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HASAN KANBOLAT
h.kanbolat@todayszaman.com |
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From Kurdish strategies to Turkish ones (3)
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| New strategies are being sought against terrorism in Turkey. However, while new strategies are being sought, there is one thing that is being ignored: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is a Kurdish organization, and terrorism is merely an aspectof the PKK’s strategies. |
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Even though Kurdish intellectuals and organizations have different views, there are also common points. Turkey is the inheritor of the Ottoman state. There was always forced migration from Crimea, the Balkans and the Caucasus to Turkey in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea in 1783, the Russian-Circassian War that ended in 1864, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Balkan War (1912-1913), World War I (1914-1918) and the republican period after 1923. This forced migration shaped Turkey’s population, economy, history and cultural structure. Nearly 55 percent of Turkey’s population consists of people whose grandmothers or grandfathers migrated to Turkey because of ethnic cleansing, genocide, exile or other problems. The Adyghe from the northwestern Caucasus, the Wubih, Karachays, Balkars, Cossacks (Russian Kazakh), Abkhaz, Chechens from the northeastern Caucasus, the Dagestanis, Ossetians, the Karabakh people from the southern Caucasus, Azerbaijanis, Meskhetians (Ahıska), Karapapaks, Adjarians, Georgian people, Crimean Tatars from north of the Black Sea, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Balkan Turks from the Balkans, Albanians, Bosnians, Pomaks, Ulahs, Torbeshes, Macedonians, Roma people, Arabs from Spain, Jews, the Turkish and Muslim people in Crete and Rhodes and the other Aegean islands, the Turkish Cypriots from Cyprus, Palestinians, Turks and Kurds from the Middle East, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and other Afghan peoples from Afghanistan, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Tajik people from Central Asia and the Uyghur people from the Far East have sought refuge in Turkey for the last 150 years. Anatolia has been the homeland of these migrants, who were subjected to exile and injustice. Kurdish people do not yet want to admit this identity. They refuse to end up under the umbrella of Turkey. They want to switch to a model adopting a country with two nations: Turkish and Kurdish people. However, these Kurdish people who want to achieve political equality with Turkish people do not want to be remembered with other ethnic groups living in Turkey such as the Circassians or Georgian people. It is a fact that Kurds living in Turkey and Iraq were influenced by Turkish nationalism during the post-Cold War era. Turkish nationalism began to take hold in the 20th century, while Kurdish nationalism became more prominent in the 21st. It means Turkish people in the 20th century wanted the disappearance of ethnic groups in Turkey except for Turkish people. And Kurdish people in the 21st century were trying to ignore the existence of ethnic groups except for Kurdish people in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. To illustrate, Turkmen people, Arabs, the Assyrian community, Circassians and other ethnic groups living in the Southeast were forced to migrate to Turkey’s western areas. In a similar way, Arabs, Turkmens and Christians living in northern Iraq are forced to migrate. The existence of a Zaza-speaking ethnic group is being denied in Turkey. The culture, language and existence of Yazidi and Shebek communities is also being denied in northern Iraq. Therefore, some are trying to create a homogenous community in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern parts and in northern Iraq. Kurdish intellectuals who dreamed of an independent Kurdistan in the 20th century do not want to leave Turkey in the 21st century. The changing balance of the population in Turkey in favor of Kurdish people, Kurdish youths starting to take spots in some fields such as politics and bureaucracy and the monopoly that Kurds have over illegal work in Turkey have all worked to change the balances in Turkey. A number of Kurdish intellectuals have started to think that the number of Kurdish people will equal the number of Turkish people within 50 years. Moreover, they have started to believe that the population of Kurdish people will exceed the population of Turkish people after 50 years. Turkish strategies in the 20th century have generated Kurdish strategies in the 21st century. Therefore, it is obvious that Kurdish strategies in the 21st century will lead to the development of Turkish strategies in the 21st century. |
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