The real and official views of the Turkish left on the Kurds

Historically, the Turkish left's interest in the Kurdish question, from whichever side you look, represents a serious deviation from its own principles, vision and program.

In the seventies, the Turkish left, under the influence of Kemalism, as a satellite of Kemalist nationalism, did not even acknowledge the existence of Kurds in Turkey. İsmet Özel explains very well how even using the word Kurd was a taboo in left-socialist circles in Ankara in the seventies. In the period when Öcalan was heading toward founding the PKK at Ankara's Siyasal, the first forces he clashed with were not right-wing or nationalist forces but the Turkish left itself. There are plenty of memoirs on how Öcalan, who tried to express the Kurdish question shamefacedly in those circles, was humiliated and excluded by Turkish left circles. There are very instructive memoirs, I will not go into them here.

While this was the case for the nationalist Kemalist Turkish left, for the internationalist left, for another reason, the Kurdish question also always had a legitimacy problem. After all, the ethnic identity struggle had a primitive side that had to be left behind, that overshadowed the real great struggle, the class struggle against capitalism, and made it secondary.

In essence, the cause of the Kurdish question in Turkey has been the nationalist Kemalist Turkish left itself. In the name of building a new national identity, the program applied in the single-party years implemented an extremely rigid policy that denied and suppressed Kurds, Alevis, even devout Muslims and all other ethnic structures.

Incidentally, the most important cause and source of the Alevi question in Turkey in the modern period has also been the Turkish left. Because Alevism, like every religious identity, was seen as a part of the reactionism to be overcome, as a religious identity and culture. That is why the Alevis' interest in the left, or the interest leftists feel in Alevism today, contains a series of sore points that must be understood, resolved and confronted. A left that denied both Alevis and Kurds, oppressed them, banned them from expressing their identity, banned and suppressed their faith and language; yet today the Turkish left regards these two groups as a stepping stone for its political aims.

In this, of course, the left's own lust for power in Turkey, and the fact that it saw its own ground of struggle never sufficed for its "revolution" reveries, has a part. The left's seeing that the proletariat in Turkey was not and could not be the savior did not dissuade it from its love of "revolution," but it did lead it to look for other "Messiahs" for this "revolution." For this it would have to give up its own principles and aims; so be it. What mattered was power, and after making its first marriage with the Kemalist nationalism it identified with its own history, it did not hold back from grasping at every means that would keep it in power.

The most important of these means were, of course, coups. When those roads began to be blocked, Alevis and Kurds, even the mafia and the country's comprador capitalists, the USA, the EU, were each included as a Messiah in its catalog of hopes and alliances.

The biggest supporters of the Turkish left today are also Turkey's most powerful capitalists. Of course including finance capitalism.

That is why the left in Turkey has never been a class issue, has had nothing to do with the demands of the oppressed and the poor. Yes, those segments were present in its discourse, but to be used, to have their mass support or votes solicited when needed.

That is why the Turkish left's feelings and rational approaches on the Kurdish question are so contradictory, and the words Ahmet Şık said in recent days while, unaware of the camera recording, confiding most sincerely to a friend, express this contradiction very well.

Şık, evidently talking with a friend from the Turkish left, says whatever comes to his mouth about the Kurds in the HDP. When the person says "there are so many harsh and sectarian people among the HDP base," Ahmet Şık answers, "There still are. Look at what Selahattin has done to us today. Supposedly we are in the same alliance. And it is Selahattin who does it. Take Selahattin out of the HDP and there is no HDP left."

When the same person says, "Hasip Kaplan said to Sırrı Süreyya Önder, 'Don't ever let a Turk head this party.' There is such a dynamic too," Şık replied, "Unfortunately there is, and I am uncomfortable with that too. There are enough Turkish fascists, I can't deal with Kurdish fascists as well."

In fact the left Şık represents here is perhaps the bookish left, and complains about the fascists on both sides. But in the current situation he should first ask what is left once you remove the fascists of both sides. The ultimate aim of this alliance is not to make the Kurds partners in power, but to put up with them until it gets to power.

Ahmet Şık expressed his most sincere thoughts there. He spoke for the feelings of members of the Turkish left like himself. However, the matter also has an official-view dimension. Just as in an anecdote told like a joke.

Like the answers given to a tie-wearing lawyer visiting Diyarbakır in the eighties by the taxi driver showing him around: when asked how the situation in the city was, the driver said everyone was very satisfied and happy with the army, that our state had overcome the terrorists and that this had brought peace and stability. When the passenger introduced himself, saying he was a lawyer who had come to visit some of his clients in Diyarbakır Prison and defend their rights, the driver's tone suddenly changed. He began to speak of the state's oppression, of torture. When the lawyer said in astonishment that he had been speaking differently a moment ago, he answered, "You're right, but that was my official view, and this is my sincere view."

Of course the distance between the official view and the genuine view is also an expression of the level of sincerity and honesty in a politics.

The distances that form between the official view and the real view when speaking to Alevis, Kurds and even devout Muslims we witness today openly and most strikingly in the Nation Alliance. Canan Kaftancıoğlu's confession reflected in the media in recent days, and a series of other examples, are there before us.

This is a style of politics, and a style of politics whose past deeds we have witnessed a great deal, living it in the most painful way.

Until the bridge is crossed, who will manage whom? After the bridge, how will the accounts be settled? At the first junction, to whom will the real views be revealed and the real attitudes displayed? Of course, we have no trouble guessing.