This will produce not democratic autonomy but feudalism

With the generous promise Kılıçdaroğlu made in Hakkari last week, the democratic autonomy debate has revived once again. Kılıçdaroğlu announced that they would fully put into effect the Council of Europe's "Charter of Local Self-Government." How hopeful, how credible it is that he has come so quickly to this point from the point of pronouncing even the word Kurd with a thousand and one coy hesitations is a separate matter.

It is not hard to see that this rapid turn is a sign of CHP-BDP rapprochement. True, the likelihood of votes coming to the CHP from the Southeast is very low, because it is simply not possible for BDP supporters to channel their votes to the CHP at the risk of their own candidates (in the places where they have fielded candidates); but it is understood that the public support the BDP gave the CHP at its Hakkari and Şırnak rallies will not remain limited to the rally, and that there is a calculation of directing Kurdish votes to the CHP in places where it has not fielded candidates. What can we say? This is politics; everyone will make their own calculations and choose their own alliances and conflicts. Ultimately, there will also be an evaluation by the people of who is forming alliances with whom, and with what motives.

Let us return to our actual subject and look at how the demand that the BDP has long voiced, which it has named "democratic autonomy," is received among the Kurdish people. When autonomy is granted to the region, who will benefit from it, and how much? What is the chance that an autonomy whose framework is drawn in one way or another will be democratic? After all, there is in the region an organizational structure that is armed and that recognizes no ethical norm, rule or conscience in the way it uses that weapon. Autonomy means the withdrawal of the central authority from the field, and who will fill the vacuum arising from this withdrawal is very obvious. Even today, while all the central forces of the state are active in the region, just look at the gloomy local power that the PKK-KCK-BDP structures have established over other people in the region:

In broad daylight in the region, people are kidnapped and threatened, extorted, and killed if they resist the organization's demands. Shutters are forcibly closed whenever desired, imposing a complete empire of fear on tradesmen. No difference is tolerated; during the election process, in places where the organization is influential, the activities of other parties are obstructed by violence.

In recent weeks, after repeated Molotov cocktail attacks on the buildings of Mustazaf-Der, one of the region's influential formations that now insists on operating entirely in the civilian sphere, the deputy branch president in Yüksekova was most recently killed.

Because its successful educational activities make it harder for the organization to recruit mountain cadres, an imam in Hakkari was killed on leaving the morning prayer. And yesterday in Cizre, a dormitory where Imam-Hatip High School students were staying was subjected to a Molotov cocktail attack and an attempt was made to burn it with the students inside. A great tragedy was averted thanks to those from the neighborhood who rushed to put out the fire, but 3 students were horribly burned and injured.

In the face of this power that the PKK or the BDP exercises in the region under armed tutelage, how possible can "local democracy" be?

Faced with all these incidents, not the slightest condemnation has come from BDP circles; on the contrary, all these practices continue to be stuffed, by drawing water from a thousand streams, into the agitation of the "victimhood of the Kurdish people." That the Kurdish people are victims is very true, but I fear that this time what lies over them is not the state's oppression but a far more convoluted oppression of another kind.

The basic sociological rule concerning the conditions of autonomy under Feudalism and the Asiatic Mode of Production is this: when the central state weakens, local lords grow stronger. There is no guarantee whatsoever that lords will be more merciful, more humane, more equitable, let alone democratic, in their exercise of local power than the central authority.

We see more than enough signs that even if the BDP obtains autonomy, it will not let the Kurdish people get so much as a whiff of democracy from it. The great majority of the candidates placed before its own voters for them to choose are candidates to whom the Kurdish people feel no organic closeness. You will say that this is perhaps a problem of all parties. But let us say, too, that no other party for now makes a claim or demand for "democratic autonomy" to this extent. Siirt's share among the candidates appointed by the BDP from the center, Gülten Kışanak, for instance, has no relationship or closeness with Siirt whatsoever. The Siirt BDP members who objected to her candidacy were told only one thing: "A women's quota has been allocated to Siirt." Candidate choices in other places are made more or less in this way.

The BDP's people are thus forced to elect this candidate, who has been ordered to them from the center "as a requirement of democratic autonomy." Unlike other forms of autonomy, there are sanctions of various kinds for not casting this vote in the desired way

Even if the BDP's demand for democratic autonomy were met, the Kurdish people would get not the slightest say. Öcalan speaks of being able to end the heart-burning war that has taken so many lives "with a single word of his." Really, has the Kurdish people placed Öcalan or the PKK or the BDP or any other person at such a point of absolute authority?

Frankly, the Kurdish people would not accept such a dignity-breaking obedience to anyone, but such a strong claim of disposal over the will of the Kurdish people is no different from regarding the Kurdish people through the eyes of sharecroppers (marabas) under a feudal lord.

This is the democracy deemed fit for the Kurdish people, exactly "feudal lordship." Call it "democratic" as much as you like.