Astonishing comments

The article titled "PKK Tutelage over Kurdish Politics," published in this column last Monday, received more reaction than I expected. Setting aside the emotionalism or aggressive expressions they contain, there are two main lines of reaction worth noting. One part of them also tries to prove the rightfulness of the PKK's having a say over Kurdish politics, especially over the DTP leadership. "Without the PKK, it would not even be possible to utter the word Kurd. If a vague distance has been covered today on the Kurdish question, the armed struggle waged by the PKK has a great share in it. Therefore the DTP leadership has to be appreciative of these sacrifices of those in the mountains."

That the DTP takes into account those in the mountains, since they surely have a counterpart and a background in the society of the Southeast, may perhaps not be found strange. Indeed, precisely for that reason, one must understand that keeping DTP politics under such pressure as "calling the PKK a terrorist organization and condemning this terror" is neither realistic nor just. From the beginning I tried to point out that keeping the DTP under such pressure is a mistake that undermines all its political potential, and moreover that the DTP's doing this would contribute nothing either to Kurdish politics or to Turkey's political environment in general.

But the problem right now is not even this. The problem is that a political milieu that was beginning to form after important psychological barriers on the Kurdish question were finally overcome is being left entirely under the control of "those in the mountains," and that this is seen as the most natural right of those in the mountains. This "those in the mountains versus those on the plain" stratification, which makes itself plainly felt within the DTP, increasingly sanctifies the armed groups with the myth of "heroes" whose debts can never be repaid.

This discourse of sanctity takes all Kurdish politics captive from top to bottom, increasingly moving the question away from the political sphere into symbolic and emotional spheres. Rather than a politics seeking more consideration for the quality of life or dignity of the Kurds, the DTP is increasingly sliding toward acting as the attorney for Abdullah Öcalan's comfort on İmralı and for the PKK's shares in any distribution.

Although this style of politics gives the DTP in the Southeast an appearance of being able to make a lot of noise, it is rapidly moving it away from the dynamics of the region's political sociology. The İHH has in the Southeast a network that keeps a very good finger on the pulse of society, and an organic influence that can reach the very bottom of society. I recommend that both state officials and especially DTP members read carefully its latest published report titled "The East and Southeast Anatolia in Their Own Words." This report does not have a statist perspective; indeed, while taking a rather critical approach to the state's approach to the problem, it does not shy away from seeing the Kurdish question. Moreover, the report makes it possible to see "also those aspects of what has happened that do not fit into the Kurdish question."

For example, the report can show the error of the DTP's regarding and presenting itself as a party that alone represents both the Kurds and the entire Southeast. Not only do people other than Kurds live in the Southeast, but even a great majority of the Kurds do not see the DTP or the PKK as being in a position to represent them. According to the survey conducted, the people of the region see the problem in the first degree as economic, in the second degree as ethnic, that is, the "Kurdish question," in the third degree as a problem of violence and terror, and in the fourth degree as a problem of democracy and human rights. The validity of all these perspectives in their own right increasingly marginalizes the PKK tutelage over Kurdish politics.

The second reaction to my article was the remarks asking how the Prime Minister's speech on his Hakkari trip could have been pulled onto the "love it or leave it" line.

Although the Prime Minister insistently said that his words should never be understood in this way, it is truly interesting that his words were placed in this frame; it makes one think there is a mechanism that virtually decides how certain developments in Turkey will be interpreted and recorded. Like the famous "unit in Ankara that writes history." Those who reach this unit may think they can enter into history whatever grade they want. Yet there is no such history writer.

Moreover, on Siyaset Meydanı, Gülay Göktürk pointed to a similarity that I think escaped most people's attention, and upon seeing this similarity one cannot help but suppose the existence of the strange mechanism that decides this interpretation. The point Göktürk pointed out is the sameness of the words the Prime Minister said in his speech in Diyarbakır in August 2005, which was, like the famous "balcony speech" on the night of 22 July, widely praised that day, in which he spoke of the "Kurdish question" and also seemed to apologize to the Kurds on behalf of the state, with the speech he made in Hakkari.

That is, in that much-praised speech too, the prime minister, while on the one hand speaking of the Kurdish question and firing the signal flares of an extremely hopeful Kurdish opening, on the other hand uttered the very words that are today understood as "love it or leave it."

Moreover, only two weeks ago at the MÜSİAD meeting the prime minister also said that he stands behind that much-lauded speech of 2005.

Despite this, how can a perception that Erdoğan has taken a step back on the Kurdish question be created so widely and so successfully?

It is truly astonishing.