The first is a racist, separatist response of some well-known figures in the press and in politics. At first their reasoning seems simple and innocent. They say, if Kurds want a separate entity, they may have it but at the expense of all Kurds who will be forced to leave parts of Turkey other than southeastern provinces, which will take the name “Kurdistan.” Some even propose a population exchange with the Turkmens of Iraq. They do just as they did in the past: never asking what to do with the lives of people they governed.Unfortunately this racist and cleansing ideology may find supporters among those who are made to believe they are superior to Kurds and feel tired and sick of Kurdish demands that they deem to be irresponsible and separatist. The final curtain will fall with forced migration or deportation: absolute separation of the Turk and the Kurd. Needless to say, this is a cop out from building a multicultural, pluralist democracy. They do not even want to try it. They prefer an ethno-centric state and a monolithic nation made up of a single lineage to a democracy and peaceful cohabitation. Is this possible in this day and age? They do not care; they still want it because this is all they know.
The other danger emanates from “road maps” from figures and circles that are not entirely representative of the Kurds. Take the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP); nationally it garners 5 percent of the vote and among the Kurdish population they are supported by 30 percent of the Kurds. Is this a representative political organization? Partly yes, but the other two-thirds of the Kurds are both unorganized and are squeezed between the state and the intimidating Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (a Kurdish armed political party that has been carrying out assaults on Turkish official targets since 1984), and they have no voice. Yet the PKK is increasingly seen as the interlocutor of the Kurds, and it speaks in their name. Lately its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan (also known as Apo), has been one of the most popular figures from which a peace plan (road map) is expected. Finally, last week he spoke through his lawyers. Apparently he has collected his thoughts for a possible “road map” to peace in two notebooks on which the government is working on now.
Will he show the right way? I personally doubt it. What makes me reach this conclusion are his inconsistent statements all along. He started his political career in the leftist movement of Turkey back in the '70s. He wanted the triumph of the working class. In the 1980s, he was the undisputed leader of an armed organization with the declared aim of carving a Kurdistan out of Turkey. This “Turkish Kurdistan” was later to unite with liberated parts of Iran, Syria and Iraq to create a “Greater and Independent Kurdistan.” After his capture in 1999, he reduced his target to a “democratic republic” where Turk and Kurd would be equal and live in peace and under the rule of law. He offered his services for the creation of this democratic republic which were never heeded. Later in his prison cell, he developed the idea of a kind federative system where the countries of the Middle East containing Kurdish enclaves would unite as a federation of sovereign nations in a concentric relation with their Kurdish populations under a national federal arrangement within. It was very hard for the PKK rank and file to follow these sudden shifts and to grasp them. Now he is offering the “European Model” for a solution.
Considering that journalists are calling social scientists to inquire about the so-called “European Model,” his new proposal is not clear enough, either. Is he talking about the arrangement in which sovereign member states of the European Union are united: an alliance of nation-states sharing power and resources while maintaining their sovereignty. Or is he talking about a regional autonomous government representing the Kurds, like the Basques and the Catalans, who in turn will coalesce with the Turkish government in a kind of federal arrangement? These points are fuzzy but vitally important if violence will stop following a consensus.
Öcalan is talking about a “Kurdish nation” within the “Turkish nation.” We know that a nation is a politically organized people in search of a national state. It has to be sovereign by definition. He expresses Kurdish sovereignty as “having their own security apparatus, schools, their own religious and sports organizations, etc.” All of these will be inseparable part of the “democratic Kurdish nation” that will coalesce with the “Turkish nation” as a democratic state. This means a full-fledged federal system. It is very hard for both the government and the people of Turkey to accept such conditions that seem to be unrealistic and too complicated for the time being. We still have a long way to go.
