Hunger strikes for formal reasons

I ended my last column by asking the following question: If tomorrow another group tries to go on a hunger strike demanding that Abdullah Öcalan be executed, or someone else tries the same thing to demand that the BDP be shut down and its deputies be imprisoned, what will we do about it? How prepared are we to receive with understanding those who would lie down on hunger strike for such purposes?

It is quite obvious that this question does not imply that I want the death penalty to be reinstated, or that I want the BDP to be closed down or its deputies imprisoned. On the contrary, what follows from it is that hunger strikes cannot be used as a trump card against the law for demands that would lead to grave injustices.

For those who get confused when a sentence runs a little long, let me put it more plainly. What follows from this is that no one can go on a hunger strike to demand that someone be executed. It follows that no one can use their own body as a weapon in order to victimize others. It follows, above all, that someone held responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people directly, and thousands indirectly, cannot be pardoned simply because some people are on a hunger strike.

There are many other, more fundamental reasons why this cannot happen, but I gave the example of "a hunger strike demanding Öcalan's execution" to make it easier to understand. The one is as unacceptable as the other. But it has become clear that those who invite us to receive the present hunger strikes and death fasts with understanding would not in the least receive with understanding a hunger strike or death fast undertaken for that purpose. I hope that even the exposure of this simple fact will move us one step forward.

Moreover, there is one more fact that immediately emerges from opinion polls on precisely this matter: especially when it comes to Öcalan, the proportion of those who want the death penalty to be reinstated is not below seventy percent. Nor should this public opinion be regarded simply as a reflex coinciding with nationalism. It is an attitude more closely tied to the sense of justice.

On the other hand, when we listen to the demands of those on hunger strike, it turns out that all three of the items they voice have already been met "in some way." I say "in some way" because that way, whatever it is, turns out to be one that the organization or the strikers do not perceive or do not like. In other words, the strike is being carried on not over the substance but by finding pretexts in the form.

1. A regulation on the use of Kurdish or other languages in court defense is already being made. A promise on this matter was explicitly made at the AK Parti's 4th Ordinary Congress, and the process has been set in motion. But when one listens a little, it becomes clear that what is disliked is only the form of the process.

2. As for the demand for education in the mother tongue, the elective course practice that is already under way is in a sense already a stage in that direction. One wonders why this excessive reaction, which was not shown in the days when Kurdish was not recognized in any form, either as a language or as an identity, is being shown now that the problems are being put on track. What can this hunger strike achieve, and what can it hope to achieve?

3. Finally, the justification of lifting Öcalan's isolation. If we set aside Demirtaş's thoughtless words on this matter, this too is in fact an entirely groundless demand, because no isolation is being applied to Öcalan. First of all, it was the PKK itself that condemned Öcalan to isolation in the first stage. It was the PKK that, during the Oslo process, broke Öcalan's word and reduced his word and influence to zero all at once. Öcalan was left with no choice but to isolate himself in order to protect the weight of his own word. It was Öcalan himself who, until now, refused the requests for visits that came from his family. The Ministry of Justice declares that there has never been any isolation of Öcalan originating from the ministry. Recent developments have also clearly revealed the details of this matter. But this permission for visits does not cover the lawyers, because it has been understood that the lawyers used this visiting traffic to direct the activities of the organization. Essentially, nowhere in the world can a relationship be tolerated in which the leader of a terrorist organization directs terrorist activities through his lawyers.

So the justifications for the hunger strikes are entirely about form. Despite these justifications being invalid and indefensible in substance, the so-called humanist swindlers do not turn to those who lie down on these death fasts and say, "Look, what you are doing has no meaning or necessity," but instead call on the government and the Prime Minister to do "something" to stop these deaths. What is to be done to stop these deaths? Presumably the formal condition of these demands will be met as well. Yet does the fact that the pretext has descended to the level of form not sufficiently show that the hunger strikes are not directed at a demand, and that they have been adopted as an end in themselves?

Let us put it more plainly: The only purpose of hunger strikes is hunger strikes. That is why what is demanded is either meaningless or impossible. There is no dialogue that these actions seek to establish. It is calculated that these actions attract a certain humanism and, through it, political profitability. They create an agenda, produce drama, bring deaths, lock up society, and so on. The wretched bodies of organization members, who can no longer be used because they have been thrown into prison, are being used one last time. That is why the solution lies not in responding to the strikers' demands but in an approach of zero tolerance toward those who regard human life as an instrument of politics.

If our humanists really want to stop the death fasts, let them kindly say this to the organization or to the BDP people: Is it not enough that you have played with the lives of those very young people? When will you give up laying these bodies down to die so that you may deliver your own political messages?

If a sufficiently reproachful, condemning stance were taken against the organization's so lavishly and ruthlessly using the lives of young people for its own politics, rest assured that everything would be very different.

Öcalan, who watches with pleasure as hundreds of young Kurds sacrifice their lives so that the isolation on him may be lifted, will not be held responsible for and reproached over these deaths, yet the government will be blamed for not doing "something." The organization that sends the young to their deaths and the BDP that conducts the ideological and political campaign for it are not addressed; the one addressed, the one pressured to be held responsible for possible deaths so that these deaths may not occur, is the government.

What can we say; truly, as the poet said, a wolf would not make this reckoning, even if it became lord over the lambs.