We did not expect this much Kemalism from Taraf

A thoroughly beneficial effort, an entirely well-intentioned initiative could only be sabotaged in this way. I am talking about the headline Taraf newspaper ran against the Diyanet's Selam (greeting) campaign.

As is known, this year in the month of Ramadan the Diyanet decided to bring the concept of Selam to the fore in its sermons and statements. The cover of the Diyanet Magazine was prepared with a design placing side by side the equivalents of the word "selam" in many languages in order to announce this campaign. Starting from the absence of the Kurdish word "silav" among these words, it concluded that the Diyanet continues to deny Kurds, and from the absence of the Armenian and Hebrew words "parev" and "shalom" it drew other implications. It put this omission, which it detected with the full officiousness of a poisonous detective, on the front page as an example of racial discrimination.

Truly, if the incident really involved a deliberate and obstinate attitude, this headline could be justified. If the greeting given in all languages is withheld from Kurdish, of course it cannot be tolerated. However, the Diyanet officials who are said to have been interviewed in the same report say that they were not at all insistent on this attitude; on the contrary, they say they reached such a decision in the research they did on this matter. To think that an institution run by a President who is the author of the words "Rhetoric of brotherhood toward Kurds has been going on until now, whereas what matters is to observe the rights of brotherhood, not to deny their language and culture, and to give their most natural rights, for every language is like a sign (ayah) of God," and of recent Kurdish sermons, Friday sermons and other opening-up practices, did such a thing deliberately is in any case a great injustice.

And especially if they are not insisting when reminded, if they have not insisted, which is exactly what the content of the report shows, what is the point of announcing the matter with such a headline? What is expected of spreading Selam is the awakening of love, peace, trust and compassion, and the development of the ground of common understanding as far as possible. What else does Taraf's headline and report serve than filling the combatants with feelings of grudge and hatred in order to fight more? In how many Kurdish young men's hearts will the "Turks" come alive as "incorrigible enemies" on seeing such headlines, how many Kurdish young men will be tempted at a tender age to take the road to the mountain, has that been calculated? Was the impression that in its publications until now it wanted to extinguish the fire that burns us all, that it was trying to establish peace, a lie? By seeing and presenting such an incident this way, moreover by evidently distorting intentions, which peace does Taraf serve?

In fact, evidently the etymology of the word is not that important in this debate, but let us note that not only the Diyanet but many Kurds too may find it hard to be convinced that the Kurdish equivalent of Selam is Slav. Although the word silav is used in some regions, it is seen not as an alternative to the word "selam" but at most as a differentiation of the word "selam" under the influence of the regional phonetics of Kurdish as a dialect. That is, "silav" is not an alternative to "selam," but at most its form changed by the influence of the dialect, and especially the great majority of Kurds in the Botan region bring the word silav and the word selam very close to one another and better grasp the sameness of the word. Therefore there is not the slightest foreignness between the word Selam and Kurdish; the word Selam is more Kurdish than Silav.

The interesting side is that although the word "selam" presented as Turkish in the Diyanet's campaign is in essence not Turkish but an Arabic word, there is no other word to express "selam" in Turkish. The reason is in fact very simple: "selam" is one of the words that most easily penetrated the languages of all peoples who became Muslim, and in these lands it is one of the most important symbols of the minimum common language between Turks and Kurds.

One of the Kemalists' first interventions to separate Turks from Islam and other Muslim peoples was again on "selam." For that reason they tried not a little to substitute other words for "selam," but whatever they did, they could not succeed. The miraculous property of the word selam is that it makes the field it penetrates a true land of "selam," a field of acquaintance, of fusion and trust. Those who meant the greeting tried to substitute for it "good morning," "good afternoon," "good evening," "good day," "good night."

With this they did not exalt Turkishness; in fact they distorted Turkishness. Because everything that separates the Turk from the Kurd and the Arab also alienated the Turk from himself. In the end, by creating a Turkishness that had nothing to do with any reality, they first of all assimilated the Turk. By removing the Turk from the field of "selam" built with Kurds, Arabs, the true children of these lands, they condemned him to an extremely shallow, superficial identity. Under the name of so-called nationalist or Western values they removed him from all the common languages and traditions of this region and gave him a new freakish language, a freakish language that nobody knew or understood. They alienated him first to himself, then to all the worlds of this region, and left him utterly alone in the middle. Today the child of that Turk remembers those forgotten languages, is returning to himself again, and in doing so sees with pain what he has done both to themselves and to those close to them.

What Kurdish Kemalists did was no different. They too tried to go the same way in order to create their own identity. In the name of fighting the assimilation to which Kurds were subjected, they created a new identity and culture that had nothing to do with the historical development of Kurdishness, and whatever Turkish Kemalists did to alienate Turks, Kurdish Kemalists tried to do the same. Look at the searches for a "pure Kurdish," there is no difference whatsoever from what Kemalists did to Turkish. The zeal to abstract Kurdish from Arabic is no different from destroying the common ground among the people of this region, from putting Kurds on exactly the same road that Turks embarked on 80 years ago.

It is not incomprehensible that the matter begins with Selam. Because while there is a "selam" in between, it would not be possible to ultimately separate the Kurd and turn him into a people closed to the world.

We already knew the Kemalists' problem with "selam," but what is happening to Taraf? We truly have difficulty understanding. Frankly, we never expected this much Kemalism from Taraf.