By Sami Tan
The long-awaited framework law has finally been submitted to the Turkish Grand National Assembly. It was approved by 467 votes. Now it awaits the approval of the state’s security institutions. A close reading of the text reveals that it has been carefully drafted according to the interests of the current Turkish government. Its primary aim is the disarmament of the PKK. National rights of the Kurds are set aside. There is no serious provision concerning democratisation in Turkey either. Some claim this is only a first step and that, under Article 7 of the parliamentary report, a second law on democratic rights will follow. So far, nothing concrete or binding has been presented.
Why has the process taken this shape? Because the current power lacks both the will and the capacity to open the road to real democracy. If it did, it would be swept away by the very wave of democratisation it unleashed. In Turkey and in Northern Kurdistan several distinct camps exist: the religious-conservative camp, the Kemalist camp, the nationalist-racist camp, and the Kurdish camp.
The socialist forces today do not possess the strength to become an independent mass force. Some therefore lean toward the Kurds, others toward the Kemalists. Because the socialist movement largely remains an intellectual current, it tends to want to lead its chosen camp with its own ideas. The Kurds have, over several decades, become an independent political force. Yet the dominant system still refuses to recognise this reality.
These camps are of course not homogeneous. Inside each of them there are differences, contradictions and shifting alliances. Some groups change position according to circumstances. Parts of the religious camp include Kurds; some Alevi Kurds occasionally lean toward the Kemalists. When the subject turns to the Kurds and their rights, almost every Turkish camp reveals a nationalist and rejectionist face.
Internal Kurdish debates and strategy
The Kurdish camp itself is neither uniform nor united. A certain chaos currently reigns among Kurdish intellectuals regarding this process. Many Kurdish circles direct their sharpest criticism at the dominant Kurdish force. Lacking the capacity to build a genuine national front of their own, they attack and insult the Apoist movement instead.
Rather than addressing the millions of Kurds who still support the colonial order, they call on organised Kurds to abandon their organisations and join the ranks of “nationalist” Kurds. Yet no such coherent alternative movement exists. In their view, it would be better for Kurds to stay at home than to support the Apoist movement.
Those leading the current process on the Kurdish side, for their part, appear more attentive to Turkish reactions than to Kurdish demands. There are two main reasons. First, the Turkish nationalist camp is deeply rooted in Turkish society; it can express its anger quickly and can also influence Kurdish actors. Second, Kurdish actors — and Abdullah Öcalan in particular — still believe that Kurds will listen to their calls and will not show disrespect. Yet a glance at social media reveals that a section of Kurds (or people posing as Kurds) have abandoned every moral standard. Their language is full of insults and aggression.
Those who attack the process leaders most fiercely lack the capacity to gather people around themselves, to build a real national front, or to exert pressure so that national demands are placed higher on the agenda. They content themselves with curses and insults. In doing so, they damage Kurdish unity.
Future paths: Independence vs. equal coexistence
In the end, two paths remain open to the Kurds. The first is the path of independence — a difficult road. The current actors, after a forty-year war that did not produce the outcome many Kurdish nationalists had hoped for, are not in a position to organise Kurdish society for that goal. The second path is the one the Apoist movement has chosen: to build a shared life based on equality with other peoples. Yet the codes of Turkish society make such a shared life extremely difficult. Many Turks, if they cannot eliminate the Kurds, would still prefer separation over equality.
A genuine shared and equal life requires a balance of power. In their present condition the Kurds remain weak. Kurdish feelings and political consciousness must become at least as strong as those of the Turks — and preferably stronger. Kurds must defend their language, culture and identity with greater determination. Only through their own organised strength can they force the Turkish state to abandon its assimilationist policies. For that, Kurdish freedom-seekers must organise themselves in every sphere of life.
