Keeping our heads

We heard once again the phrase we have grown used to hearing after such incidents: "The place where words end." Some people are trying to put an end to words. But not by using words to the very end, by exhausting them, but by taking words out of play from the very start. Those some are trying to prevent us from talking. Because words are politics, they are the search for a solution, they are will, they are reason. The place where words end is the place where reason ends too. It is from then on the place where feelings, and indeed the basest, the most despicable feelings of grudge, hatred, anger and revenge, will reign.

Where words end and these feelings reign, humanity too has actually ended. Whatever gain is to be harvested from where humanity has ended, that gain is a cursed gain. It is a gain that will be of no good to anyone, and they still do not realize it. While young men in the prime of youth fall to the earth one by one out of that base feeling of gain, whoever is calculating whatever, that calculation will drive him to the bottom of hell.

The President of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, Mehmet Emin Aktar, gives a very humane reaction to this situation in his Twitter message: "How many times does a person die? Why? For what? For whom? I no longer want any right that comes through death!"

What other purpose can these bombs, falling into the midst of an environment in which all the possibilities of words can be worked through to the end, have than to keep us from talking? The fact is that this bomb has maintained its expected effect for quite some time. How could it not? Young lives are being extinguished, fire is falling upon hearths, mothers' hearts are burning.

Still, since we know that the very target of this attack is to make us lose our minds, we must also know that the only way of rendering it ineffective is to continue talking, producing solutions, that is, politics.

Let us continue by recording some notes on this incident. The first is that the PKK, having received a clear instruction from its own leader, Öcalan, on the ceasefire, has with this action also rebelled against Öcalan. We said before too that there is a very complex illusion in the PKK's presenting İmralı as the address of the solution. How much of Öcalan's statements, relayed from the lawyers' meetings through several filters to the organization and to the BDP, actually belong to him is a serious question. In the end it is evident that a selection was made out of selections from the statements. With this attack the PKK in fact shows that it does not recognize the statements that do not suit it either. Otherwise, what is the meaning of this attack that will completely sideline Öcalan, who had openly said that the negotiations with the state had reached a good point and that he was more optimistic about a solution than ever?

Second, that the BDP, at the very hour when the clashes continue, busies itself with proclaiming "democratic autonomy" and in the meantime continues its boycott stance toward parliament, the highest level of politics, may be keeping it on the agenda, but it must also have woken up to the fact that from this hour on it has become politically nullified. There are of course a thousand and one ways to stay on the agenda; these ways do not always work positively.

The proclamation of democratic autonomy is neither a democratic nor an autonomous mode of conduct. It is not democratic, because it is made relying on the armed power of the PKK. It relies on the intimidating effect of this armed power on the people of the region and its effect of bringing the state into line, but it is also carried out under the command of this very power. The Democratic Society Congress cannot even make a call for peace to the PKK. It cannot even invite it to lay down arms. The BDP is a party for which more than half of the region's people do not vote. More than half of the Kurds vote for the AK Parti, yet the BDP aspires to rule the Kurds with the power of the barrels it relies on. Aspiring is not even the word; it even proclaims this unilaterally. As Ahmet Altan expressed very nicely yesterday, it is in fact demanding from the state and the government the "right to rule" that it could not obtain if it asked the Kurdish people.

That is, we are dealing with a PKK-BDP that set out saying "let the Kurds determine their own fate" and has arrived at the point of "let the Turks determine the fate of the Kurds." Its not going to the TBMM, of which it is a member, and instead waiting for the AK Parti to make decisions concerning itself, is an extension of this strange situation. It nullifies its own political skill with its own hands and "expects everything from the state."

And that is indeed what happens. Today the rights concerning the Kurds are being recognized in spite of the PKK. Democratic openings are being realized in spite of all the BDP's obstruction and opposition. Kurdish identity is being recognized even though it throws a bomb into the middle of every opening move. Despite this, the PKK tries to make the Kurdish people indebted to it on account of the Kurds' gains. It imposes itself as the savior of the Kurds. But in doing so, it expects this position to be recognized by the state, by the AK Parti.

A third point concerns Kılıçdaroğlu's reaction to the incident. Kılıçdaroğlu said that the demoralization suffered by the soldiers being tried while detained because of Balyoz and Ergenekon creates a weakness in the fight against terrorism. That a political career dedicated to Ergenekon tries to seize an opportunity for its clients out of such an incident is understandable, but from whichever angle you look at it, it is a scandal, from whichever angle you look at it, a statement that confesses theft while displaying valor. In the 30-year history of a fight against terror, in which no one has been able to look askance at even a corporal, when was there success, that he now links this incident to these detentions?

The Aktütün and Dağlıca incidents are fresher. When they occurred, not even a sergeant had yet been detained. Besides, even if it were so, what then, because some commanders are detained, are the remaining commanders displaying reactions such as slowing down work, strikes, disobedience "owing to demoralization" in the fight against terror? Does Kılıçdaroğlu's ear even hear what comes out of his mouth? The TSK should give a reaction to this statement. If there is such a thing, is the TSK's command aware that it is saying that they sacrifice the young Mehmetçik, their mothers' henna-adorned lambs, merely to compensate somewhat for demoralization?

It cannot be, because if there is such a thing, the TSK must be completely dissolved. Otherwise, how many more of the nation's sons' lives must we wait for this demoralization to cost?