Whom does HÜDA PAR disturb, and how?

From the moment its joining the People's Alliance began to be discussed, a Hüda-Par reality is being noticed and discovered in Turkish politics. When I say it is being noticed, it actually happens after a great uproar has been raised both about it and about its inclusion in the alliance.

It no longer surprises anyone that in an election process an actor becomes a hero all of a sudden, a disgrace the next day, and a rescuing hero again the day after.

Akşener, one of the strongest parties of the Table and Dining Table politics that lasted 13 months, as an expression of discomfort that also came from her own base, had to swallow in three days, in the political stadium chanting launched against her after leaving the table, the curses and insults she had not endured in 25 years. And together with her, the entire right-wing political tradition to which she is attributed, moreover.

During those three days, what was not written, what analyses were not made, what big words were not tossed out and swallowed? The air given by the words spoken in those three days was like the discovery of a new truth. So it turned out what kind of stuff Akşener and the İYİ Party, with whom we had been moving together for years and in whom we had placed our hopes, really were; now we understood.

The truth that entered thick heads for those three days left just as it had entered once Akşener returned to the table. Now there is another perception of truth. All in all, a heavy crisis in sight had been temporarily suspended, yet its perception was made equal to the victory of the century. Looking at the air attributed to this short-term truce, one would think that the 14 May election results had been announced early and that Kılıçdaroğlu had toppled Erdoğan by an overwhelming majority and won the elections. Perceptions about a political actor, party or alliance that go back and forth within 3 days, perceptions that change 180 degrees from one day to the next, are the post-truth reality of the new Turkey.

In the face of this post-truth reality, there is of course no need to take seriously the uproar suddenly raised about Hüda-Par, making its legitimacy an issue. It is more than enough just to recall that before this Hüda-Par's executives had held talks many times with almost all parties, including the CHP, İYİ Party, Gelecek and DEVA parties.

The officiousness of bringing up baggage from Hüda-Par's past to its present appeared most in CHP circles. Thus their own relations with the HDP will be normalized, and they will take refuge in the harbor of the "the pot calling the kettle black" rhetoric. What the CHP, which has fallen into the rush of equating the HDP with Hüda-Par, is after with this rush is of course clear as day, but it will be very difficult, even impossible, for it to find what it hopes for.

It is also very natural for Hüda-Par circles to be disturbed by this equating or by these comparisons, and especially to be disturbed by all the lights being turned on them as if they had just been discovered. But these comparisons will inevitably be made at this stage, and in my opinion this will be very beneficial for our political life. For there is nothing in the comparisons that will put Hüda-Par in a difficult position; on the contrary, it will find, and is finding, the opportunity to express itself much better at every stage.

Chairman Zekeriya Yapıcıoğlu stands out with a face not sufficiently noticed by the public until now, with his rhetorical consistency, his power of self-expression and his quick wit. But more importantly, he stands out with greater advantages, with rhetorical and legitimacy superiority, even in the respects in which he is compared with the HDP.

To the question that begins "the similarities between you," he answers with great self-confidence: "You tell us those similarities, and we will tell you how much difference they actually make."

He is compared with the HDP in terms of violence, yet the party was founded in 2012 and since then has not inclined toward any act of violence, and in its program it condemns resorting to any kind of violence.

In practice too, since its founding neither its own members nor any affiliated individual or organization has engaged in any act of violence; on the contrary, they have been exposed to the most merciless violent attacks. A 16-year-old member of theirs, Yasin Börü, was murdered in the most savage, most monstrous way during the Kobani events of 7 October 2014. Despite this, they did not resort to violence even to defend themselves.

How can Hüda-Par, which has never closed the distance it adopted from violence since the day it was founded, be treated in the same way as the HDP, which has not stepped back from acts of terror, has adopted violence as an ordinary style of politics, and does not even need to hide its affiliation with the PKK?

HDP circles want to bill Hüda-Par of today for the violence Hizbullah resorted to in its clashes with the PKK in the nineties. In fact, even in those days there were very different dynamics, and Hizbullah circles were under the conditions of the deep state of that time, FETÖ, and the extraordinary conditions of the region, which can make a person commit every kind of error and lure him into traps. It needed to be called to account, and partly was. A long time has passed without the deep state's share and FETÖ's share in the event being fully seen. Many things were told and understood according to the scenarios or stories written by FETÖ and other dark elements.

What matters today is the political lane Hüda-Par entered by leaving behind those experiences that nobody could wish to be lived again and by putting a definite distance between itself and violence. What is essential is what they do or do not do in this lane.

In fact, as it stands, Hüda-Par also reminds the HDP of what it should do. Had the HDP too managed to put a distance between itself and violence since the resolution process, it could be compared with Hüda-Par today. You can be sure that the discomfort it causes largely stems from this.

Of course another discomfort is that Hüda-Par is finding a base largely among Kurdish voters. No one can expect the HDP, which has adopted the Kurdish issue as a source of livelihood, to be happy about the existence of an actor who represents the struggle in its most organic form, without commercializing it at all.

Hüda-Par breaks the monopoly the HDP or the PKK has been trying to establish over Kurdish politics. Moreover, it does this without confining itself to Kurdish politics, by referring to Islam. In this way it does so by standing closer to the language, culture and traditions of the Kurds.