Those who have followed recent debate about the so-called “Kurdish initiative” -- despite the summer recess -- would easily conclude that some sort of quantum leap has taken place; classical templates of the discourse are being broken by many moderate voices and daring inserts by mainstream figures have been offered, totally destroying the rest of the once-very-dangerous taboo.At the same time, pro status-quo voices are in a thick fog of confusion, less willing to issue threatening statements than suggesting seemingly bizarre views.
On the latter, take the proposal of Professor Mümtaz Soysal, who suggests that Kurds in Turkey be subjected to a population exchange with the Turkomans of Northern Iraq if they reject the “red lines” of the state.
Overall, there are two paths of divergence in the mainstream and they are best represented in the views of two ex-diplomats. In a strong sense, they are also the reflection of the grand division of politics in Turkey today.
Under the title “Thoughts of a 72-year-old White Turk” (the latter expression pointing out to an affiliation with the old elite), Temel İskit, who served as ambassador for many years, wrote an appeal in his column in the Taraf daily yesterday. He writes:
“My generation and social circle lived in a Turkey without ‘problems.' There was no Kurdish problem, no Armenian genocide problem… Our greatest fear was communism and religious fundamentalism. We were cheated for years -- first by our education and later by the Cold War. Then we sensed that some things were hidden from us, but could not know what. It took us time to find out that Turkey was a country not without problems but with a lot of problems. It took us time, also, to begin to discuss solutions.
“…When the world changed and when we are confronted with real problems, we were perplexed. Old schemes were useless in solutions. Neither Kemalism, nor socialism, nor nationalism were cures for our diseases.
“Nowadays, we are mesmerized when the pages of history appear without Photoshop touch-ups before us…
“Some of us, while angry about being cheated, still find comfort in denial…
“My generation is the most conditioned part of this society. We even consider ourselves equipped with duties to condition it. The sacred state, ideological secularism, ‘masses without classes and privileges,' ‘indivisible integrity,' the ‘superiority of the Turk' have been parts of our identity…
“But, for the first time, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And there are those who resist. I cannot understand them…”
İskit ends his column calling on the “new generation” to end what his generation did (in a negative sense) to Turkey.
Then, as representative of the entire elitist segment, we look at Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Onur Öymen, a former undersecretary of foreign affairs and adviser to Deniz Baykal, the leader of the main “center-left” opposition.
An interview with Leyla Tavşanoğlu, published in the Cumhuriyet daily, has some excerpts of the politician, whose party is a member of Socialist International.
“What the Justice and Development Party [AK Party] has in mind as a model contradicts with the Turkish Constitution and the system of the state. The shared identity in Turkey is a national identity. Article 42 of the Constitution says that the language of education is Turkish…”
“They [the AK Party] have no will or courage to fight terrorism. They do whatever ‘external directives' [the US] tell them to do. The Constitutional Court marked them a focal point of anti-secular activities. Now they are trying to destroy values such as national unity, the nation-state and the national identity. What they are trying to do is a very dangerous thing.”
Where the “frozen elite” finds itself is also clearly seen in its elected representative, the CHP. Its leader, Baykal, who identifies himself as a “social democrat,” told the Akşam daily the following:
“If they [the government] have such ideas in mind, we will strongly oppose them. For example, education in Kurdish… We won't say ‘yes' if they intend to introduce Kurdish as an elective course in schools. Public education will then turn into ethnic education. They will also want to change the Constitution, but they won't manage this. They won't have enough power to do this.”
This is the final phase of the great political litmus test. One certainly hopes, therefore, that Socialist International acutely assesses -- through its principles and by-laws -- how one of its members is behaving. The fear is that İskit's confession on “conditioning the society” has remained a superior duty than adapting to universal values of the center-left.
