Sherzad Omar Mahmud
In the simplest definition, Turkey is a country with a bad economic, political and social situation, this is because of its political system that have for many years have been apart from the people. Because of the Turkey’s massive internal problems and unwillingness to resolve them, she has always wanted to take external problems the news of the day to avert the Turkish public opinion and the international community’s attention from its internal problems. Once Turkey brought the Turkish-Bulgarian and Turkish-Cypriots issues into the media-light, and this served the Turkish establishment well for some time, as it averted the Turkish public opinion from the internal political, social and economical problems. Then latter Turkish establishment used the Euphrates River as an excuse to start confrontational exchanges of language and gesture with Syria, lately Turkey used PKK and Ata-Turk, with this Turkey Establishment managed to hide the ongoing genocide that they were committing in the northern Kurdistan (South East of Turkey). The Kurdish cause is one of novel, all Kurds want is to be reconciled with their natural rights, a civil and political rights.
Iran have long supported the Turkish Islamic group ‘Hezbollah’, the Turkish media backed by the establishment used this issue for a long time – again Turkish elites managed to avert the Turkish public opinion from its internal problems. The Turkish media portrayed ‘Hezbollah’ as a terrorist organization that needs to be fought against for the Turkish public safety and security as well as for protecting the secular political system. The scenario of the Turkish disapproval of Iraq war was another tactic used by the Turkish establishment to rotate the Turkish and international public attention for the crimes Turkey has committed against its own Kurds and the Armenians. In this scenario Turkey wanted to say: ‘we are against wars and that we are peaceful’, while at the time Turkish army currying out military operations against its own Kurdish populations, living many Kurds death, injured and displaced. Therefore, Turkey managed to grip the Arab world’s feeling, with the aim of regenerating its dire economic and political relations with the Arab world, in this way Turkey managed to put an end to the long-hefty cloud over the Arab-Turkish relations, in which had emerged through the racism of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey managed to achieve its goal to a large extend. That is how Turkey managed to restore the good relations with Syria and even with Iran. Turkish support for the ‘Hezbollah’ during the war with Israel further enhanced the relations between the Turks and the Arab world, and between the Turks and the Shiite Muslims including Iran. Then Turkey instead of bowing to the European Union – redirected its policies towards the Arab world and the Muslim world, this made Turkey independent from EU.
From here, in particular EU and the West in generally, because of the threat of cold war between west and Middle East and in order to weaken Turkey used the Armenians genocide, this Achieved the western powers goal, as they managed to turn the Turkish policy towards its regional position, generally Turkey have been a totalitarian state, with its arm forces having always had the most power in the Turkish establishment. The foundation of the Turkish state is based on a brutal system. The system is entrenched and will not change whether ‘Islamist, capitalist or Marxists party to be in power.’ The point is Turkish political system is founded on a chauvinistic base. That is why one cannot be hopeful for reform and progress from the current ruling elites, and the history of Turkey bears of this fact. From the times of secular leaders of Ozel, Chilar, Arbakan, Yalmaz to the present day of Islamist Ordugan, Turkey have not changed, in particular towards its Kurdish question. Although, there is now talk of initiative called ‘Opening toward Kurds’ but I see this to be just another scenario that Turkey have used to deceive in particular the Kurdish population, and the larger Turkish and international public opinion. As it is evident the history of assimilation against the Kurdish population in Turkey is so deeply rooted that thousands of more similar projects may not avert the damage to the Kurdish identity in Turkey.
