Like an invitation to arms

Just when we had entered such an optimistic mood toward the resolution of the Kurdish issue, we seem to have begun rewinding to the start. With the latest operations, as Etyen Mahçupyan put it, the state’s armed and political forces act as though inviting the DTP and the PKK to arms, and the DTP members act as though they had been awaiting this invitation eagerly and respond to it quickly. Indeed, at times it is unclear from whom the invitation came first and whose invitation whom is answering. As always, this time too all the signs of a great cooperation can be seen.

On the occasion of an “Öcalan’s birthday” (“Evvel yok idi”), the security forces mounted a desperate defence against the meeting the DTP members tried to hold in Halfeti, as though defending a strategic fortress. In the clash with the DTP members, who did not hold back from insisting on reaching their goal, a child died, many children and of course many police officers were wounded. What kind of public interest was hoped for from preventing a meeting in Halfeti… By trying to prevent the meeting, a much greater harm (mefsedet) was brought on. The balance between warding off harm (def’-i mefasid) and bringing about benefit (celb-i menafi) can go so far astray…

The images produced by the police intervention in the demonstrations held later to protest the serial arrests that followed the serial operations against DTP members are a clear picture of Turkey being caught in an incorrigible spiral of violence. Does this picture lead to the conclusion that the security forces, who have been dealing with this problem for 30 years, simply drew no lessons from the experience they gained in meeting events, or does it, precisely because of this experience, issue an invitation to continue the accustomed game from where it was left?

It is clear that the PKK has gained great mastery in keeping its own base alive with constant street demonstrations, but certainly clashing ones. It is not interested in either resolving the Kurdish issue or expanding the rights of the Kurds a little further. At the point reached, the most important aspect of the problem has shifted from the axis of the “Kurdish issue” to the axis of the “Kurdish nationalism issue.”

Today, the grounds that have opened up in politics for discussing and resolving the Kurdish issue leave the PKK entirely unnecessary and without a task. But this taskless and unnecessary state loses its meaning in street demonstrations, where it can easily find the state as a concrete party and interlocutor. By actions that invite violence or answer invitations to violence, the organisation constantly reminds everyone of itself and makes itself counted. However much the state may not recognise the PKK, in the place where it invites violence or answers its invitation, it has equated itself with the PKK as a party. The interesting thing is that the state’s armed or political forces, conducting a hot war with the PKK and a cold war with the DTP, in doing so also support the PKK as a real alternative to power in the political perceptions of the people of the region. As it is a real interlocutor and target of power, the PKK thus becomes, in the eyes of the people, a real alternative to the state. In this case, the actor that becomes unnecessary and taskless is in fact the DTP. That the DTP does not shy away from seeing and presenting itself as the representative of the PKK in the political arena stems from the fact that, unfortunately, under the tutelage of the PKK’s armed force, it has no political space left.

Of course, this is still a separate matter. The main matter now is that the AKP, which in terms of both its political identity and its discourse and programme is in the position of the most suitable actor for resolving the Kurdish issue, is beginning to fall into the middle of the coordination between the PKK and the state’s hawks over the continuation of the order of violence.

Whatever the purpose, to see that all interventions in demonstrations multiply the message of those demonstrations, and moreover produce a “pretext” for the next demonstrations, a little social psychology, a little knowledge of communication, and a little knowledge of politics is enough.

The act of the police officer who struck one of the children demonstrating in Hakkari with a rifle butt is isolated, but putting before those children the police who are very likely to behave this way cannot be dismissed as “isolated.” Removing this isolated officer from his post is the easiest thing.

Yet the management of regular or irregular demonstrations is among the points at which a democratic administration’s nerves are tested the most. The state reflex teaches us to look at squares as virtual-sacred fortresses, and at the crowds filling the squares as invaders, when there is the great politics of leaving them to themselves. Especially as 1 May approaches, there is great benefit for everyone in the AKP’s trying to free itself from this outlook.