The tragedy of the Kurds: being freed from the state and caught in PKK slavery

While the solution process had been embraced and supported throughout the country because it brought with it the silencing of weapons, the stopping of bloodshed and the establishment of an atmosphere of peace, the organization's greedy and opportunistic approach in converting this support into a gain for its own hegemony has become thoroughly clear.

The events of October 6-7 in fact revealed, in a way everyone could see, how the organization had exploited the atmosphere of non-conflict achieved thanks to the solution process, and how it had tried to appropriate the entire solution environment. Indeed, it has in a way been good that everyone has seen this.

In the solution process, it was envisaged that the state's security forces would halt their operations in order to create an environment in which work could be done, and that in return the organization would now end its armed activities.

During the process, although the security forces' operations had almost entirely stopped, the organization halted its armed activities only against soldiers and police, while continuing them as an element of guardianship and threat over the people of the region, making itself felt more with each passing day.

The organization showed that it had no intention whatsoever of laying down arms by continuing, after the very hour the solution process began, to recruit a record number of children and young people into its mountain cadre. The effort to enlarge the mountain cadre this much in an atmosphere of non-conflict launched for the sake of a solution was sufficient proof that the organization's intention had not been good from the start.

But more important than the mountain cadre is the abuse of the atmosphere of tolerance the solution process provided, and the terror that began to be unleashed in the cities. The organization began to increase its pressure with each passing day, especially on dissenting elements. Kurds who do politics in the AK Parti, those who vote for the AK Parti, or those opposed to the HDP or the organization were subjected one by one to warnings, threats and punishment practices. They were forced to migrate. They were forced to pay fines in certain amounts. Those who would not pay the fines were handed other punishments. Workplaces were set on fire, people were beaten or killed.

None of those whose workplaces or homes were burned in the October 6-7 events was a coincidence. Targets that had been meticulously determined in advance were chosen, so that the message was delivered harshly that they had no option other than allegiance to the organization or leaving this land.

Meanwhile, violence against devout Kurds is not limited to the October 6-7 events. Only two days ago in Yüksekova, a man in his sixties named Hacı İrfan Atsız, known by all who knew him as an utterly unassuming, extremely respected, beloved, devout person, was shot dead from behind in front of his house. This murder too shows to what dimensions intolerance of being a "different Kurd" has reached.

The youth organizations formed in the cities, from whose responsibility the organization slips away whenever it wishes, are moving to liquidate the "different Kurds" first of all by creating liberated zones. Thus a complete ethnic cleansing, or a process of cleansing directed against differing political approaches within the same ethnic group, is being attempted to be completed.

What "democratic autonomy," which has been voiced for years, means is also thoroughly clarified on this occasion. The PKK says to the Kurds: "Either you become mine or you lose your land. You have neither the mind nor the competence to tell right from wrong. If you do not choose me, your choice is wrong, and you will pay for it with your life and property!"

There is not an ounce of democracy in the content of the demand for "Democratic Autonomy."

It is clearly understood that the PKK and the HDP, which resort to these paths, do not in fact consider democracy worthy of the Kurds. In their eyes the Kurd has neither the right to choose nor the competence. They brand the Kurd who does not vote for the HDP either as an "assimilated Kurd" or an "unconscious Kurd." With these brandings they are in fact creating their own Kurds. Kurds have not been subjected to a greater humiliation than these practices even by the Kemalists.

From Kurds who are not granted the right to choose, they are trying to produce at best a servile society that will obey them blindly or by force. The only thing that both the PKK and the HDP, which has taken on the political discourse of these practices, want is nothing other than to enslave the Kurds to themselves.

The point at which this movement, which set out as a movement to liberate the Kurds and give them an identity, has arrived at the end of the road is the creation of a "society enslaved to itself."

The bitter truth that those who gave their hearts to this movement in the hope that it would give them an identity face at the end of the road is nothing but the loss of their freedom.