The so called ’opening towards Kurds’ initiative is just another tactic used by AKP to complete the assimilation of the Kurds in Turkey. The current linguistic and genocide of Kurds is not different from the genocide of Kurds in Darsim in 1930s.the aims of the initiative are to guarantee Turkish accession into European Union, while at the time continuing oppressing and assimilating its own Kurdish minority. Just a few days before the announcement of ‘opening towards Kurds’ Turkey and Israel signed a military protocol, in which resulted in a joint military exercise, then later Turkey bought several spying helicopter from Israel and Israel trained 200 Turkish military personal to use the advanced technologies. As is evident, the spying helicopters and the trained soldiers were and are used against the Kurds; this shows the joints on which Turkish and Israeli strategy to oppress Kurds. However, in order for Turkey to maintain a balance of friendship with the Arab world, on one hand, and Israel and the west on the other hand, she played a mediation role between Syria and Israel. But because all the Turkish-Israeli agreements are strategic Syria could not trust Turkey to be natural, hence the outcome of the negotiation bore no fruit. This made it apparent to Israel that Turkey is playing with side, Israel and the west on one side, and Syria the Arab world on the other side. As she wanted to continue receive military assistance and financial help from Israel and the West, and she also wanted to avoid upsetting the Arab and the Muslim world so that it can continue grow politically and economically at their expenses. The assault on the Turkish interior minister during a visit to Tal-Aviv and the hard exchange of languages between Turkish Prime Minister and Israeli’s president in Davos further damaged the long-established Turkish-Israeli relations. In recent years Turkey has the same confrontational and insulting gestures and languages through media. In recent years Turkey created several films and television serials in which showed the suffering of Palestinians in the hand of Israelis, while presenting Turkey as the greatest advocates of the Palestinians, and a brother of the Arab and Muslim world. From here on, the Turkish-Israeli relations almost completely broke, while the Turkish-Arab and the Turkish-Muslim world relations entered new stage. Furthermore, Turkey has become completely hopeless to become member of European Union. The changing tactics of Turkey towards Middle East is just another scenario that Turkey seeks to turn the Turkish public opinion from the massive domestic political, economic and social problems into foreign problems.
This shift in Turkish plan – turning from European Union towards the Arab world may achieve Turkish goal for temporarily, but again Turkey cannot hide its massive internal and external problems, and this may take Turkey into Unknown future, and that these problems could eventually explode. Some of the Turkey’s internal problems are: Turkish-Cyprian and Turkish-Bulgarian problems, standing issues with Greek over Sypris, the standing issues with Syria and Iraq over Euphrates River. The Islamic Hezbollah party in Turkey that have links with other unwanted parties and organizations throughout the world, The Kurdish question in Turkey, the Turkish problem with the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq, the Turkish-Syrian problem over 250,000 stateless Kurds in their borders, the Armenian genocide, the Russian hatred towards Turkey because of Turkish role during the cold war, the Alavi question in Turkey, political and organizational corruptions, economic recession and the Turkey’s deficit, the massive military expenditure in Turkey, the Arganacon mafia organization, the issue of head-scarves, the issue of other ethnic and religious minorities, human rights violation in Turkey, low standard of services, the issues of secularism and religion, and there are many more internal and/or external problems that may result in a sudden collapse of current political system. It can be said Turkey is nearing its golden age, and the massive domestic and external problems that has been climbing for several decades can explode at any moment, and that we can see the end of modern Turkey like the Ottoman Empire.
Patients use all the available medicine available to survive and now Turkey at the expenses of Israel have turned to the Arab world as the last resort for survival. But I think this medicine Turkey having is poisonous and could lose its live with taking it. Under the banner of ‘freedom and peace’ in the recent days, Turkey sent several ships full of goods and medicine to Gaza, while it was obvious to Turkey that Israel will refuse to let these ships to reach Gaza, but Turkey took the risk for the sake of implementation of its strategic plan – ‘To turn the Turkish and international public focus from its domestic problems to Palestine.’
Kurdish language was banded in Turkey until recently and still is forbidden to be used in the public institution in South Eastern Turkey were Kurds are majority. The Turkish public are well aware of the daily plight of the Kurds in Turkey: Kurds are killed, injured and arrested on a daily bases – these Kurds are Muslim; the Turkish military have been fighting a 20 million Muslim Kurds since the establishment of modern Turkey about century ago. Turkey is doing everything that it can to assimilate Kurds that over 90% of them are Muslim, I cannot understand why is the Turkish public are quite against this oppression of the Kurds in their own country but show sympathy towards foreign nation – donate millions of dollar for Palestine, but support the oppression of the Kurds by their authority. Until now the Turkish public have shown no sympathy for their oppressed Kurdish minority, until now not a single Turkish political party be it Islamic, Marxist, nationalist has shown sympathy towards the Kurdish question in Turkey, while the Turkish media have not shown the Kurdish severing but even they have been supportive of the military against the Kurds. In light of the massive domestic problems Turkey has, if the aim of the Turkish establishment’s sympathy for the Palestinian is not to take domestic problems abroad, then what is it?! Turkey should resolve its domestic problems before helping to resolve foreign nation (s). A Turkey that have been founded on a militaristic grounds and the oppression of its minorities, she cannot criticise Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Therefore, the Israeli establishment should help the Kurdish cause in Turkey, and understand that ‘only Kurds can be their strategic allay in Middle East is Kurds.’
Translated from Kurdish into English by Dlshad Amin