The Kurdish initiative and Turkish opposition

It is almost impossible to generate consensus to resolve a “vital issue” like the Kurdish one acting together with such opposition. Their attitude toward the government's Kurdish initiative is incomprehensible. They treat the Kurdish question as if it were a question of the AK Party and they would not like to be part of its solution.

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the MHP, equates any step to be taken on the Kurdish question with treason. In his recent speeches, the MHP has emerged as a party that threatens stability and social peace. His statement, “If necessary, we will stay on the mountains for 50 years,” is worrisome in the name of peace and stability in the country, and in the region, too.

In a similar vein, Deniz Baykal, the leader of the CHP, criticizes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for meeting with DTP leader Ahmet Türk, saying, “Meeting with the DTP is the same as a meeting with the [Kurdistan Workers' Party] PKK terrorist organization.” Is this statement appropriate for a political party that is a member of the Socialist International? Are social democrats not in favor of democratization and peace?

Baykal also emphasizes that the “Turkish identity” and the definition of “Turkishness” as mentioned in Article 66 of the Constitution, calling “everyone a Turk,” cannot be altered. Are social democrats not in favor of equality of citizens, regardless of their ethnic origin?

The CHP is not because it is no longer a social democratic political movement but a party competing with the ultranationalist MHP by adopting an even more chauvinistic discourse. Baykal refused to meet with the coordinating minister, Beşir Atalay, to share his ideas and proposals addressing the Kurdish question. Instead the government was criticized for not having spelled out a clear idea, a package of measures. The government is doing the right thing, though; instead of imposing its own ideas and action plan, it is asking others to contribute to shaping it. This is quite understandable. Otherwise, there is no point in seeking common ground among all social and political sectors in Turkey.

There is nothing new in Baykal's and the CHP's objection to “progress.” They voted against the revision of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), fiercely opposed a reform law on non-Muslim foundations, countered a solution to the Cyprus problem in 2002-2004, rejected a new and democratic constitution and tried to block the way of the European Union accession process. But they were quick in claiming to be the advocates of the Ergenekon gang, supportive of the military's intervention in civilian politics and in favor of military operations in northern Iraq to crush the Kurdish entity there.

So the CHP and Baykal not only fought in the past for a radical and undemocratic notion of secularism that threatens democracy, they are now trying to block the way for a solution to the Kurdish question, a question that blocks Turkey's full democratization. Theirs is a fear of democracy.

The CHP represents the founding mistakes of the republic -- that Turkey belongs to the “Turks” (leading to the policies of kicking out the non-Turkish populace, including the Armenians, the Greeks and the Jews and the Turkification of the Kurds), yet the Turks cannot be left on their own to chose who is to rule in a democratic regime (establishing the vanguard of the Kemalist elite in the CHP, the military and the judiciary).

This Kemalist model is no longer sustainable. In fact, the current search for a solution to the Kurdish question is an admission of the failure of the Kemalist/nationalist model (imagining and coercively constructing a homogenous nation) that is still upheld by the CHP and the MHP.