The Turkish Elections and the Kurds

By Kani Xulam

November 8, 2002

I don’t know about you, but I am very happy to be living at a time pregnant with the unpredictable political twists and turns affecting the future of the Kurds. No, I did not miswrite the word “unpredictable”, I meant it, and let me share with you the fact that I, as a Kurd, welcome turmoil, upheaval and political earthquakes such as the one that recently supposedly shook Ankara to its foundations. I had fun watching the whole spectacle unfold in front of me on the Turkish satellite television. I saw silver linings in it for the Kurds.

To be sure, I felt pity for the two million or so political Kurds who got tripped by the 10 % nationwide threshold rule that barred their participation in the farce known as the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The Turks were quick to say that Kurds don’t vote for Kurds and that we should not blame them for “our” non-representation in “their” parliament. Indeed, unless we remind them, they hardly mention that in no functioning democracy worthy of its name does there exist a rule, a bar, like theirs. It is also apparently unknown to them -- surprise, surprise -- that the Kurds could not even say that they were campaigning for their civil and political rights, that they had to clamor for these most basic of rights as “Turks” among a supposedly “nonexistent” Kurdish population that nonetheless convened some of the election’s largest gatherings -- and not only in Turkish misruled southeast, but also in refugee-laden cities, such as Istanbul, Izmir and Mersin.

Something else was amiss in this election. Turkey gazers did not bother to write it, but future historians will surely note with amazement, and the Kurdish ones with pride, that in a state so unfriendly to the Kurds, among a population of perhaps as many as ten million eligible Kurdish voters, two million of them, one in five, stood up, defiant and proud, to mock a state that has been mocking their very presence with maxims like, “Turkey belongs to the Turks”, for the last 80 years. Yes, the Kurds did not enter the parliament of their foes, but they earned a place among the immortal champions of democracy such as the Magna Carta petitioners, the American abolitionists and the Chinese students who stood up to the tanks at Tiananmen Square.

Bad as was the plight of these two million Kurds, they were still the “lucky” ones, for their cousins south of the border in Iraqi-Kurdistan, without even voting, were declared to have voted, 100 % no less, for the butcher in Baghdad. And then, after being assured of his subjects’ total loyalty, the man who has been ruling Iraq with an iron fist, and five million Kurds with a poisonous diet to boot, did something no Turkish leader has ever done: he freed thousands of prisoners, Kurdish and Arab alike, to the jubilations of millions of people.

There was, however, a glitch. The agents of “Zionism” and “America” were exempt. Initially, observers had noted that the Kurds, who had borne the brunt of Saddam’s diabolical wrath, were going to be the biggest beneficiaries his unprecedented largess. But instead of embracing their sons, the Kurdish families were in for a heinous surprise. There were no signs of their loved ones. Instead, the families were left to reflect on the cruel joke that their children, numbering over 100.000 disappeared Kurds, were, perhaps, as Saddam’s cronies had claimed, the agents of “Zionism” and “America” after all!

It was a double whammy, the likes of which has seldom made an appearance in the annals of human history. The Arabs and their rulers, the benign as well as the despotic, have always accused the Kurds of being the agents of Zionism and America in order to murder as well as gas them as if they were mere cockroaches. On the other hand, to be sure, the Zionists and the Americans have, from time to time, recruited the Kurds all right, enough to blemish their reputation as mercenaries throughout the Middle East, but not enough to guarantee them liberation from their despotic rulers.

Yes, the Kurds have become the modern day gladiators of Imperial Rome who are now being trained, yet again, to fight in the coming war against the beasts of prey, the henchmen of Saddam Hussein -- only to be in turn attacked by the Turkish dogs of war who have been conditioned like Pavlov’s canines to go berserk at anything with the root word “Kurd” in it. This hottest movie, by the way, will soon be on your CNN channel -- the station has just rented office space in Hewler in Iraqi Kurdistan, to be coupled with a slue of pundits to regale you with the news of hacking the Kurds limb from limb, live.

Leaving the Kurdish hell that is Iraq for now, and revisiting the Kurdish purgatory that is Turkey again, I have been thinking about Emine Erdogan, the wife of Recep Tayip Erdogan, who became the First Lady of Turkey in the election that just brought her husband to power. I have been wondering about her state functions and worrying about the spectacle of Turkish police denying her entry to the government buildings. It is an unseemly sight, a cruel act, which will soon unfold as news capable of becoming an international scandal.

You see the Turkish First Lady is a practicing Muslim. She prays five times a day and covers her head with a scarf as the traditions of her religion dictate. But Turkey, an aspiring member of the European Union, has barred women who cover their heads from entering public buildings. Thousands of Turkish women have been denied entry to schools for remaining true to their religions. In fact, the Prime Minister Elect Erdogan has sent his two daughters to school in America. Others have hired tutors to remedy this state sanctioned assault on their beliefs.

Thus, a glaring contradiction is staring Turkey in the face. Those who wish her well want her to pass this test of accommodating her children who cover their heads. Those who are uneasy with political Islam and fear that a Taliban style government is lurking behind the façade of the newly elected Justice and Development Party, inadvertently, express the bankruptcy of their own faith in democracy. If Turkish democrats are so weak, the way to get strong is not to deny the winners a rightful place in the seat of the government or knock on the doors of the barracks for the military to intervene, but to roll up their sleeves to engage the population in something called the virtues of representative government.

What is likely though is that Turkey may finally be ready to accept her Islamic heritage with all its piety as well as militancy. The road ahead may be bumpy at times, but that is the price an Asiatic nation has to pay to adjust its centuries old inclinations with the dictates of a functioning democracy. Bans, controls and restrictions, the hallmarks of her authoritarian system so far, have to give way to tolerance, acceptance and respect for diversity. A Turkey at peace with its Islamic heritage is also a Turkey that is ready to tackle her other intractable problem, the Kurdish Question.

Perhaps a historical perspective is in order here. The Ottoman Turks who were at peace with their religion, for example, never called Kurds the Mountain Turks, the way modern Turks do, and were men enough to call our land, Kurdistan, instead of the ubiquitous insult called, “southeast” Turkey. The pompousness and lies of ruling Turks have damaged the Turkish-Kurdish relations in a way that were never possible in the four hundred year rule of the Ottomans over the Kurds. A Muslim leader who rejects the superiority of one race over the other, as true Islam dictates, is closer to resolving the Turkish-Kurdish conflict than the “Europeanized” Turks who believe in the superiority of Turks over the Kurds.

So, this little political earthquake did Turkey good and placed her on solid grounds just as a natural earthquake would when the plates of the earth go out of order. I am waiting for another one to happen and this one, I hope, will separate Kurdistan from Turkey, which will be good for both Turks and Kurds. These days though, the eyes of the world are watching Baghdad for a possible quake that will have repercussions far into the future. For us diaspora Kurds, this is the time to sharpen our pens as well as our tongues to defend the honor and sanctity of Kurdistan.