 AYDINLIK TÜRKİYE'NİN HABERCİSİ |
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AYDINLIK TÜRKİYE'NİN HABERCİSİ |
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What's in a name?
The natural tendency of a typical Turk towards a "problem" is to ignore it. We start any given day with a denial of our own most basic problems. As long as possible, we beat around the bush but never acknowledge the existence of a problem. When we come face to face with a recurring problem, we shun it or try to avoid it. One method we have adopted in time is name-play: we simply change the name of the problem at hand and look at it as if it is a new thing. Our cupboard is full of problems we have masterfully accumulated all along. The Kurdish problem is the most persistent one. We have applied every known method of avoidance, but the problem is as persistent as our determination to ignore it. The closest we came to accepting its existence was when Mr. Suleyman Demirel formed a coalition government with social democrats in 1991 and went to Diyarbakir to state that the government recognized the Kurdish reality. Not the "problem," but "reality." Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is more courageous than his predecessors in name calling, since he used the term "Kurdish problem" when he met with the "intellectuals." But we've started to discuss symantics again: is the term "intellectual" for the delegation members who met with the premier to discuss the "Kurdish problem" appropriate? I am as flabbergasted this time around as when I encountered this issue during my studies in the U.S. One day, after a discussion about Turkey in the university where I was a graduate student, a panel participant accused me of denying basic human rights in the country. Turkey was under strict military rule at the time and as a staunch opponent of that government, I didn't take the accusation personally. But my accuser went personal, claiming that we, the Turks, called the Kurds not by their rightful ethnic identity, but "mountain Turks"… Please believe my innocence. I was almost an established writer even then, but had never heard the term "mountain Turks" used for the Kurds. I had never used it myself, and never heard anybody using it, never seen it in a printed work. Of course I was very much aware that some people with Kurdish ethnicity felt alienated, but had never ever encountered a claim that we had no Kurds whatsoever, but only Turks of a different stripe. This came later when the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) started to use violence to further Kurdish separatist cause. We first denied the existence of ethnic realities, and when we were unable to circumvent it any longer we moved on to another tactic: name-changing of the issue. How successful we were is debatable, but we managed to drag the issue up to now successfully. It's time for us to face the music. The step taken by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is very courageous indeed, since it has broken every taboo on the issue. By using the term "Kurdish problem," he became the first ever Turkish politician to call a spade a spade. The reception accorded to him is significant in showing how big the difficulties he has started to experience are. If his courage will be reciprocated fully, Turkey is most likely to benefit from his brave action, and if it will not, he and his party might suffer greatly. The Kurdish problem is a delicate issue, and its approach deserves the utmost delicacy. I am sure Erdogan and the people around him must have planned their every move as carefully as it merits, and they have some more rabbits in their hats until this "problem" will be eradicated for good. There is an apparent snag in the process of tackling the "problem": as in tango, this problem also needs two parties to play and the other party in question is nowhere to be seen. The PKK, the organization responsible for at least 30,000 human lives, after the capture of its leader became disunited, and the people who conduct terror now under the PKK banner are a fraction of the main body. Abdullah Ocalan, the official leader of the PKK, is a prisoner on Imrali Island, and is sending conflicting signals. The people who resort to terror seem to be following their own agenda to force the government to call for a general amnesty, as general as it would contain them. How can a healthy and lasting solution come about from such a complex situation? Is it possible to create a really "democratic republic" with people enjoying full human rights in Turkey, if a fraction of those people go on using violence to further their private agendas contrary to the benefit of the people they claim to represent? Who will decide "enough is enough" for the violence? These are the questions for the Kurds to answer. Claiming an identity is easy, but using the responsibility of it clearly is more difficult. What Mr. Erdogan did by reaching out to the people who feel alienated in his capacity as prime minister was a truly responsible act. Now the time is ripe for a little concerted endeavor: for a start, a responsible act of response by laying down arms. They must stop trapping soldiers with mines, stop using violence against innocent people, while putting armed struggle behind them and getting rid of all the remaining hostilities. The Kurds claim they are different than us, the Turks; are they really? This is the testing time for them too. After Erdogan made an official gesture towards them, they have been behaving like those of us who tend to overlook problems rather than face the music, even worse. They ignore the changes in the political climate, belittle the Justice and Development (AK) Party's courageous action, and some even go to the extreme of applying new elements to the existing problem by name-playing. If only we behaved in tandem, as Kurds and Turks, in assuming the basic responsibilities of being equal citizens of a truly democratic country to prove the naysayers wrong.
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