AYSEL TUGLUK-THE EMBODIMENT OF PERVERSITY IN KURDISH NATIONALISM
Globe Political Desk – By Behrooz Shojai

Kurdish Aspect, CO
June 14 2007

Taking aim at a recent article by the co-leader of the DTP, the author
states that labeling the Sèvres Treaty as a societal grief for Kurds is
"distorting Kurdish history and depriving it of its legitimacy."

Aysel Tugluk, co-leader of the allegedly pro-Kurdish Democratic
Society Party in Turkey, recently suggested in an article in the
Turkish newspaper Radikal new and astonishing perspectives for a
solution of the Kurdish question in Turkey. Her solution has not only
amazed the Kurds, but also surprised the Turkish leftist Kemalists,
because she surpasses devoted Kemalists in her allegiance to Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. I would like to
quote a segment of her article:

With the occupation of Iraq, the imperialists’ policies towards
Kurds has been intensified, along which the trauma of Sèvres Treaty
has once again arisen. The Kurds should be sincere; the solution
can be achieved only when the frontiers of the "National Pact" are
indisputably protected!

By "intensified," she means that Kurds, particularly southern Kurds,
are marionettes of the imperialists; i.e., Americans. It also follows
that the Kurds did not have any struggles or aspirations for those
achievements they have now in the south. It is, in accordance with
her leftist ideological perversion, simply a big conspiracy against
the people of Iraq, if not Turkey, because later in the article she
argues that even Northern Iraq (the official Turkish terminology for
Kurdistan Region) is part of the so-called National Pact, a terminology
minted at the time when the Republic was founded after the defeat
of the Ottoman Empire. Hence, what happens here is inevitably of
primary interest for Turkey, but labeling this part of the country
as part and parcel of the National Pact means that she joins the
Turkish military chief’s nostalgia for the great Ottoman Empire,
within which the wilayet of Musul (southern Kurdistan) was included.

Above all, indisputably protecting the frontiers of the National Pact
not only implies the physical boundaries of the Republic, but also the
notion of the Turkish unitary state- the core principle of Kemalism:
one nation, one culture, one language and one flag. She confirms
her unconstrained belief in this pact by frequently mentioning the
"Turkish society."

For her, the Sèvres Treaty constitutes a trauma in the spirit of the
Turkish nation, pointing out that "the societal grief is still alive
with the memory of the Sèvres trauma." Nota bene that this treaty gave
the Kurds the rights to establish their state in the aftermath of the
Ottoman Empire collapse in 1919. For the Kurdish national movement,
it has been a frequent event to refer to as historical legitimacy. For
Kemalists and Turkish nationalists, and of course for Aysel Tugluk,
it is a historical grief for the Turkish nation!

Labeling Sèvres as a societal grief for Kurds is distorting Kurdish
history and depriving it of its legitimacy. The Sèvres Treaty was
perhaps an obstacle against the aggressive expansionist Turkish
nationalism, but it was a minimum for the recognition of the right
of sovereignty for dispossessed peoples like Kurds and Armenians.

Let alone the Sèvres, blinking at the just cause of the south, she
indecently is labeling it as a conspiracy initiated by imperialists!

She urges the Kurds to be sincere because the solution is, as
she argues, within the absolute protection of the frontiers of the
National Pact. Kurds have probably been very sincere in their just
cause, hence their seriousness when they suffered the deaths of their
young daughters and sons in the mountains, when their people were
tortured in prisons and gratuitously killed by their antagonists, and
when their villages were leveled to the ground. Every Kurdish patriot
should have a good conscience, because the Kurdish national movement
has never had any territorial claims on other people’s lands; it has
seldom been offensive and gone beyond the geographical boundaries of
Kurdistan. Regardless of their success or shortcomings, the Kurdish
national movement has been of the defensive nature on Kurdish soil.

In the history of the Kurdish national movement, there has never been
any expansionist discourse.

Ms. Tugluk is frequently mentioning the National Pact and rational
solutions; anything beyond that would be irrational and irrealist.

Thus, the rational and realist solution should be shaped within
the Kemalist National Pact. We know, Aysel Tugluk knows, and all
Kemalists know that there is no solution for Kurdish national rights
within the Turkish National Pact, because the National Pact has an
exclusive discourse based on the supremacy of the Turkish ethnicity,
Turkish language and Turkish culture, steadfast in the sanctuary
of the Turkish political borders. Simply expressed, what Tugluk
is offering is nothing beyond what Kurds have in Turkey now, i.e.,
some limited folkloristic exemptions for jingle-jangle.

What Kurds in the north have now would have come eventually due to
globalization. The suffering of the Kurds, particularly in the north,
was not for this petty achievement, this folkloristic reality. They
had and they still have a greater cause, a just cause, for their
human dignity and human rights and liberties. These rights cannot
be achieved without power, since the notions of rights/liberties and
power are closely interconnected. The right and liberty to be a Kurd
implies the expression of national identity. It follows that this
national identity should be steadfast in the country’s Constitution,
and the only way to be that is to share the power/sovereignty with
the Turks. Of course, it would be in contravention with the notion
of the Turkish National Pact, and Tugluk is aware of that.

Aysel Tugluk is offering perpetual Turkish supremacy over the Kurds,
who have been marginalized, dispossessed and deprived of their
dignity. Amazingly, she is supposed to advocate Kurdish rights. If she
represents the logic of the Kurdish national movement in the north,
then I have to qualify her as the embodiment of perversity of the
Kurdish nationalism in the north. It reminds me of Stockholm syndrome,
a mental illness in which victims become sympathetic to their captors.

The Kurdish intelligentsia, as the conscience of Kurdish people in the
north, should be committed to the just cause of the Kurdish national
movement. Their commitment, therefore, should be expressed through
a genuine solution based on human rights. Unfortunately, there is
not a single page of an abstract concerning the framework of such a
solution. The Kurdish intelligentsia in the north and of course in
Great Kurdistan is responsible for the emergence of personalities
like Aysel Tugluk, and Aysel Tugluk is a warning signal for the Kurds.

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