Turkey is hurtling towards a crossroads and no one knows which road it will take. As we approach the Turkish election on 12
th June, everything is up in the air!
How it will land is something that is occupying the minds of Turks, Kurds and the International Community.
Fundamental changes have happened in Turkey, obviously, since the AKP came to power.
Wheter this has been a plan, a method by which to steer Turkey towards greater democracy is a subject that could be debated for hours.
The old certainties have gone. The power of the Turkish Generals is something that does not seem to be a factor anymore. The Kemalist elites seem to of lost a lot of faith in Turkey’s future and bemoan the lost days of their power.
Although the CHP have radically changed their position towards the Kurdish Question, perhaps with an eye to an alliance with the Kurds against the seemingly unstoppable power of the AKP, they have left it too late for this election!
These days it is all about ‘The Great Leader, Erdogan!”
Having reportedly infiltrated the police and other state structures the AKP are attempting to ‘cease total power’ by ‘any means necessary’ and there are many rumours of lurking levers being pulled by Fetullah Gulen, the Islamic scholar who influences many AKP members.
Fetullah Gulen was caught on camera in a secret video advising his supporters of how to achieve Sharia Law in Turkey by secretly and slowly taking over the reigns of power and only when one has total power can you implement your plan. This must be unknown to those around you until you achieve total power, he is reported to of said.
It is all going according to plan for the AKP and Tayyip Erdogan. Except they, perhaps, seem to of left one calculation out of their plans. The Kurdish Question!
While the Islamists have been organising and seizing power from the Kemalists, the Kurds have doing some organising of their own and now are bristling with strength and moral to push for an autonomous system of self government in NW Kurdistan (SE Turkey).
The Kurds have never been stronger than they are now. A Mass Civil Disobedience Campaign on the back of Newroz 2011 and the Jasmine Revolutions in the Middle East has emboldened the Kurdish Freedom Movement to a strength and intensity that could strike fear into the Turkish political elite should it decide to strike!
The Kurdish side has striven for peace however, provocation after provocation has been taken and absorbed!
A Kurdish civil rights campaign has been bludgeoned and gassed by the Turkish security apparatus and the Turkish military have ignored the Kurdish Freedom Movements ‘defensive ceasefire’ and ruthlessly pursued Kurdish guerilla fighters with attack helicopters and chemical weapons!
But the Kurdish legendary patience is wearing thin. Years and years of attempts by the Kurdish leadership to attempt to create the conditions necessary for a political and peaceful resolution of the Kurdish Question have gone unanswered and ignored by the Turkish state.
The state continue to treat the Kurdish demands as ‘separatism and terrorism’ and pursue a purely military solution by flooding Kurdistan with tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers, locking up Kurdish political activists and banning Kurdish political parties. Any criticism through the press is dealt with by way of throwing journalists into jail. The reality for Kurds on the street is very different to the rhetoric of ‘The Great Leader Erdogan!”
It is a macabre and ghastly double talk that infuriates the Kurds as they see Erdogan, publicly supporting the rights of Turks to language in Germany or the rights of Palestinians to a homeland while suppressing those very same rights brutally when it comes to the Kurds in Turkey!
The Kurdish people in Turkey have quite simply had enough! There is a power and intensity in the Kurdish Freedom Movement for justice that is tangible and irrepresible
The only question is will the Turkish government realise this and sensibly indicate they are ready for dialogue.
The Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has given yet another, but final deadline of 15th June, for Turkey to do just that.
If there is no indication, then the Kurdish military leaders will take over and implement a plan that has, reportedly been worked on for the last 12 months.
The stakes have never been higher! A revolutionary war is planed and imminent!
Otherwise, it is argued, that the PKK will lose credibility with their followers who have not understood how the National Liberation Movement have let so many martyrs be sacrificed without any meaningful change.
There is a massive swathe of the Kurdish population who want to see some revenge taken for the mass killings of young Kurdish youth and for the humiliation shown to the Kurds, historically and especially over the last 3 months.
The Kurdish side have 4 demands that would go some way to show a willingness to begin negotiations. There are:
1. Stop military and political operations immediately. 2. Education in the mother tongue and providing constitutional guarantees for use of the mother tongue in the public sphere. 3. Removing the 10% electoral threshold which obstructs the representation of Kurdish People in the Assembly.4. Release all political prisoners.
So this election for the Kurdish people is more than just another general election it is about a peaceful and political solution to the Kurdish Question in Turkey. The end of the road for the long and profound Kurdish freedom struggle!
The are some, including myself, who cannot believe that the Turkish state will want to ignite this revolutionary war which will further polarise Turkish society and possibly lead to a civil war within Turkey.
We hope that behind the scenes, common sense prevails and political preparations are being made for a historical initiative that will bring peace and justice for all people in Turkey!
But there are many others who totally believe that no such initiative is being planned or is coming and are readying themselves for war!
