THE AKP IN FRONT OF THE "KURDISH TABOO"
By Marie-Mediya Badini
Kurdish Globe
Friday, 03 July 2009, 11:34 EDT
A masked demonstrator, with a DTP flag in the background, flashes a
V sign during a protest in Istanbul May 24, 2009. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
After calmer times, the Kurdish issue resurfaced today as part of
the great domestic policy adjustment that shapes Turkey.
Kept in the dark–in a safe quarantine for reconciling the conflicting
interests of competing powers–the Kurdish issue constitutes one of
the great taboos of the Republic. Since the 1920s, Kurds have indeed
regularly served as an outlet for political violence, social and
military endemic in a country seeking stability.
It is now feared that the resumption of PKK (Kurdistan Workers>
Party) operations on Turkish territory might lead the country into
a new spiral of conflict. Several parameters, however, had followed
a positive way since the early 2000s: The military truce following
the arrest of Abdullah Ocalan in 1999 opened the possibility of
a pacific and civil resolution of this problem. We are moreover
facing a Turkey and an EU that are moving closer together, leading
to a significant progress in advancing minority rights. Finally,
the AKP, in power from 2002, advocates an approach apparently without
taboos to the Kurdish question. Since its inception the AKP, a priori
traditionalist in terms of morals, inaugurates a new political style
and literary attack the principal Turkish taboos. The Kurdish question
is now almost openly discussed in Turkey in all its complexity and
with all its contradictions, which obviously delays the emergence of
a peaceful new synthesis.
The Kurdish question, beyond the safe handling Since the founding
of the Kemalist Republic, the Kurds have been driven into silence in
Turkish politics. The centralizer process of assimilation, considered
essential to the delivery of a homogenous Turkish national identity,
has never reached its goal, between marginalization and revolts of
a Kurdish community attached to its identity. "Minority" represents
about 20% of the population; it is not recognized in its specificity by
the Treaty of Lausanne, which, established in 1924, awards protective
status to Armenians, Greeks and Jews as the only official minorities,
a legacy of a residual Ottoman Empire.
The conflict between the guerrillas of the PKK and the Turkish army
has caused the death of almost 30,000 people and the displacement of
400,000 Kurds between 1984 and 1999. Istanbul has become the first
Kurdish town of Turkey, and the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts
concentrate significant Kurdish populations. The Kurdish question
has become a national issue in the territorial sense of the word.
The international dimension of the problem also tends to be
complex. Turkey concentrates almost half of the Kurds dispersed in the
Middle East; the other stands are situated in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The
fear of Kurdish secessionism is one aspect of the "Sèvres syndrome"
persisting in some circles of the Turkish power. The consolidation
of Iraqi Kurds’ autonomy concerns more particularly the Turkish
military, which fears that Iraqi Kurdistan might encourage revolts
among Kurds in Turkey. The guerrillas of the PKK have effectively
established their bases in Iraq, where they now conduct increasingly
frequent operations, causing deaths in Turkey. At the same time,
the Turkish Air Force occasionally bombs the positions of the PKK in
Iraq. Another international component, Kurdish emigration in Western
Europe, explained by both political and economic factors, has for
a long time complicated the agenda of Turkish governments. Between
700,000 and 1 million Kurds live in Europe–two-t!
hirds reside in Germany, mostly of Turkish nationality. These Kurdish
migrant communities are highly politicized, and have been active
since the 1980s in seeking recognition of their rights in Turkey. The
challenge here for the Turks is not only strategic–the PKK finds
strong support in these immigrant communities–but also of image,
as Turkey is described among European opinions as a country violating
fundamental natural rights.
A strictly safe treatment of the Kurdish question in Turkey has
prevailed throughout the internal clashes between the PKK and the
army. Breaking the Kurdish taboo would today mean that the problem
can and should be treated differently by the Turkish state, in
all its dimensions, including political. In this sense, the return
of peace after 1999 provides an initial development of the topic:
There is then a start of recognition of cultural rights of Kurds,
along with the European vocation of Turkey.
The Kurdish effect on the local elections of March 2009 The relaxed
atmosphere prevailing at the beginning of 2009 has authorized a series
of symbolic transgressions that can measure the traveled distance. The
ambience of the campaign for the local elections of March 29 could
almost make people expect the emergence of a "Kurdish spring."
