Those who criticize marginalization, those who speak of empathy, those who declare that they are open to dialogue, whenever they are criticized by someone, the worst of the marginalizers and the sectarians come out of them... Maybe it would be understandable if this was a situation unique to today, but unfortunately it has always been like this.
It has been a long time since the intolerance of criticism and the tendency to believe and claim that they are always right ‘because of being constantly attacked and oppressed’ became a habitual habit among this group. Especially when the criticism comes from their inner circle or from people who support them to some extent!.
As a matter of fact, it has been a long time since the issue has evolved to the point of ‘if you disagree with my every idea, you are not one of us, you are one of them’.
Where is that empathy, where is that woke culture discourse?
The tragicomic thing is that while most of these approaches were voiced by the ‘Cihangir intelligentsia’ or ‘know-it-all Turkish socialists’, and no one took them seriously, it is not a good development that after the foundation of the DEM Party such statements started to come from the party spokespersons.
This is strange, because for a long time the Kurdish political movement had begun to adopt ‘woke culture‘ as an ideology, that is to say, it was producing discourses close to a line such as ’struggle for rights, empathy, felt politics‘. At this point, it was noteworthy that a group of self-proclaimed intellectuals, socialists detached from class struggle and 'intellectuals' sympathetic to political Islam were the leaders in developing these discourses.
Is it the prerogative of radical democrats to perceive every criticism as an attack?
Those who had difficulty pronouncing Ernesto Laclau's concept of radical democracy or Murray Bookchin's anarchistic approaches, loved the plain water discourses of woke culture!
It was not even necessary to be coherent; in an environment where feelings replaced ideologies, it was possible to drift. Identity issues, the environment, religious freedom, slogans that smelled of translation were more than enough. This is exactly where we are today!... And in this state, they can be as ‘flexible’ and ‘aggressive’ as Ikhwanist opinion leaders who have licked a little ink! This is partly why there is such a level of insolence in finding the republic guilty in every issue... Or in Syria, insulting the Baath regime in all kinds of ways, while being tolerant of HTS terrorists!
I realize that I have gone on too long, but without describing this tendency, it is obvious that we have difficulties in understanding the statements of at least some DEM Party members or prominent figures of Kurdish politics in the ‘Turkey without Terror’ process spearheaded by MHP President Devlet Bahçeli!
It's not a photo, it's a behavioral habit
If the issue were as simple as a photograph, there would be no need to even mention it. “Everyone makes mistakes, everyone sometimes has to give an image that they don't want to give”. But is that so? Is this an exceptional case? Not at all!...
‘Remember Sırrı Süreyya Önder's statements when the ’Turkey without terror' process started. All those Bahceli praises, those exaggerated discourses of brotherhood based on religion and others!...
It is also not possible to agree with the claim that this was done to embrace the process or to ‘create a warm atmosphere’. For such a process to work requires wisdom and a roadmap. And that roadmap is something that the parties will prepare jointly. And this cannot be done with arabesque chants and ‘hamasic’ rhetoric that both sides are trying to inject into their base in high doses.
When this happens, one defines a process as the ‘Turkish century’ and the other as the ‘Kurdish century’. This is met with skepticism in the market in Diyarbakir, but not at all in the market in Aleppo!
Not every bird is a crow and not every criticism is anti-Kurdish
I'm going to go back in time a little bit, first to the US invasion of Iraq and the debates I remember from that period... Those who did not unconditionally support this invasion were almost labeled ‘racist, Kurdish-hating’ and even accused of being ‘anti-Semitic’.
The reason for this ‘anti-Semitic’ nonsense was the claim that the Barzan tribe was Jewish and even the lost 13th tribe, from the mouth of whichever fabricated opinion leader it came from. You will think that I am making this up, but you would have to be a maniac to make up such a story!
