IT’S ABOUT TIME TURKS COME TO TERMS WITH THEIR PAST AND PRESENT
Rauf Naqishbendi, a software engineer in San Francisco Bay Area.
American Chronicle, CA
rticle.asp?articleID=40953
Oct 23 2007
Recently, two major issues have haunted Turkey. First, their impatience
to intrude militarily into Kurdistan in northern Iraq, and second,
the passing of two nonbinding resolutions by the United States Senate:
one in support of partitioning Iraq into three autonomous states,
and the other an acknowledgment that the World War I-era killings of
Armenians by Turks were genocide. The confluence of these has resulted
in widespread irrationality on the part of the Turks.
Sensible nations support their neighbors in the spirit of economic
cooperation and to promote national security in their region; they know
that turmoil in neighboring countries can drive waves of refugees over
their borders, and chaos could spill over into their country. But this
guiding principle clashed with the insensible Turkish government. The
case in point is the Kurds in Iraq, a young democratic nation that
has proven to the world that they are by far more democratic than
any other nation in the Muslim world. Turks begrudge this and make
every attempt to dampen this achievement by inciting chaos; Turkish
authorities daily threaten military intrusion into Iraqi Kurdistan. The
crazy thing is they are pursuing their arrogant aims at the cost of
alienation from the world community, their own self-destruction and
a major catastrophe for Mesopotamia.
For nearly a century, the Turks’ have shown extreme intolerance of
Kurds, not only the twenty million Kurds in their country (one-third
of Turkey’s population), but also Kurds in neighboring countries.
They are determined to liquidate the Kurds or at a minimum
disenfranchise them of their national and human rights.
For more than a century, Turks denied the existence of Kurds in
Turkey and instead labeled them "mountainous Turks". This went on
until the birth of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (known as the P.K.K)
and the recent rise of the Iraqi Kurds as an undisputed democratic
nation. Turks then changed their tune and claimed that an autonomous
or independent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq would entice their
Kurdish population (that they had always previously denied existed)
to demand the same. These circumstances forced Turks to admit the
existence of Kurds in Turkey. Did it ever cross the Turks’ mind that
they should apologize for their past and present atrocities against
Kurds? The answer is nay for Turks have no sense of humility; instead
they exonerate themselves, presenting poor and ugly justifications.
They only deceive themselves; the rest of the world knows the truth.
The aforementioned bigotry has been incorporated into Turkey’s law
through a constitutional declaration stating that every citizen
of Turkey is a Turk, robbing over twenty million Kurds of their
natural identity, and justifying their deprivation from the rights
of citizens. They have abandoned their language in public, official
and media sectors, and further hindered their rights to practice
their culture.
For every act of suppression and human rights abuse a sense of
indignation arises, sometimes in a peaceful manner and in extreme
cases, when civilized dialogue fails, with bloody resistance
to equalize the violent crimes committed. This is exactly the
situation for the Kurds in Turkey. First they pled for an equitable
system of social and economic justice in Turkey and their innocent,
peaceful demands were rebuked by a violent wave of mass arrests and
incarcerations by the Turkish authorities. They then had no choice
but to resign themselves to an armed struggle led by the P.K.K. Now
Turks are calling the P.K.K terrorists as if they were the ones who
started the conflict and ignore the fact that the P.K.K would never
have born if it weren’t for the terrorist system of government and
people of Turkey.
History shows us that when nations carried their bigotry to extremes,
they brought ruin to others and self-destruction on themselves.
Violence breeds revenge and revenge brings about a deep-seated
resentment. In most instances bigotry is engendered by a vigorous
self-pride and so often is unsubstantiated, as is the case with the
Turks. Their bigotry is not limited to Kurds – Armenians, Assyrian
Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks all lament their bitter experiences at
the hands of Turkish rulers. Is the whole world wrong except for the
Turks? They killed one and a half million Armenians and Assyrians
because they didn’t resemble Turks and were Christians.
Unfortunately, the problem is not only the Turks who have engaged
in human rights violations for so long and against so many nations,
but also the other nations of the world who have remained aloof and
let the Turks go as far as they have gone. It is time for the world
to act on behalf of humanity and hinder further Turkish human abuses.
So often so little can be given and so much can be achieved if
obstinacy is overcome. Recognizing the rights of the Kurdish minority
in Turkey will bring peace, more security to Turkey, and will enhance
the public image of Turkey. If Turks were to confess their past wrongs
toward Armenians, it would make them by far more respectable than their
current precarious stand. Turks could elevate themselves from their low
standing to a higher ground of respectability if they desired. Do they?
It is well understood that no nation can destroy another without
going down with them. Turks would do much better if they didn’t let
their self-pride blind them to reality. However, if they continue in
their current path, they will burn themselves in the flames of their
own anger and hatred, and thus have no one to blame but themselves.
Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for Kurdishmedia.com
and the American Chronicle and has written Op/Ed pages for the Los
Angeles Times. He has just completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden
Of The Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his experience and the
subsequent 1988 bombing of his hometown with chemical and biological
weapons by Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people’s suffering.