DTP’s predicament

Although everyone knows that closing parties down does not make a resolute constituency disappear, the power of the state and adopted official ideology that expects absolute obedience of the citizens allows no deviance or dissidence.

The incumbent Justice and Development Party (AK Party) feels very lonely concerning the initiative it has set into motion, the democratic opening. Opposition parties in Parliament have almost entirely lost their constituency in the Kurdish provinces of the country. That is why they don’t want to be a part of any initiative that would irritate their ethnic Turkish constituents.

They also believe that the Turkish majority will oppose reforms that will allow legal equality to the Kurds and acknowledge their cultural identity. This means changing a lot of laws, practices and an educational system based on the superiority of the majority ethnicity and its religious affiliation through its dominance of the state apparatus. The opposition believes that the Turkish majority will never consent to sharing power, even for the sake of democracy and equal rights for all citizens. This undemocratic stance is their line of defense against the democratic opening.

The only ally of the AK Party as an organized political body could have been the DTP, besides leading civil society organizations and public opinion leaders that would in turn influence their social hinterland.

However, the DTP was in a bind. The government has repeatedly declared -- concomitant with public opinion and the opposition’s expectation -- that it will not negotiate with the terrorists. This means both the armed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, presently in a Turkish military prison. Yet, the DTP represented the Kurdish groups out of which the PKK emerged. The roughly 2.5 million voters that supported the DTP have had a member of their families in the organization or have been persecuted or litigated for being involved in its non-violent activities or for sympathizing with the group.

That is why it could not part ways with this organization, which they believe carried Kurdish demands and grievances to public attention (alas through violence). In this capacity, this social hinterland finds it expedient not to let go of the PKK before all Kurdish demands are met and this organization transforms itself into a political organ after burying the hatchet.

In other words, if the Kurdish problem is not solved the way the supporters of the DTP expect, the PKK will always be there as the loudspeaker of Kurdish expectations. Hence, the longer violence remains within the political equation, the longer the PKK will remain on the center stage. The only way to distance its supporters from the PKK is to go on with the democratic opening and make the existence of the PKK redundant.

There are other Kurdish political parties with much more democratic and moderate agendas. There is no doubt that their positions and humanitarian programs are better appreciated by the Kurdish majority.

However, as long as the violence of the PKK and the counter-violence of the state remain intact, these more peaceful and democratic Kurdish political parties will receive little support and remain solely intellectual clubs. But this is exactly where the dilemma of the Kurds

lies: PKK-centered politics do not allow their support of the democratic opening. The DTP, as the political organ of the PKK-inspired Kurdish population, was dysfunctional in the democratization process although it would be the Kurds who would benefit from the democratic opening more than any other segment of society.