Hisyar Ozalp
Thousands of villages and dozens of cities were burned and destroyed in Northern Kurdistan. Thousands of Kurds were killed by forces affiliated with the Turkish state as a result of the practice called “unsolved”. Tens of thousands of Kurds are being held in dungeons for political reasons, and tens of thousands of them have been dismissed from their jobs for political reasons. In Turkish cities, Kurds are subjected to racist practices and are often killed as a result of racist attacks. Millions of Kurds live below the starvation line and are forced to go to work in the fields of the Turks in truck trailers. When the proportion of Kurds studying at university is compared with Turks, there is a terrible difference. Kurds have great problems in accessing health services. Kurdish women are frequently subjected to sexual assault by Turkish armed forces in Kurdistan. In the last 13 years, 40 Kurdistanis, mostly children, were killed by military vehicles “accidentally” and hundreds more maimed. While Zazaki, a dialect of Kurdish, has almost come to the point of extinction, the Kurmanci dialect is also regressing in the face of assimilation day by day. While some of the legal parties founded by the Kurds are not given the freedom to operate, others face closure cases.
The above paragraph describing the given picture in Northern Kurdistan could be extended for pages. Even these titles tell us enough that the people of Kurdistan are deprived of their rights to life, housing security, mother tongue, organization, economic equality, education and health. The Kurds, whose country was first occupied and then colonized, were devastated economically and psychologically, and their right to be themselves was taken away from them. The only reason for this terrible picture is that our country, Northern Kurdistan, is an occupied colony. The way to eliminate these handicaps is naturally that the colonial people fight an anti-colonial, independent struggle and deepen the break by organizing.
The dynamic and form of struggle for every contradiction and every problem is different. The structure of a problem directly determines its solutions and methods.
Unfortunately, while the problem and solution are so clear, there are very few organizations and individuals in Northern Kurdistan who talk about these facts anymore. Kurdistan parties, intellectuals and non-governmental organizations constantly talk about democracy and think that these problems will be solved once democracy prevails in Turkey. Therefore, the arguments, determinations and prominent demands of the struggle that these circles are trying to wage remain within this framework. In other words, the solution is sought within the colonial order, the means of struggle are shaped accordingly, and alliances and fronts are sought accordingly.
The same circles raised issues such as the massacres by the Turkish state, which emerged as a result of the colonization of Kurdistan, a human rights issue, sexual assaults against women, the problem of gender inequality, the situation of the Kurds who were subjected to racist attacks, class conflict, the usurpation of mother tongue and cultural rights.
grasps and reflects as a problem of identity.
In order to overcome these problems, the Turkish parliament is presented as a solution address and the colonialist parties are presented as potential allies. According to this approach, if the government changes and a democratic constitution is adopted, all the problems of the Kurds will be solved. Meanwhile, the circles that advance the demands of democracy continue to describe themselves as patriotic and even defender of the national line. This situation further blurs the situation in Kurdistan, making it even more difficult to determine who is defending what.
However, throughout history, the changes in power in Turkey did not improve the situation of the Kurds, but worsened it. Because it is the state that is colonial, not temporary governments. In addition, the colonial system is doomed to decay and immorality day by day.
It is necessary to ask the circles that seek the solution in the democratization of Turkey. If the cause of the problems is as you say, why aren’t Turkish women raped by soldiers in the Aegean, where democracy is not dominant, children playing in Thrace are not crushed by panzers, the fields in the Black Sea are not left without electricity, Turkish men are not killed by the armed forces of the state in the middle of the street in the Mediterranean?
Everyone knows the answer to this question; Kurds are members of the colonial nation while Turks are members of the colonial nation. The issue has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of democracy.
The colonial system owes its existence in the colonial country to violence. Violence is independent of the colonial state’s form of government, in any case, it continues to exist in all areas of life as an unchanging reality. While this is the case, the fate of the people of the colonial country will not change in every possible scenario, and the colonialist nature will continue to use violence.
