Kurdish intellectuals after concrete steps

Şah İsmail Bedirhaoğlu, chairman of the Southeastern Anatolia Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (GÜNSİAD), told Sunday’s Zaman they especially wanted to stress the urge for common sense among the public.

“Turkish and Kurdish societies have started to look at each other in an excluding manner. We ask everybody to drop this attitude and try to understand each other’s situation because an attitude of exclusion can lead to the whole of society losing its cohesion,” he said.

Selahattin Çoban, the chairman of the Diyarbakır branch of the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), raised a similar concern. He said that if immediate measures were not taken to stop the cycle of violence it might increase until the referendum for the constitutional amendments on Sept. 12.

“If that is the case, the polarization in society will go even further. Such a situation leads to chaos, and the nation does not have the power to withstand such a situation. The violence will start to affect cities every day, more and more, and eventually people will start to look at their neighbors with hostility,” he told Sunday’s Zaman.

Another prominent Kurdish intellectual, İbrahim Güçlü, also suggested that there is a link between the increasing violence and the referendum on constitutional amendments. According to him, the PKK has links with the Ergenekon gang, allegedly a clandestine organization aiming to overturn the government by creating chaos.

“The [ruling Justice and Development Party] AK Party is gaining power every day in the international arena and was also trying to develop some initiatives in Turkey, such as the democratization and Alevi initiatives. But they were not able to take definite steps. Its position in the international arena was disturbed after the Freedom Flotilla, the EU process did not go well and the deep state decided to benefit from all these circumstances,” he told Sunday’s Zaman.

According to Güçlü the PKK increased its violence since it is a tool of the deep state and Kurdish civil society organizations, in order to suggest a solution, should take these points into consideration.

He also underlined that the Kurdish deputies in the AK Party should act and should try to mediate between the government and Kurdish society but said they are not seizing the initiative.

Çoban also underlined the same point and recalled that the AK Party has 75 Kurdish deputies and that the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) has 20 deputies.

“Altogether their number is by no means small, but they are not taking the initiative,” Çoban of MAZLUM-DER said.

However, conservative Kurdish intellectual Altan Tan argued that since almost half of the Kurdish intellectuals are scared of the PKK and the other half want to be candidates with the AK Party, it is very difficult for them to take real initiatives to change the situation.

“Similar appeals to the government, the public and the PKK have been made many times, before but they can only be useful if they are taken seriously by their interlocutors. But to have these appeals taken into account a serious initiative with sanctions is needed,” Tan told Sunday’s Zaman.

According to him, such a strong initiative can be created if Kurds refuse the vote or nominate their own independent candidates and strongly protest both sides.

Necdet İpekyüz from the Diyarbakır branch of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TİHV) underlined the hopeless atmosphere but added that immediate steps should be taken.

“The government’s democratization initiative should be improved and some concrete steps should be taken to strengthen democracy and freedoms. When these things are not done, some segments of Kurdish society start to perceive violence as legitimate although it is totally wrong,” he told Sunday’s Zaman.

He added that the acceleration of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) trials will be helpful for reducing the tension. The KCK is the urban extension of the PKK; two years ago security forces started operations against the KCK, and since then more than 1,300 ex-Democratic Society Party (DTP) and BDP members have been arrested including some mayors. The indictment against them was presented to the court two weeks ago.

İpekyüz said people started to think after the KCK operations that legal political methods are closed and that this is another pretext for legitimizing violence.

İpekyüz added that they wished there had been dialogue and action when the level of violence was lower. Çoban of MAZLUM-DER had a similar view. He suggested that civil society should not only make appeals but should act, too. “We should do everything to protect the right to life of the human being. Maybe we should even go to the Kandil Mountains and even to Imrali,” he said.