Solidarity against terrorists

Radikal’s Eyüp Can tells of the incident: “All villagers, including men, women and children, half-terrified and half-shocked, rushed to the primary school. How could they not be terrified? Two PKK terrorists raided the school and abducted six of the 19 teachers at gunpoint in front of the students. When the terrorists took their teachers away, the students immediately called the village headman, who then informed the gendarmerie forces about the situation. But no one, especially the students, could sit still and do nothing. The villagers and the village headman decided to go after the terrorists. They found the terrorists about five kilometers from the village and begged them to ‘release their teachers.’ No villager had arms or anything to defend themselves against the terrorists. Though the terrorists immediately drew their weapons, the villagers said: ‘We won’t let our teachers be taken away from us.’ They stood up so decisively and protected the teachers so passionately that the terrorists had to release the teachers. The students waiting in the village celebrated their teachers’ arrival like a feast day, while the teachers were so shocked that they could not believe what had just happened or that they had been released. What are the terrorists going to do next? Will they burn the Kurdish villages because the villagers ‘have been assimilated by the Turkish state’? Whom will they point their guns at next? Will it be Kurdish intellectuals who have dedicated their lives to defending Kurdish people’s rights like receiving education in their native Kurdish language? Haven’t there been enough killings already?”

This was an incident all columnists condemned with a united voice, while it also moved many. One of them was Taraf’s Ahmet Altan, who praised the courage and love of the villagers towards the teachers, as such an act requires a great deal of both feelings, he says. Killing more and more terrorists won’t make the PKK sit behind the negotiating table with the state or pave the way for achieving peace. It is the Kurdish people’s telling terrorists to “stop” that will bring us peace. The next question to be asked is for whom the Kurdish people will put their lives at risk and tell the PKK to stop. They will surely show such courage as long as they receive more support and empathy from the state, he notes.