Erdogan cynical motives exposed - Analysis
Erdogan cynical motives exposed - Analysis
AKP Chairman and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who initiated the so-called Kurdish democratization process claiming that the 'Kurdish question is his own problem', has now repudiated the existence of the issue. Erdogan now states that there is no such question, and that it is some of his 'Kurdish brothers' who have the problems.
Regarding the Kurdish question that is as old as the republic itself as deriving from the refusal to grant rights, Erdogan finds it hard to grasp even the demands for universal rights of the Kurds as a nation. It can even be said that he does not understand them. The fact is that the Kurdish struggle to demand national rights is disrupting Erdogan's calculations. However, the Prime Minister may find the Kurdish question serious enough to sink underneath as he assumes that he can make the Kurds dependent on him through the cheap political rhetoric of claiming the question.
Erdogan, who cannot even manage his own democratization project due to the political incompetence caused by his nationalism despite the bona fide encouragement of Kurdish people, has now come to reject the democratization that has been made possible thanks to the intervention of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on two occasions.
This is the reason for Erdogan's current attempt to construct a discourse; it is concerned with collecting votes. It is possible upon close scrutiny of Erdogan's purpose in claiming that 'there is no such thing as a Kurdish question, but my Kurdish brothers have problems' as an answer to Ocalan, who is being held captive on Imrali Island. With this claim, Erdogan is emphasizing that he is not prepared to recognize the national collective rights of the Kurds that have been crystallized in the Road Map by Ocalan. The Prime Minister is responding to Ocalan's insistent demands for 'national rights of the Kurds' by trying to limit the issue to individual rights. As a result, Erdogan is waging a war against the model of Democratic Autonomous Kurdistan, which is attracting great interest in Kurdistan. He is thus interfering with the negotiations that he claims not to have entered in order to be able to pre-empt any possible agreements.
Moreover, moving from point to point, he is responding to a politician who has had his right to respond muzzled and who communicates with the public under conditions of extreme restrictions and only through his lawyers.
Erdogan is not proposing anything in response to the Kurdish demands for national rights other than violence for which his strengthens are the coalition and relations with the Turkish Armed Forces. He made decisions reminiscent of quasi-war declarations through the MGK (National Security Council). He is demonstrating a much more belligerent attitude by evaluating the religious service of Kurdish Muslims in their language as 'divisiveness', than the time of national chief Ismet Inonu when the Quran was forcefully Turkified. He has been attacking religion and targeting people with a primitive nationalism.
A short while ago, Ocalan was saying during a meeting with his lawyers that they have reached an agreement on some of the issues with the committee that visited him in Imrali, but he has been unable to convince AKP government. In this meeting, he was also interpreting the government's attitude on the issue while explaining that AKP wants to sabotage the negotiations. This also clearly shows that Erdogan is targeting Ocalan in his recent statements. Erdogan is fighting Ocalan who has caught him red-handed.
Erdogan's purpose with this attitude is to drag the Kurdish opposition outside the democratic field and thus descend into war. The Prime Minister who lost his ability to engage in politics in the democratic field hopes that the chaotic and critical situation of a war will help him. This is why emotive discourse is dominating his language. In this way, he is also trying to conceal the state-led systematic violence.
I'd like to quote a part of Erdogan's speech in Osmaniye meeting while repercussions of the bodies of PKK guerrillas in Dersim, who had been massacred, had been continuing throughout Kurdistan.
'We have set out in our white shirts, laying down not our hands or bodies but our lives. We have never bowed to the perfidious assaults of traitors, cowards and villains. Sooner or later, we will find those traitors one by one as well as their motivators or owners, and bring them to account for the blood of our martyrs.
'Assaults on our party organizations throughout Turkey as well as the Molotov cocktails are not coincidences. Prior to 12th June elections some people are targeting the context of democratic freedom by spreading terror, setting fire to the streets, and shooting the security powers. It is clear that these are carried out to order and are sub-contractors. They are acting in accordance with their contracts. They speak as so-called democrats. This cannot be the basis of rights and liberties. Killing people cannot be considered to be a part of the rights and liberties in this country.'
As is clear, Erdogan is constructing a language based on violence, revenge and retribution so as to stir up the masses. He is pointing to the Kurdish politicians as targets, and legitimating the war against Kurdish national demands.
This policy that leads to Erdogan's belligerent language is seriously dismaying to the Kurds. Street demonstrations that continue in many provinces and districts of Kurdistan are clear expressions of their concern. Besides, its political expression is reflected onto the final report of the extraordinary session of DTK General Committee.
The report states that:
'The AKP government, which does not evaluate but sabotages and even insults the meetings conducted with Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, and turns a blind eye to the PKK's ceasefire is getting increasingly reckless and revealing more of its murderous face. This is the manner in which their attitudes towards democratic resistance activities and democratic solution tents have been determined. The AKP front has not demonstrated any attitudes other than diversion and deception in the last nine years, against the extraordinary democratic endeavours of the Kurdish liberation movement for a democratic resolution. Military operations in the last month claimed 30 lives, and around a thousand of our people have been arrested. Due to this situation, the AKP ceased to be a party to a resolution of the Kurdish question, and has lost its political legitimacy in the presence of Kurdish people'.
These statements demonstrate the tendency of Kurdish people to regard the Turkish public opinion as the respondents as opposed to the Ankara hegemony represented by the AKP. It appears that from now on Kurdish civilian politics will convey its messages to democratic public opinion living in this land instead of to Ankara.
