The first is a racist, separatist response by some well-known figures and political figures. At first their reasoning seems simple and innocent. They say if Kurds want a separate nation, they can have it, but at the expense of all Kurds, who will be forced to leave parts of Turkey other than the southeastern provinces, which will take the name “Kurdistan.”They may have many supporters who see themselves as superior to Kurds and more who are sick and tired of Kurdish demands that they deem irresponsible and separatist. The final curtain will fall with forced migration or deportation, the absolute separation of Turk and Kurd. Needless to say, this is a copout of building a multicultural, pluralist democracy. They do not want to even try it. They prefer democracy and cohabitation to an ethnocentric state and a monolithic nation made up of a single ethnicity. Is this possible in this day and age? They cannot care less.
The other danger emanates from “roadmaps” 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 locally it is supported by 30 percent of the Kurds. Is this a representative political organ? 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), 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) is one of the most popular figures from which a peace plan (roadmap) is expected. Finally he spoke through his lawyers. Apparently he has collected his thoughts for a possible “roadmap” to peace, which the government is working on now, in two notebooks.
Will he show the 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. In 1980 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 Turks and Kurds 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 was never heeded. Later in his prison cell he developed a kind of federative system where the countries of the Middle East containing Kurdish enclaves would unite as a federation of sovereign nations in a concentric relationship with their Kurdish population under a national federal arrangement within. It was very hard for 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 learn about the so-called European model, his proposal is not clear enough. Is he talking about the arrangement in which member states of the European Union are united: an alliance of nation-states sharing power and working towards federalism or a regional autonomous government of the Kurds who in turn will coalesce with the Turkish government in a kind of federal arrangement. These points are fuzzy but vitally important.
Nowadays the government is studying the several hundred pages of notes he has written as a contribution to a “solution.” He says he can write more. The problem is not merely putting a fairly reasonable roadmap on the table. The main problem is finding willing political leaders and rallying a strategic portion of the people to go along the proposed road. As of today, this is as important as producing a map. This map no doubt will shatter our mental maps that have so far led to nowhere except to authoritarianism, fratricide and the paranoia of being dismembered.
