Needless to say, Kurdish nationalism is the illegitimate child of Turkish nationalism. The PKK is now repeating the same old mistake of fighting for an ethnically pure nation-state. Is this the “childhood illness” of nascent nationalism?
Turkish governments could not manage the Kurdish reality because they insisted on fabricating an ethnically homogenous society by either coercion or consent. Neither was successful. In the process, they alienated the Kurds and lost most of the non-Muslim minorities, bereaving Turkey of both human capital and political stability. Limitations put on basic freedoms and democratic development with the excuse of maintaining law and order retarded the process of adopting international standards of law and politics.
Now, after decades of trial and error that cost Turkey both economically and politically, we came to realize that there were manufacturing and operational flaws in the regime. The best panacea to compensate for the loss is seen as a new constitution. At least we have agreed on something agreeable.
All four parties in Parliament have three members on the Reconciliation Committee, regardless of how many seats they have. We have started the long road on the right foot.
However, the problem ahead is multifaceted. Do we want to amend and repair the old constitution, which is the making of an armed minority that came to rule Turkey after a coup in 1980? Or do we want a brand new one that is in tune with the spirit of the day and the realities and expectations of society? The product of each intention will be quite different. In the first case, the praetorian spirit of the state-centered text that aimed to shape, guide and advance the society “from above” (authoritarian enlightenment) will survive although it has undergone many organ transplants (101 of its articles have been changed since 1982).
If we are to make a brand new constitution, it has to be based on concepts either cleansed of their old content or freshly interpreted. Here are some of them that have expediently been used to limit freedoms, democratic development and adoption of international standards of law and deliberative politics.
1. Pluralism. It is not the multiplicity of political parties but the recognition of the plurality of different ethnic, religious and cultural groups (peoples) that are the citizens of the country and affording them legal equality and constitutional protection. It is the understanding of forging unity out of diversity rather than insisting on uniformity.
2. Nation. This is not a reference to the dominant ethnic group. It is a reference to the political coexistence and legal personality of the citizenship in their diversity. The new definition of citizenship must be born out of this understanding.
3. Secularism. This does not mean control of religion by the state but rather equidistance of the state to all creeds. Thus the state can both protect all religions and prevent them from encroaching on each other's turf.
4. Unitary state. One does not mean a central-authoritarian government that dictates its will on the people. It may mean the diffusion of the capabilities and duties of the central government to local governments that do not challenge its sovereignty but take most of its workload and decision-making routine by involving local communities.
5. Atatürk nationalism. This is an oxymoron for nationalism and an ideology pertaining to a nation, not to a person. Such an expression is fabricated by those who ruled Turkey behind Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's charisma and prestige without accountability.
Such concepts must either be reinterpreted or altogether removed from the new constitution to be replaced with better concepts that are more in tune with pluralism and democracy.
