Posted on 02/07/2005 4:25:31 PM PST by chava
If Kurds are not free, Tayyip Erdogan will not be free either… 07 February 2005 KurdishMedia.com (Translated) By: Ahmet Altan
It seems as if it is very difficult for Turks to understand that they are not the only race on the face of the earth and that they do not hold the divine power to decide how life evolves.
Since they are not interested in their own recent past, they are not aware of where this chain of “unreasonable decisions” is dragging this country.
If they just read what was being said here before the Balkan war, maybe they could better understand what the curse of empty words can do to a society.
Just when it had started to look like things were improving a bit for Turkey, we faced the Kirkuk problem.
Led by the prime minister, there were such storms that even Zeus behaved more modestly compared to our guys when ruling the world from the Olympus Mountain.
Apparently, we do not want the establishment of a Kurdish state there.
Why exactly don’t we want that?
They give many reasons.
We are apparently protecting the rights of our ”kin” the Turkmen there.
Do our leaders ever question themselves?
Are we a society based on kinship? If that is the case, we are a nation built on the bond of blood. And anyone who is not a Turk cannot become our citizen.
But if we are to take our constitution seriously then we have to concede that what is important is not “kinship” but instead “citizenship”. If citizenship is important, how does one explain our exclusionary stance taken towards millions of our Kurdish citizens and their “kin” in Northern Iraq?
Wouldn’t taking the side of the “kin” of Turkish citizens, against the “kin” of Kurdish citizens, openly divide our society while trying to give some sort of an order to Northern Iraq?
Another claim that will go down as the strangest in history is that Kurds will take control of Kirkuk and become rich with the oil there.
Apparently, them becoming rich will make our “poor” Kurds want to join them.
If a Kurdish state established there can offer our citizens a richer and happier life than a country that is the inheritor of an empire of six hundred years and the owner of an eighty year old republic, then there is nothing you can do, Kurds will go there.
If you want to prevent this, the way to do it is not to prevent the Iraqi Kurds from becoming rich but to take precautions so that your own Kurdish citizens in the Southeast can live as well as your citizens in Istanbul.
The mentality, which says, “I do not possess the talents to make my own citizens have quality lives, therefore I cannot allow anyone around me to be successful” is against the course of history and cannot achieve results.
If you had the power to prevent prosperity around you, then your own citizens would already have quality lives.
But the real cursed question are not these, the real cursed question is this:
If you, through Northern Iraq, attempt to reorder the Middle East on your own and give the impression that you are tying to take control of the oil in Kirkuk, what will the Western world and the countries of the Middle East say?
Will they allow it?
If they don’t allow it, do you have the power to fight and the power to come out victorious?
How will such a fight affect your economy and political stability?
I do not believe that there is a potential for victory for Turkey if it attempts intervene in Northern Iraq and against Kurds.
As far as I can see, the real aim of those who make a big thing out of the Kirkuk issue is not directly related to developments in Northern Iraq. Their real aim is for Turkey, through such an ill-advised move, to lose its bonds with the world and subsequently with the West.
Turkey will again turn inwards and diverge from the path of democracy, allowing developments to emerge so civil authorities can once more be replaced with “interim regimes”.
It is easy to understand that those whose aim is to establish an inward-looking fascist government here scratch the Kirkuk and Kurdish scabs.
This is in line with their aims.
In fact, tomorrow they could go to America and secretly agree, saying, “let us take over the power and we can forget Northern Iraq.”
What is difficult to understand is Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s eagerness, through bizarre statements, to assist those who want to end his administration, in fact his political existence. Turkey’s insistence on, “I will not allow Kurds to live free and prosperous lives”, will in the end change Turkey not Northern Iraq.
We will experience events worse than you can imagine. It will be amusing to see the Prime Minister helping those who want to topple him by exaggerating the Kirkuk issue.
But if something like this takes place, there won’t be anyone left to laugh at these events.
Translated from Turkish by Welat Lezgin for KurdishMedia.com. The above article by Ahmet Altan was published on the popular Turkish political commentary website Gazetem.net. on the 7th of February.
Ahmet Altan is a journalist, political commentator and one of Turkey’s best-selling novelists.
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