It is clear that the powers of democracy that converge upon the idea of Democratic Turkey, Autonomous Kurdistan shall be the respondents for any decisions of Kurdish politics, instead of the Ankara regime that is based on denial and prohibition and whose power is derived from the fascistic 12th September Constitution.
Translation by Kurdish Info
Regarding the Kurdish question that is as old as the republic itself as deriving from the refusal to grant rights, Erdogan finds it hard to grasp even the demands for universal rights of the Kurds as a nation. It can even be said that he does not understand them. The fact is that the Kurdish struggle to demand national rights is disrupting Erdogan's calculations. However, the Prime Minister may find the Kurdish question serious enough to sink underneath as he assumes that he can make the Kurds dependent on him through the cheap political rhetoric of claiming the question.
Erdogan, who cannot even manage his own democratization project due to the political incompetence caused by his nationalism despite the bona fide encouragement of Kurdish people, has now come to reject the democratization that has been made possible thanks to the intervention of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on two occasions.
This is the reason for Erdogan's current attempt to construct a discourse; it is concerned with collecting votes. It is possible upon close scrutiny of Erdogan's purpose in claiming that 'there is no such thing as a Kurdish question, but my Kurdish brothers have problems' as an answer to Ocalan, who is being held captive on Imrali Island. With this claim, Erdogan is emphasizing that he is not prepared to recognize the national collective rights of the Kurds that have been crystallized in the Road Map by Ocalan. The Prime Minister is responding to Ocalan's insistent demands for 'national rights of the Kurds' by trying to limit the issue to individual rights. As a result, Erdogan is waging a war against the model of Democratic Autonomous Kurdistan, which is attracting great interest in Kurdistan. He is thus interfering with the negotiations that he claims not to have entered in order to be able to pre-empt any possible agreements.
Moreover, moving from point to point, he is responding to a politician who has had his right to respond muzzled and who communicates with the public under conditions of extreme restrictions and only through his lawyers.
Erdogan is not proposing anything in response to the Kurdish demands for national rights other than violence for which his strengthens are the coalition and relations with the Turkish Armed Forces. He made decisions reminiscent of quasi-war declarations through the MGK (National Security Council). He is demonstrating a much more belligerent attitude by evaluating the religious service of Kurdish Muslims in their language as 'divisiveness', than the time of national chief Ismet Inonu when the Quran was forcefully Turkified. He has been attacking religion and targeting people with a primitive nationalism.
A short while ago, Ocalan was saying during a meeting with his lawyers that they have reached an agreement on some of the issues with the committee that visited him in Imrali, but he has been unable to convince AKP government. In this meeting, he was also interpreting the government's attitude on the issue while explaining that AKP wants to sabotage the negotiations. This also clearly shows that Erdogan is targeting Ocalan in his recent statements. Erdogan is fighting Ocalan who has caught him red-handed.
Erdogan's purpose with this attitude is to drag the Kurdish opposition outside the democratic field and thus descend into war. The Prime Minister who lost his ability to engage in politics in the democratic field hopes that the chaotic and critical situation of a war will help him. This is why emotive discourse is dominating his language. In this way, he is also trying to conceal the state-led systematic violence.
I'd like to quote a part of Erdogan's speech in Osmaniye meeting while repercussions of the bodies of PKK guerrillas in Dersim, who had been massacred, had been continuing throughout Kurdistan.
'We have set out in our white shirts, laying down not our hands or bodies but our lives. We have never bowed to the perfidious assaults of traitors, cowards and villains. Sooner or later, we will find those traitors one by one as well as their motivators or owners, and bring them to account for the blood of our martyrs.
'Assaults on our party organizations throughout Turkey as well as the Molotov cocktails are not coincidences. Prior to 12th June elections some people are targeting the context of democratic freedom by spreading terror, setting fire to the streets, and shooting the security powers. It is clear that these are carried out to order and are sub-contractors. They are acting in accordance with their contracts. They speak as so-called democrats. This cannot be the basis of rights and liberties. Killing people cannot be considered to be a part of the rights and liberties in this country.'
As is clear, Erdogan is constructing a language based on violence, revenge and retribution so as to stir up the masses. He is pointing to the Kurdish politicians as targets, and legitimating the war against Kurdish national demands.
This policy that leads to Erdogan's belligerent language is seriously dismaying to the Kurds. Street demonstrations that continue in many provinces and districts of Kurdistan are clear expressions of their concern. Besides, its political expression is reflected onto the final report of the extraordinary session of DTK General Committee.
The report states that:
'The AKP government, which does not evaluate but sabotages and even insults the meetings conducted with Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, and turns a blind eye to the PKK's ceasefire is getting increasingly reckless and revealing more of its murderous face. This is the manner in which their attitudes towards democratic resistance activities and democratic solution tents have been determined. The AKP front has not demonstrated any attitudes other than diversion and deception in the last nine years, against the extraordinary democratic endeavours of the Kurdish liberation movement for a democratic resolution. Military operations in the last month claimed 30 lives, and around a thousand of our people have been arrested. Due to this situation, the AKP ceased to be a party to a resolution of the Kurdish question, and has lost its political legitimacy in the presence of Kurdish people'.
These statements demonstrate the tendency of Kurdish people to regard the Turkish public opinion as the respondents as opposed to the Ankara hegemony represented by the AKP. It appears that from now on Kurdish civilian politics will convey its messages to democratic public opinion living in this land instead of to Ankara.
It is clear that the powers of democracy that converge upon the idea of Democratic Turkey, Autonomous Kurdistan shall be the respondents for any decisions of Kurdish politics, instead of the Ankara regime that is based on denial and prohibition and whose power is derived from the fascistic 12th September Constitution.
Translation by Kurdish Info
