ETHNIC TENSIONS IN TURKEY CONTINUING TO ESCALATE
By Gareth Jenkins
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Oct 29 2007
Over a week after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed 12
Turkish soldiers when they overran a military outpost in Daglaci,
close to Turkey’s border with Iraq, (see EDM, October 22), nationalist
anger inside Turkey not only shows no sign of abating but appears
to be becoming ever more aggressive. Unless some way can be found to
defuse the tensions, there is now a real danger of ethnic clashes and
racist violence. Turkey is no stranger to ethnic violence, pogroms,
and racist killings. In January 2007, Turkish-Armenian Hrant Dink
was shot dead in a racist attack. In April 2007 three Christians
in the southeastern city of Malatya had their throats cut. However,
violence has traditionally been directed against religious rather than
ethnic minorities. But in recent years a combination of granting –
mainly as the result of pressure from the EU — greater cultural
rights to Turkey’s Kurdish minority and the continuing violence of
the PKK has resulted in a discernible increase in racism against
Kurds. Such sentiments have, in turn, been exacerbated by the Kurds’
greater self-confidence. Twenty years ago Turkey’s Kurds did not
officially exist and even speaking Kurdish risked arrest. Today,
not only can Kurds openly express their ethnic identity but, as a
result of mass migration from the impoverished predominantly Kurdish
provinces of southeast Turkey to the metropolises in the west of
the country, it is now commonplace to hear Kurdish being spoken on
the streets of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya. The result for
Turkish nationalists has been an increasing siege mentality. For
the Turkish middle-classes, ethnic prejudices have been compounded
by social snobbery, as the Kurdish they hear tends to be spoken by
manual laborers working on the roads and construction sites. For lower
income groups, who have yet to derive any real benefit from the recent
impressive growth in Turkey’s gross national product, the Kurds are a
convenient scapegoat for their own poverty. Since the recent upsurge
in PKK attacks, which have killed nearly more than 40 members of the
security forces in less than a month, Turkish nationalist anger has
begun to be directed not just against the PKK but also against Kurds
in general. Although several Turkish newspapers published details of
attacks by nationalist mobs on Kurdish-owned businesses in Bursa on
October 22 (see EDM, October 23), an article in the liberal daily
Radikal suggests that in recent weeks such racist attacks have not
only become much more widespread but are going largely unreported in
the Turkish media (Radikal, October 28). Government spokesman Cemil
Cicek issued a statement calling on Turks to prevent their grief
and anger at the deaths of Turkish soldiers from becoming violent,
even explicitly reminding them of past pogroms against Christians and
members of the heterodox Alevi community (NTV, CNNTurk, October 29).
General Yasar Buyukanit, the chief of the Turkish General Staff,
has also called for restraint. However, in an official statement
issued on October 28 in advance of the celebration of Republic Day on
October 29, which is the official anniversary of the founding of the
Turkish Republic in 1923, Buyukanit promised: "We shall make those
who have caused us suffering to suffer even more" (Sabah, Vatan,
Milliyet, Hurriyet, October 29). Although it was undoubtedly not his
intention, there are many in Turkey who will have interpreted his
words as being directed not just against the PKK but also against
Kurds in general. Expectations that the demonstrations and protest
marches that followed the October 21 attack would gradually decline
have proved unfounded. On October 27 hundreds of thousands of Turks
staged anti-PKK demonstrations across the country, including an
estimated 300,000 in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri (Radikal,
Milliyet, Vatan, October 28). On October 28, the annual Eurasian
Marathon in Istanbul turned into a nationalist rally as thousands of
runners carried Turkish flags and chanted anti-PKK slogans (Vatan,
Hurriyet, Sabah, October 29). At times the mood has become almost
hysterical. During an anti-PKK rally in the Mediterranean resort of
Bodrum, one of the protestors turned up with his dog, both of which
were wearing tee shirts with "Turk" written on them. The protestor’s
intention appears to have been to affirm his dog’s nationalist
credentials. But after a furious reaction from the Turkish press,
the local governor has ordered the man’s arrest and prosecution on
charges of insulting the Turkish nation by suggesting that it was
a dog (Vatan, October 29). Many Kurds have been so alarmed by the
possibility of becoming victims of ultranationalist violence that
they have hung Turkish flags from their homes and workplaces (Radikal,
October 28). However, hard-line supporters of the PKK are refusing to
be cowed. On the evening of October 28, 60-100 PKK supporters clashed
with police in the Sisli neighborhood of Istanbul (NTV, CNNTurk,
October 29). Although the demonstration was relatively small, there
are concerns that, if and when Turkey launches a cross-border military
operation into northern Iraq, PKK supporters in cities inside Turkey
will attempt to stage violent protests that could, in turn, trigger
an even more violent Turkish nationalist response.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
