The PKK lost, the Kurds won

Saying that "the management of violence" is the essence of the Kurdish issue of course does not require ignoring the aspect of this problem that stems from the state. I think that in our previous column, perhaps in a different language, we expressed this sufficiently. But some people always demand that the whole of the matter be spoken for their sake. Moreover, even when the whole of the matter has been spoken, they want it said once more, more plainly, again and again.

There are understandable reasons for this, of course. It is not only that they do not understand; very often people enter into an expectation of a confession. Especially when the subject is identity, belonging, nationalism, an irritatingly superficial and crude judgmental language sets in at once.

In this case, to repeat: the fact that the nation did not exist before the state, or even before an institution capable of using violence, means that attempts to build a uniform nation in a large-scale society are frequently "based on a nation project that will eliminate differences." In such cases, if the nation-building state violence cannot govern differences on the basis of justice and a healthy organic body politics, it is inevitable that it will give rise to another violence against it. For it is a frequently encountered situation that the elements which the existing body politic has failed to make part of the organic whole develop a resistance and reject the political body.

This depiction of the body politic in fact also expresses that, in Turkey, the nation-state project, rather than making the Kurds part of the political whole, provoked them toward feeling themselves separate.

It is the most basic sociological rule that, in the face of the denial of Kurdishness, the banning of the Kurdish language, and the policies of oppression and denial applied to Kurdish culture and identity, a separate Kurdish identity and consciousness forms. For this, there is no need for anyone in addition to try to awaken this consciousness. Attacks and common threats set group consciousness in motion, and their continuation feeds this consciousness even further. This is the socio-psychological ground of political identities.

In fact, in this sense, Turkey's nation-state project was founded on denying not only the Kurds but all ethnic identities, and in return it aroused all ethnic identities in proportion to its violence. However, no ethnic entity other than the Kurds has had an identity consciousness of such violence, because it is clear that, since Kurdishness was seen within this national identity as a more open threat, the violence directed at it was also greater. And the fact that Kurdishness was seen as a more open threat cannot be thought of independently of its being too open a field for foreign occupation or intervention projects.

Despite this, it was possible for the nation-state and identity project in Turkey to see these foreign intentions and initiatives better and to establish a just structure suited to them, one that no foreign intervention could penetrate; it did not, it could not. For this, neither a mentality afflicted by French nationalist Enlightenmentism was suitable, nor were the sociological conditions into which the country had been dragged.

Especially during the Single-Party era and afterwards, the denial of Kurdishness and the banning of the expression of its language, culture and identity formed the basis of the Kurdish issue. The Kurds were really a problem for the state, and there was serious confusion among the rulers about how this problem could be solved. In the face of a state that saw them as a problem, it was of course impossible for the Kurds to develop a full sense of belonging to the state and the nation. As for the PKK, it did its part in this vacuum. By sowing the element of violence that this sociological ground, already sufficiently prepared for an ethnic identity, needed, it both provoked state violence further in a way that would feed this identity, and also tried to make its own authority felt through violence.

At first it based its legitimacy on the injustices the state committed against the Kurds. There was nothing left to say about that anymore. The state truly fed and grew the Kurdish issue with its own hands, with its unsolved murders, its denialist and assimilationist policies, its village evacuations and its prison practices.

However, with the AK Parti, which came to power in 2002, an entirely new phase began. All the practices that formed the ground for the Kurdish issue were ended. All restrictions and bans on Kurdish language, identity and culture were lifted. The highest-quality Kurdish broadcasts began to be made around the clock by the state. In state discourse the Kurds were recognized as a cultural identity, with respect expressed. Great distance was covered step by step on this road.

Apparently, the entire ground that gave rise to the Kurdish issue was destroyed, but the violence did not end; on the contrary, while all these steps were being taken, the PKK, which now saw itself as the owner of the Kurdish issue, escalated the violence further on every occasion. During the democratic opening and solution processes, the number of militants taken to the mountains and armed was multiplied. The discourse that "the Kurdish Issue is now over" was met with great anger. This anger itself was a thing that gave away the whole psychology and politics of the matter. In truth, the AK Parti had a right to say that the Kurdish issue, which it had openly recognized in the beginning, no longer exists today. Because, with all it had done, it had a record that entitled it to say it had resolved the political, legal and social dimensions of the problem.

As for the PKK, it has identified the Kurdish issue so much with its own armed existence that it sees very well that saying the issue is gone would mean voiding itself, and it objects to this. Because it has lived firsthand the functionality of violence in building an identity and establishing a presence, it is very well aware of what it has lost.

The truth is that Turkey is now at a very different point, and the solution process had in fact offered it a historic opportunity on the road to transforming itself toward the new Turkey; it could not make use of it. It saw the solution process as a victory for its violence and a weakness of the state, coveted more by betraying its promise, and lost.

It is a good thing that it turned out this way: thus the PKK lost, and the Kurds won.