The Kurds have for a long time been the scapegoat of the traditional
parties in Turkey when these latter were conducting their campaigns. In
2007, the nationalist party Milliyetci Hareket Partisi(MHP) still
claimed the restoration of the death penalty–abolished in 2002–for
Abdullah Ocalan, and advocated military intervention against the Kurds
in northern Iraq. The contrast is striking when, in February 2009,
Tayyip Erdoðan himself ventured to pronounce a sentence in Kurdish
in a meeting in Diyarbakýr and affirmed to the Kurds that they are
"first-class citizens." These rhetorical gifts undoubtedly encouraged
Ahmet Turk, one of the leaders of the Kurdish Nationalist Party DTP
(Democratic Society Party), to express himself in Kurdish a few days
later at the National Assembly. Public television that was broadcasting
the session simply muted the sound; in 1991, the same weapon cost Leyla
Zana 15 years imprisonment by Ankara State Security Court. Other times,
other morals?
We know that the local elections in March have been a semi-failure
for the AKP: Even though the party had won the elections with 39% of
the votes, we are far from the achievement of the year 2007 (46.6%)
and of the results of the previous municipal elections (41.6% in
2004). Some in this election see already the end of the "AKP time,"
with this failed national test for a Prime Minister that is always
in search of plebiscitary legitimization. These elections have been
particularly marked by the disaffection of the Kurdish electorate that
voted overwhelmingly for the AKP in the previous elections. This time,
the DTP, campaigning on an ethno-nationalist basis, made a remarkable
breakthrough, doubling the number of municipalities it controls in
comparison to 2004’s position, preventing the AKP from taking hold
of the symbolic bastion that it aimed at taking: Diyarbakýr.
After a strengthening campaign that had revealed logrolling practices
widely attacked by the opposition, the AKP has been caught red-handed
distributing washing machines and refrigerators to Tunceli (also known
as Dersim) voters; the election results show that the popularity of
the governing body is declining in the Kurdish regions. The personal
factor and clan solidarity have obviously played a crucial role in many
localities. The DTP has also worked on its image of a unified party,
having survived from the waves of repression that had carried away the
precedent Kurdish parties. It has to be remembered that the party is
fragile in respect to several points. The 20 deputies that have been
elected in 2007 as independent candidates to overcome the election
barrier of 10% at the Parliament decided then to come together on an
ethnic basis. After some hidden and unfinished negotiations during
the 2007 campaign, any political rapprochement at all between the
DTP and the AKP seems !
to have become not viable. The DTP, which has refused to publicly
condemn the PKK’s activities, is constantly accused of following ethnic
separatist principles, and is regarded as "a home to prejudicial
activities to the independence of the State and to its indivisible
unity."
The AKP and the Kurds, a strategy of co-optation Electoral gains of
the DTP have unmistakably pointed out the boundaries of AKP’s Kurdish
policy. The Kurdish issue has indeed received special treatment from
a governing body determined to challenge the traditional points of
reference of Turkish political life. However, the Kurdish strategy
of the AKP reflects the doctrinal ambiguities of the party. Several
factors should have logically led the AKP on to the "ground of the
Kurds" and encouraged the party to try a new approach. The first
motivation refers as we just showed, to the electoral equation:
The AKP needs Kurdish votes to consolidate its influence on the
country. Islamist on a theoretical basis, the AKP has de facto all
the characteristics of a catch-all party. Since its creation, it has
always known how to expand its audience from a relatively popular
and conservative center-right, by having the support of the new
Anatolian bourgeoisie and by co-opting members of the Istanbulian
liberal elite. It had also gradually !
seduced a Kurdish electorate lacking of chronicle representation and
who is becoming less sensitive since the truce to radical political
claims of pro-Kurdish parties. It is vital to note that out of the
340 AKP deputies present at the current Assembly, 70 are of Kurdish
descent. To settle itself on the "Kurdish ground," the party made
sure in 2007 to recruit on its list Kurdish politicians tired of
local intrigue, but also civilian notabilities not involved yet in
any kind of political compromise.
The adoption of the EU agenda has also certainly pushed the AKP to
make the Kurdish issue less dramatic. Tayyip Erdoðan’s team has, in
such context, designed to enlist the Kurds a strategy based on three
pillars. First, economic development: Based upon the assumption that
territorial development differences and the miserable condition of
the Kurds are propitious to a perpetuation of endemic violence, the
government proposes to allocate an increasing part of the resources of
the Turkish state to the development of the southeast. On a political
stand, the AKP’s program pays particular attention to the role of
democratization, emphasizing how important the balance of power is–the
army must be kept away from politics–and on the necessity for real
equal rights for all Turkish citizens, including minorities. Concerning
the cultural aspect, the AKP pursues its predecessors with a policy
of gradual liberalization of the expression of Kurdish identity,
introducing nevertheless some!
important symbolic break. The launch of the national television Kurdish
TRT6 in January 2009 constitutes a big step toward recognition, even
if the programs seem relatively subjective and perhaps erode in some
way the audience of ROJ TV.