The occupation of Iraq is complete, an autonomous Kurdish administration is about to be formed in Southern Kurdistan... We often discuss this with friends from different Kurdish political formations. The tribal leader Barzani cannot be praised, his ideology is not discussed. Utopias about the future of the process are in the air. As soon as you ask a question or put forward a different opinion, they all politely tell you to shut up. Or you are put in a ‘persuasion room’ like cage. Let me share the most ridiculous of the persuasion arguments. It might help you understand the mood.
A liberal Kurdish friend of mine said, “My family has Jewish roots like the Barzan clan.” So I listened to him like a fool, thinking that he must have some documented information. Here is the explanation: “When I was a child, I accidentally saw my grandfather naked while bathing, he was half circumcised!” That's it!... And for this reason, as you may recall, Israel was going to be the patron of the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq, and the US was going to support it to the fullest. Years later, we all saw what happened with the independence referendum!
Is it right to read intentions instead of learning from recent history?
Let's talk about the ‘Resolution Process“... Whether it is accusing those who say, ”This issue should proceed in a public manner and the place for this should be the Grand National Assembly of Turkey‘ as ’kafatasists‘, labeling them as ’nationalists‘ or targeting them as ’Kurdish enemies“, the list is endless. One of the responses to the criticism was ”Of course we will meet with the state. There is no other way“. As if someone had said ”Don't meet with the state"... The warning that the process should be transparent was ignored at the time!
And you remember the end of the process. It should have been clear then that this issue could not be solved by negotiations behind closed doors, especially not with these political Islamists.
When lessons are not learned from history, especially from recent history, the same mistakes are made. Today, the process that the People's Alliance calls ‘Terror Free Turkey’ is again a non-transparent process, which is pretended to be transparent by a so-called commission. Moreover, today it is intertwined with the Syrian problem...
Which is malice and which is true malice?
Let me come to today and continue. Criticism is ignored and critics are blamed. Those who are not against peace, who have supported the solution of the Kurdish issue until today and those who want to leave this issue unresolved are deliberately lumped together. While trying to give the impression as if the process is going great, some circles of this party, if not the DEM Party administration, attack anyone who criticizes with profanity, patronizing attitudes and ideology-free arguments.
The issue is not the photograph, but the mentality and behavioral habits... Therefore, no one should try to reduce it to a photograph. The first statement from the party was a bit like that.
DEM Party Co-Chairperson Tülay Hatimoğulları attributed the moment when that photo was taken to the intensity of the protection. Hatimoğulları said, “There was a very serious scuffle there, tables were about to topple over. It was a moment when we also had difficulty standing. The photo frame was taken at that very moment. People were trying to stand.”.
When it became clear that this explanation did not satisfy anyone, and the DEM Party's voters were not the least among those who were not satisfied. This time DEM Party Co-Chair Tuncer Bakırhan stepped in and made a long statement: “We approach negotiations openly, we approach sincerely, we fight openly. We speak the truth regardless of imprisonment, oppression and closure. Now it is really bad to associate such a tradition with a photograph, with the government, to attribute other meanings to it, because I am saying it clearly through you; those who do this do not have good intentions. The intention of those who do this is to bring the fragile Kurdish masses to a point where they will react by distancing them from the ground of opposition”.
As you can see, again that generalizing attitude, again that marginalizing approach, that stereotypical reading of intentions!
Breaking the eternal opponents only brings isolation
To be fair, I have taken this part of Bakırhan's statement that is relevant to our topic, otherwise I can agree with a significant part of the speech.
I think the DEM Party and its allies and those who speak on behalf of Kurdish politics should move away from this behavior and style. At least this time they should not repeat this mistake.
Today, when those who were expecting the release of Selahattin Demirtaş were disappointed, today when hot clashes in two neighborhoods of Aleppo are on the agenda!
Of course there are those who do not want a solution, but being unfair to those who have supported this movement in one way or another despite everything will only result in further isolation for Kurdish politics tomorrow.
It should be time to use reason instead of looking for bad intentions!