After the DTP
by
MÜMTAZ’ER TÜRKÖNE

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli also delivered a message aimed at preventing street fights. On the anniversary of the death Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi order, Turkey’s most widespread philosophy of tolerance, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made an impressive appeal for peace. One of the most visible aspects of the prime minister’s appeal was his determination to continue the democratic initiative. Lastly, the minister of interior expanded on the prime minister’s message and announced the concrete steps to be taken within the democratic initiative. A softening in rhetoric is also observable in the now-defunct DTP wing.

Why did the expected not happen?

Ahmet Türk was the most respected figure in Kurdish politics. He was a genuine politician that won the respect of many people whether they were Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) supporters, DTP supporters, Kurdish or not. The PKK tried to eliminate Türk after seeing him as a rival to its own authority but when it failed to find someone to replace Türk, the PKK gave the DTP back to him. The Constitutional Court did what the PKK could not do and eliminated Türk with one decision. Isn’t there something strange about this? But the expected results didn’t transpire.

 The first signal that violence would not increase after the DTP’s closure came from Abdullah Öcalan even before the decision was announced. He predicted the DTP would be closed down and said the decision “would not be the end of the world.” Most importantly, he did not insinuate that violence would become widespread after the decision. In fact, to the contrary, he highlighted a “democratic solution” and suggested a democratic group that would include democrats from every segment of society to replace the DTP. It was meaningful that Öcalan said he was “not against the initiative” but that he was against the method. It was also meaningful for Öcalan, who has launched a war against the government to express his belief “in Erdoğan’s good intentions.”

We should not forget that the DTP’s closure has pleased the PKK the most out of everyone. The PKK sees the DTP’s closure as a weakening of respect towards democratic politicians and an increase in the legitimacy of the PKK in the eyes of Kurds. It’s important to understand where and with whom those who defend the DTP’s closure stand.

This situation doesn’t explain why the PKK hasn’t started wide-scale violence by using the closure case as an excuse to argue that there is no other option for Kurds but to use violence. Having lost power and credibility with the increase in hopes for a “peaceful solution,” the organization could have used this opportunity to incite the people. The main reason why it hasn’t or can’t appeal to people is because violent methods are no longer a solution, even for the PKK. We must understand this difference very clearly. The PKK is resorting to violence not to solve the Kurdish problem but to protect its organizational interests. It is for this reason that with the Constitutional Court’s decision the PKK found the opportunity to shift the balance which the Kurds set up between the PKK and the DTP in its own favor.

What is the PKK after?

Is there a possibility that Turkey will relive the nightmares of terrorism of the early 1990s? No, because today the people stand in a very different place. In the past, the organization won supporters by shedding blood but today it drives away people when it sheds blood. In the end, public opinion needs to be persuaded. How can the PKK persuade the people to live through a new period of terror? If a “new spiral of violence” replaces the “quest for an honorable peace,” who will chase after what? The PKK’s supporters and the state are looking for an appropriate way to hold a funeral for the PKK. This job needs to be done before the corpse starts to smell. The tendency of some people within the PKK to act autonomously shows that the organizational hierarchy isn’t functioning. The PKK has taken itself out of the game. Why would anyone want to take an organization that consists of autonomous units which assign themselves arbitrary tasks? In order for the PKK to be able to continue insisting on being seen as a part in the process, it must not only assume responsibility for the Reşadiye incident but also provide an explanation for it.

 There is no possibility that Turkey will enter a new spiral of violence. Violence will not completely end; however, there will not be widespread and organized violence that the police will not be able to control. The organized and devastating violence that the PKK is managing, in other words setting up traps and killing soldiers and turning cities into battlegrounds by spreading mass violence has no benefit. These actions do not create any advantages for the PKK, groups represented by the PKK or the Kurdish problem. Can there be any logic behind wanting to be hated so much? A more general question is can problems in Turkey be solved by way of weapons and violence?

The PKK wants to be seen as a part in the process. These actions are supposedly the mischief of a child that wants attention. But will these actions enable the PKK to be seen as a part of it? The answer is clearly no. No one will stop someone that has turned its surroundings into a bloodbath from committing suicide. Terror is a double edged sword. It harms the user as well. The government’s democratic initiative has weakened the effect of this sword and everything is happening in front of the people. The state is saying, “I am going to solve this problem.” The PKK is saying: “Solving this problem is not enough. It is more important that you solve this problem with me.”

There is a basic defect in the PKK’s insistence on becoming involved in the process that those with weapons in their hand can not easily recognize. We are not ending a war between two states, we are building social peace. If peace in society is established by force and the threat of violence it will continue under the pressure of weapons and violence. Weapons will automatically become the basis for peace. What makes the PKK the PKK is the weapons it has in its hands. A peace process in which the PKK is a side will make the domination of weapons permanent. This situation will lead to an institutionalized armed tutelage, especially over Kurds. Secondly, the PKK represents some Kurds’ tendency toward political violence but it does not include everyone. Taking the PKK as a party in the process will not prevent violence outside of the PKK and “autonomous actions” like that which occurred in Reşadiye, but instead will increase them even more. The PKK’s involvement will mean the start of spiral of violence that PKK can’t or won’t want to control.

The PKK problem is derived from the Kurdish problem but it is not the Kurdish problem itself. The solution mentality and the content of the two problems are different. As for Öcalan’s prison conditions, that is a completely different issue. It is one thing for the state to debate its citizens rights with a terrorist organization that poses a threat to society with the arms it has and another thing it to “exchange views” with someone that is under state supervision in prison.

The main issue that obstructs the process today is the PKK’s weapons. The inability to find peace will mean the PKK’s and the Kurds’ suicide. The effort to get results by weapons and violent methods inhibits solving the Kurdish problem. If a PKK without weapons is not the PKK, then eliminating the PKK is a precondition to solving the Kurdish problem.

Politics is pulling itself together after the DTP at an unimaginable speed. The main reason behind this is the concern that the expected tension could create serious losses for everyone. All sides pushed the limits in the process in line with their own interests. The closure of the DTP showed that the process had reached a breaking point and it was at that point that everyone took their foot of the gas and hit the breaks.

In the end, the DTP had to pay the price.