Ruling Turkey with democracy instead of dictatorship will not dissolve colonial relations in Northern Kurdistan and will not abolish colonial law. Therefore, it is a futile effort that will not change the fate of Kurdistan for the Kurds to engage in the struggle for the democratization of the Turkish state. Moreover, in the middle of Europe, the children of nations that are in a similar situation to the Kurds are kept in dungeons by the “democratic” colonialists, they are not allowed to express themselves in their mother tongue in courts and parliaments, and all kinds of obstacles are put in front of them in terms of education in their mother tongue.
Stating that it is essential to fight for the democratization of the colonial state, the circles claim that if democratization expectations are realized, the Kurds will also gain from this and the way for freedom will be opened. However, it has not been seen throughout history that demands for democracy succeed in a national liberation struggle. For example, meeting the demands for education in the mother tongue of the Kurds can ensure that the Kurdish language does not disappear, but it cannot make a fundamental contribution to the national liberation struggle.
Incidentally, it should be noted that the Turkish state is one of the last states to make democracy prevail by its very nature. On top of that, the Turkish people do not have a demand for democracy and justice, they never have. Therefore, Turkey is deprived of the most important dynamic needed to achieve democracy.
Aside from the experience of the nations that became liberated by the national liberation struggle, when we look at the situation of the nations that share a similar fate with the Kurds even today, it will be seen that the rhetoric used by these circles is not used by anyone and the colonialist democracy is not a solution for these nations. For example, after the death of Spain Franco in 1975, Catalonia, which struggled for national liberation, recognized geographical and ethnic autonomy by making an autonomy agreement with the Basque Country and Galicia. However, after the enactment of the new constitution made in 1978, 14 more autonomous regions were created in order to dilute the autonomy of these countries. He put provisions in the constitution to prevent these three nations from exercising their right to self-determination (SD). In 2017, Spanish army forces used violence in front of the cameras against the people of Catalonia, who exercised their right to SD, however, the Catalonian parliament declared independence unilaterally with the support of the people. The Spanish state temporarily transferred the autonomy rights of Catalonia to the center and imprisoned many political cadres. An arrest warrant was issued for the leader of the people of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemeont, and his four ministers for a series of crimes, including rebellion against the state, and he was forced to flee to Belgium. The immunity he gained by being elected to the European Parliament in 2019 was lifted by the European Parliament in 2021 and imprisoned many political cadres.
In Corsica, an island country with a population of 350 thousand that has been fighting for independence against colonial France for more than 200 years, the independent nationalist alliance has held the overwhelming majority in the local council since 2017. The French, who refused to accept the demand of the Corsican political leadership for the SD right arising from being a nation, even rejecting the official language demand and the demands for the inclusion of the phrase Corsican nation in the constitution, replied that “there is only one nation, and that is the French nation”. The Corsican political leadership continues to insist on its demands for independence and continues to use all methods suitable for the anti-colonial struggle.
In my opinion, no one can say that there is no democracy in France and Spain. Democracy dominates all the mechanisms of these states. However, as it is seen, the existence of democracy neither enables these states to accept the demands of the colonial peoples for independence, nor does the people of the colonial countries give up their struggle for independence just because there is democracy. Every problem has its own solutions according to its nature. The problem of national liberation cannot be solved through the democratization of the colonial state, this problem can only be solved with independence.
In short, the discourse on democracy and human rights in Kurdistan is aimed at blurring the nation issue in the eyes of the people. Far from solving the suffering of the people of the colonial country, it traps them in a narrow vortex and causes their problems to multiply. Imprisoning the Kurds in the struggle for democracy, breaking them off from the anti-colonial and independent ideology serves to psychologically articulate our people with the colonialist.
Of course, the democratization of the colonial state can be recorded as a gain for the world and humanity in general, but this struggle is not and should not be an area where the people of Kurdistan will consume their energies and transfer their resources. Like every nation, Kurdistanis must defend their right to organize at the national level, that is, to become a state, and use their strength to achieve this goal. For this reason, the anti-colonial nationalist ideology must solve its theoretical and practical problems, break the blockade on the people of Kurdistan, and embody the national liberation struggle. When the Kurds liberate their country, they can make all the mechanisms of democracy dominate their own state. The realistic goal is not to try to build democracy for the colonizer, but to create our own democracy.
Comments are closed.