Kurdish schools: An eclipse of reason?
The resolution process maintains its utmost importance; however, the KCK does not stop its actions of protest. The KCK, which is the Kurdistan Communities Union, is the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Several armed acts that do not qualify as “terror,” raiding construction sites, kidnappings, blocking roads and torching schools are in full flow.
The final act that was staged to show that the KCK’s authority is valid, not the legitimate constitutional authority, a school in Kurdish education was opened without following legal procedures.
Trying to change current laws is one thing, “not recognizing” them is another. More importantly, in the school they have opened, Turkish is offered as an elective course. There is no autonomous region in the world, not even a federative system where the common language is marginalized as an “elective.”
If the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) politicians who support the action cite me an example, then I would be enlightened. This stance against the common language is an attack on the thought of co-habitation.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said the resolution process has strengthened the feeling of “belonging to citizenship” among our Kurdish citizens. This is correct for the majority of our Kurdish citizens who are not separatists, but have demands.
The nationalist Kurdish movement led by the PKK-KCK however, is not becoming any more democratic as democracy advances; on the contrary, it is pulling its demands constantly higher, escalating the feeling of clashes and disintegration.
This is a typical separatist nationalist stance. The Balkan nationalisms used to be like that. Every reform introduced in the 19th century for a peaceful solution, the “improvements” in the language of the time, were regarded as an opportunity by Balkan resistance movements to escalate the conflict; no solution was able to be found; everybody suffered disasters because of that.
Being intertwined
Contrary to the thick walls created by different religions in the Balkans, belonging to the same religion has intertwined Turks and Kurds for centuries, have bonded them to a great extent. Even Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, did not accept the migration of the Gagauz who were Christians, genuine Turks speaking Turkish with an Anatolian accent. But he opened the doors wide to Balkan Muslims who did not speak Turkish; because harmony would have been much easier.
During the republican era, unfortunately there was denial of identity, but no apartheid and isolation. Our Kurdish citizens settled everywhere in the country freely. As transportation and urbanization developed, we intertwined more; we had more intermarriage…
One of the leading individuals of the Kurdish movement, Hatip Dicle, in an interview to Hüseyin Yayman from daily Vatan said Kurds and Arabs lived in separate areas in Iraq, whereas in Turkey they were interlaced, Kurds lived everywhere in Turkey and there cannot be any separation.
It is time now to see what major disasters the constant agitation of separatist nationalist feelings may lead to before the historic, sociologic and more importantly before the extraordinary intertwinement of today.
We have all lived through the heavy armed clashes in the 1990s. Now, since the resolution process is ongoing, wise Kurdish politicians should raise their voices against these provocative acts of the PKK and KCK.
If the place of resolution is the Parliament, then why are there these violent acts in the mountains, roads, sites, streets and schools?
Can there be any other explanation for this other than a totalitarian and separatist eclipse of reason?