However, if to be precise, the political and cultural aspects of AKP’s
Kurdish policy are the ones appearing to be the most ambiguous. To
avoid flattering ethnic claims that could eventually drift to
secessionism, the political speech of the Prime Minister regularly
raises the religious sentiment of the Kurds, highlighting their
belonging to the Muslim community. The Islamization of the political
discourse has also been one of the main features of the last electoral
campaign, contaminating the DTP, whose genealogy is originally strictly
secular and Marxist: To reconquer a socially conservative electorate,
the Kurdish party has enlisted veiled women on its lists. The appeal
to religion as the basis of social and communitarian cohesion can
easily incite and fuel the suspicion of Neo-Ottomanism around the
AKP, a suspicion that has already been stimulated by the opposition
regarding other matters (including diplomacy). In fact, according to
some analysts, such an ideological pri!
sm might prohibit the correct and accurate solving of the Kurdish
problem: Caught between Kemalists and new Ottomans, Kurds now have
fewer chances to have their identity recognized officially and in a
peaceful way.
Can we avoid another skid?
Diplomacy certainly represents another important point vis-a-vis
the evolution of the Kurdish issue approach: After months of modest
progress, AKP’s team has officially taken steps and concerted Iraqi
Kurdish authorities. Both the appeasement at the borders and the
extension of the Turkish soft power in the Middle East constitute
the essential objectives for Turkey’s foreign policy according to
Ahmet Davutoðlu, the new Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs. The
rapprochement with Iraqi Kurdish authorities seems to be motivated
by economic interests–Turkish businessmen are increasingly present
on Iraqi territory, especially in the northern part–as well as
by strategic: Abdullah Gul has obtained from Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani, being a Kurd himself, and from the Prime Minister of the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Necîrvan Barzanî, mutual agreement
to disavow the PKK and cooperation aimed at its neutralization.
These steps are conditioned by some slight internal balances in
Turkey. The sensitivity of the Turkish army vis-a-vis the Kurdish
issue remains particularly difficult to accommodate. The government
therefore seems to be constrained by the lack of strong support as
well as by the heterogeneity of the popular coalition who support
the latter: The Kurdish issue may still be regulated at the margin,
between the requirements of extreme nationalists and of a militant
Islam that worries Europe. Rhetorical excesses made by the Prime
Minister regularly reveal the limits of the AKP’s intentions. Sometimes
a single speech is enough to bring things to a head: In saying loud
and clear in August 2008 in Diyarbakýr that Turkey is only about
"one nation, one flag, one state," and that "those who do not agree
with this principle are more than welcome to leave the country,"
Erdoðan stimulated the anger of the southeast, resulting in violent
riots and much concern at the national level. More g!
enerally, the effective implementation of cultural rights theoretically
acquired by Kurds in recent years tends to be controversial. The
European Union, which could be expected to put its head above the
parapet vis-a-vis the Kurdish issue, has in reality little control
over it and seems to be powerless to influence the political debate
in Turkey as negotiations of adhesion become bogged down.
The tragic incident that occurred in May 2009 in a village near Mardin
(this was a shooting at a marriage that caused 45 deaths) has again
drawn the Turkish public’s attention to the specific difficulties
of the region. Beyond the military dimension of the problem, the
difficulty of facing the Kurdish taboo seems to reveal the fragility of
the political and social pact in Turkey. If we adopt a more historical
perspective, we then understand that the co-optation of the Kurds is
not a new phenomenon, but once again the policy attempted by the AKP
has bumped into an intrinsic boundary: the refusal to accept a real
dose of multiculturalism, fearing to offend the feeling of nationalism
of the majority of the population.
Two essential "yards" for the Kurds should now appear on the agenda
to prove the AKP’s good faith to them. The first one is material: In
addition to a strategy of economic development, it must adequately
address the problem of refugees and the restitution of goods for
those who have suffered forced displacement during the internal
confrontations. The second project is purely political and has already
been mentioned: the constitutional reform that could consider the
introduction of a new definition of citizenship, based on the concepts
of multi-confessionality and multi-ethnicity.