdraw from the borders, lay down arms and then return
to the country, is being discussed with the participation of Kurdish
political representatives. The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party
(HDP) committee that visited İmralı prison recently said Ocalan was
happy with the progress of the reconciliation process. The committee
highlighted that the government took two radical steps on the issue:
The first is the government's resolution to base the process on
legal grounds; while the second is that the negotiations go beyond
bureaucracy and are carried out between political representatives.
Now the government is preparing for an initiative to solve the problems
of Alevis. Probably, after a little while, problems faced by Alevis
such as the freedom of worship will go down in history.
Although the era of dictatorship is being permanently closed in Turkey,
Dogan Media Group and the Gulenist media are against the government's
history-making steps to solve century-long handicaps.
http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/markar_esayan/2014/06/06/reconciliation-process-and-end-of-dictatorship