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İBRAHİM KALIN i.kalin@todayszaman.com Columnists

Two wrongs do not make a right


The closure of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) by the Constitutional Court will help neither the process of democratization nor the Kurdish issue. By banning the party at a critical phase of the democratization process, the Constitutional Court has become part of the debate as a political actor and betrayed its legal neutrality. As for the DTP, it has done everything in its capacity to make this happen. The DTP politicians have given every excuse to the judges as well as opposition politicians to justify this ruling. Why?

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It is extremely important to understand why the DTP leadership has chosen this way. In recent months, the DTP politicians increasingly reduced the Kurdish issue to Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). They claim that there cannot be a lasting solution without first doing something about Öcalan. What is something? They have not said it loudly yet, but everyone knows what it is. They want Öcalan to eventually be pardoned and given permission to engage in politics. Can this strategy ever work in Turkey?

This is nothing but an eclipse of reason. The DTP leadership is blinded by Öcalan’s personality myth. It claims that millions of Kurds want to see Öcalan as their legitimate political leader. Thus the struggle to solve the Kurdish issue is reduced to Öcalan’s personality cult. If he is happy in his cell, everything is fine. If he has complains about his room or food, everything is terrible. What kind of political reasoning is this? How can a political movement with this kind of blindness promise the Kurds in Turkey a reasonable political solution?

Everyone knows that the DTP is not an independent actor. Its members inside and outside Parliament only execute orders from PKK commanders. Therefore, comparisons with the IRA or ETA do not make much sense. The DTP is not the political wing of the PKK. If it were, it would have had some degree of autonomy and could possibly direct the PKK towards a solution. Right know, the DTP is neither a political party nor an outlawed terrorist organization. It is oscillating between legal politics and illegal terrorism. While exercising all of the rights and privileges of legal politics in the Turkish Parliament, it also makes use of the power of PKK fighters and their weapons. Which is the true DTP? Is the DTP really trying to moderate the PKK fighters? Or is the PKK in total control?

This cannot be reasonable politics for the Kurds in Turkey. If DTP leaders have any sense of political responsibility and a role to play, it should not be to justify the PKK’s terrorist acts, such as the recent killing of seven soldiers in Tokat, but to force the PKK into a political solution.

After the closure, DTP leaders have to question their policies and overcome the Öcalan personality cult that has been dominating and blinding their policies. The Constitutional Court has dealt a major blow to the democratization process by closing the DTP. But it is up to the Turkish people and reasonable politicians to overcome this mistake and remember that two wrongs do not make a right.

17 December 2009, Thursday
İBRAHİM KALIN
   
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Columnists
ABDULHAMİT BİLİCİ
ABDULLAH BOZKURT
ALİ BULAÇ
ALİ H. ASLAN
AMANDA PAUL
ANDREW FINKEL
ASIM ERDİLEK
AYŞE KARABAT
BEJAN MATUR
BERİL DEDEOĞLU
BERK ÇEKTİR
BÜLENT KENEŞ
BÜLENT KORUCU
CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON
DOĞU ERGİL
EKREM DUMANLI
EMRE USLU
ETYEN MAHÇUPYAN
FATMA DİŞLİ ZIBAK
FİKRET ERTAN
GÜRKAN ZENGİN
HASAN KANBOLAT
HÜSEYİN GÜLERCE
İBRAHİM KALIN
İBRAHİM ÖZTÜRK
İHSAN DAĞI
İHSAN YILMAZ
KATHY HAMILTON
KERİM BALCI
KLAUS JURGENS
LALE KEMAL
MEHMET KAMIŞ
MICHAEL KUSER
MUHAMMED ÇETİN
MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE
NICOLE POPE
ÖMER TAŞPINAR
ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
PAT YALE
ŞAHİN ALPAY
SELÇUK GÜLTAŞLI
SUAT KINIKLIOĞLU
YAVUZ BAYDAR