The Kurds' One-Party problem

It is certain that the future of both the Kurdish question and the resolution process from here on will take on an important shape under the influence of the Diyarbakır meeting. We said that the climate that has taken hold of both the region and the whole country with this meeting has rendered void all the grand analyses made until now on the resolution, the Kurdish question, the terror problem and other matters, and has shown them all a new horizon. Moreover, this change in climate did not form from a wind blowing from the Balkans or from the European Union.

In fact, Kandil, as the place from which the winds of violence in the region come, did not make any contribution to the formation of this climate. On the contrary, Kandil has so far tried to exert the most intense pressure against the formation of this climate. It has tried every kind of resistance and discourse it could find against the resolution process until now.

It is clear that all the steps taken on the path of resolution so far have continued thanks to the government's insistence and the undeniable influence of İmralı over Kandil. As for the steps that further improve life for the Kurds and increase their rights and freedoms, Kandil has had no contribution other than sabotaging them.

Despite this, it does not hold back from presenting all the steps taken on the road to democratization as a gain of its violent actions. Yet the biggest obstacle to the Kurds' democratic gains, especially since 2005, has been Kandil. Because the AK Parti government has built all of its politics, for the Kurds as for all other citizens of Turkey, on more democratization and the improvement of rights and freedoms. This in fact created an existential problem for Kandil from the very beginning, and to overcome this problem it adopted as a strategy trying to drag the AK Parti government as well into the spiral of violence into which it had dragged earlier governments. The more governments caught in this spiral thrash about, the deeper they sink, and the deeper they sink, the further they get from confronting the problem.

The Diyarbakır meeting is in fact only a stage of a policy that Erdoğan has believed in from the beginning in order to overcome this problem. An important stage, without doubt, in which his leadership displays its mastery... Mastery lies in being able to spoil the games that all the actors involved in the process try to devise and dominate. With a move far outside memorized state or government behaviors, it forces everyone to rethink their own position.

The Diyarbakır meeting, with all its symbolic and discursive content, has done this. This meeting has pushed Kandil, political parties such as the BDP, CHP and MHP, and many national and international actors to a point where they have great difficulty determining a position consistent with themselves. Meanwhile, the climate that has come to Diyarbakır has continued to make all its warmth felt on the actual interlocutors.

The image that Barzani gave by coming to Turkey and appearing together with Prime Minister Erdoğan has without doubt a distinct political meaning. Yalçın Akdoğan and Orhan Miroğlu have been writing very explanatory pieces for days on the meaning of this image. Its aspect that works against, and shakes, the BDP monopolism constructed with Kandil's tutelage over Kurdish politics in Turkey is very clear. It is also highly probable that the BDP, which these days is trying to index the resolution process almost entirely to the Rojawa issue, has suddenly seen the limits of its own world with the Barzani reality it confronted in Diyarbakır.

Prime Minister Erdoğan's manifesto-like speech at the Diyarbakır meeting, while voicing the BDP's single-party zeal over Kurdish politics, drew attention to the fact that the same model is being realized in Syria through the PYD. Yet Mesut Barzani, the symbolic name of a tradition of struggle spanning nearly a century, in the political model he applies in the region he currently governs, contains lessons enough in itself.

In the Iraqi Kurdistan Federal Region, Barzani governs not alone but with a coalition government. That is, he has no qualms about sharing power with other Kurdish elements, parties or tendencies. Had he wanted, he could perhaps have established a single-party sultanate like the other dictators in the region, yet he does not prefer this, and in this very way he in fact draws his own distinctive style within Kurdish politics.

In contrast, in Syria, the PYD, an extension of the PKK, with the weapons it received from Assad, the first thing it has been able to do is establish a hegemony over the other Kurdish elements and expel from Rojawa those who do not submit to it. In fact, if there is a problem in Rojawa, this problem is above all one caused by the PYD itself. The Rojawa problem is a problem arising from trying to apply the fascism of the single-party model over Kurdish politics. Trying to present the problems encountered in achieving this in an atmosphere of drama only shows the brazenness of this politics.

In fact, the more instructive dimension of Rojawa, the one that would make the Kurds of dignity rebel, is the role assigned to the Syrian Kurds. That role loads upon them the henchman's duty of the dictator by placing the weapon of the tyrannical dictator against the Syrian people who are struggling to save their lives, their freedom and their dignity. This role is the greatest oppression done and that could be done to the Kurds.

This is a greater oppression that will make one forget all the oppression done to them until now by denying their identity, assimilating them and discriminating in citizenship rights. The Rojawa that the BDP insistently brings onto the agenda is in fact nothing but the collaboration of a criminal Assad and the PYD, which will arouse no feeling other than shame. Not only the Kurds but no nation of dignity deserves this oppression.