A PKK classic

The positive atmosphere that had developed around the Kurdish issue over a few weeks peaked last week upon the statements of Leyla Zana and the statements of Deputy Prime Ministers Beşir Atalay and Bülent Arınç. What Avni Özgürel's interview with Murat Karayılan said gave the impression that this time it was not a passing weather front. Yet the Dağlıca attack, which cost the lives of eight soldiers, was enough, and then some, for this atmosphere to change suddenly and for dark clouds to start roaming over the country again.

Truly, this time a full PKK classic is playing, and no one is in a position to receive this classic with the same reactions. If this classic was directed at an aim by which the warlords intended to turn the atmosphere around, the reaction the prime minister gave all the way from Mexico shows that this time their hopes will be dashed. Frankly, Turkey's democratization process will continue in spite of the PKK. The rights the Kurds deserve will be given, developed, in spite of the PKK, and whatever is necessary for them to be equal citizens of the country will continue to be done.

Yes, in this latest playing of the PKK classic, a truth that has in fact been plainly known for quite some time has come out much more clearly: the PKK's connection with the Kurdish issue has thoroughly been severed. That the state has sufficiently grasped this too is a good omen. But the state's grasp of it in this way is also different from before. Earlier, while distinguishing the two from each other, it had an attitude that tied the Kurdish issue to terror or to the PKK and ignored it. Yet now the Kurdish issue exists and is a real problem in all its dimensions, but its interlocutor or guardian is neither the PKK nor the BDP.

Truly, this point was reached through a practice that was initially not named. The Kurdish issue has been largely resolved within the framework of a democratization program in Turkey from which everyone benefits, and the remaining part has entered the path of resolution on the democratic ground formed today. In terms of Kurdish-related rights, no subject remains today that cannot be discussed, demanded, or struggled for on the ground of democratic politics.

Although most of the democratization steps taken since 2002 are not named the "Kurdish opening," they are ultimately steps that secure the Kurds' citizenship status, human rights, and the opportunities and freedoms to express their identity or cultures freely. Not seeing what has been done and loading blame on what has not been done through fetishistic focuses may be adopted as a tactical discourse. This tactic may on the surface give a sense of moral superiority too, but after a while the "excessively denialist" dimension contained in this tactic begins to stand out too much. It should be known that this tactic, which proceeds from the moral superiority derived from the rightness that victimhood gives, puts those who adopt it in thoroughly unjust positions.

A cause that for years built its discourse on the regime's denial of the Kurds is increasingly beginning to stand out with the "denialist attitude" it takes toward the steps taken on the path of democratization and toward the resolution of the Kurdish issue.

From whichever side you look, there is an aspect to the development of the 4+4+4 education system that increases the rights and widens the spheres of freedom for the Kurds, but not only for the Kurds, for all citizens of the country. With this system, from the 5th grade onward a field is formed in which students can make a "choice" about Kurdish, Arabic, or religion classes. This is not a simple expansion of a field. It is a big and wide door. It is the portrait of the system's paradigm having changed. Because it contains no direct reference to the Kurds, BDP circles at first remained indifferent to this system. As if for an improvement aimed at the Kurds an explicit address saying "to the Kurds" had to be written. This was exactly what we called over-Kurdifying the Kurds, imprisoning the Kurds inside Kurdishness.

When it was understood that this great step also included the possibility of an elective Kurdish course, the reactions given this time became even more meaningful. Kurdist politicians branded it "the insidious form of assimilation." The BDP chair and co-chair, unable to contain his momentum, blurted out "there can be no greater cruelty than giving Kurds their mother tongue as an elective course."

Have some conscience! Is the possibility of an elective Kurdish course a greater cruelty even than the complete denial of Kurdish? Does logic work like this somewhere we do not know of? I fear the problem is deeper and more complex, and in this respect it works in utmost synchronization with the PKK's politics. The reactions from within the BDP to Leyla Zana's speeches pointing to politics reveal the nature of the matter. Like the PKK, the BDP too, as the state it tries to treat as interlocutor approaches politics, prefers itself to flee quickly from that point. Because the BDP has still not been able to be assigned a mission beyond being the PKK's representative.

What the PKK, with its latest attack, has shown more clearly is that it is concerned with nothing other than its own existence. It is the fact that at the very moment it inspires the most confidence on this path, the person at the very top of the organization (Karayılan) is at best not in control of his organization, or, in the more realistic possibility, is using even that appearance of sincerity to deceive, to stall, or to give a different image. In the first possibility, the conclusion is that the PKK is an organization no longer under the control even of the person at its very top, and in the second that it cannot be trusted in any way, and establishing this is not at all pleasing.