Wet drinks for dry people

Listening to my friend, as painful as it is, made me reconsider each spring the similar scenarios being replayed in our lands... as the mountain snow melts and the valley flowers bloom, we start hearing the news of another wave of terrorist attacks with worrying numbers of casualties or damage. We also hear the talk of amnesty, captured or killed PKK men, abandoned villages, money changing hands with the sale of hip new small conventional weapons on the market, and the usual debates on whether increased liberties and economic opportunities will curtail further atrocities.

Each looking out his own window sees a different picture, my friend comments, of a martyr, or a terrorist; but one constant figure in each scene, I add, is that some mother’s son lies dead or amputated in a corner. Knowing that the main goal, as seen in every window, is to minimize, if not to prevent, another mother to witness the loss of her child, I contemplate whether the divisions between academia and policy makers is something of a shibboleth.

Policy makers often view theoretical abstractions and recently popular formal models with many mathematical equations as irrelevant to the day-to-day activities of the complex world of politics. Theories struggle to offer tools for handling real life situations, but most assumptions are seen as too "unrealistic" and conclusions as too "parsimonious" to apply in confidence. The gap between theory and practice remains troublesome, to say the least. However, as Lenin once said, "without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movements," without a theory behind it - however specifically or generally constructed - there can be no movement in politics.

The fight against terrorism for any country inevitably falls into murky waters: it is domestic politics for sure, but it also involves foreign actors. Different ministries’ - as well as different countries’ - communication, if not cooperation, is required for a successful war on terrorism. This, as all will probably accept, is a difficult, if not impossible, chore to sustain. Fighting against a state, the non-state actors gain the upper hand by having to deal with less red tape, more direct communications and a quicker set up for proposed actions.

Yet despite all cease-fires and different tracks of talks between official and unofficial figures of two or more parties involved in the turmoil, one fraction of the non-state actor might act to spoil an entire peace process. Long years of conflict in other parts of the world indicates that for some extremist factions "peace", or the "lack of struggle" means death - death of their mission, death of their raison d’etre. To prevent "the death," unfortunately, some groups may be tempted to further deadly ordeals. Hence the vicious cycle of violence.

There are no easy roads to curtail terrorist activities as deeply rooted as that of the PKK, with years of experience and regional as well as international support under their belt. That said, old and simple rules could still provide some guidelines to the issue. One is timing. That is for peace to come, time has to be ripe to open up the channels of communication, and that applies to both sides of the conflict. Both sides have to be convinced that the benefit of "talking" would be higher than that of fighting, or of "talking while fighting."

Next, who will be talking to whom? Here, the rule of thumb is to "divide and co-opt." We are talking about an organization which has endured almost three decades: no doubt the PKK has a structure that includes a political and a military wing - in this case the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, as the political wing, and the PKK as the military wing. "Talks" with the political wing through various channels must be kept open, and, ideally, the DTP should be able to recognize its role as a catalyst in the game of moral persuasion that the PKK should lay down arms for everyone’s interest.

It might not be possible to expect the DTP to exert full control over all PKK factions, but it would be all too well if this party maintained a better dialogue box with the state and ensured spillover benefits for its constituencies. The "carrots and sticks" as I would tell my friend should be utilized on time and in a balanced manner. The DTP surely cares deeply about the popular support it enjoys within the population they claim to represent. Any counterterrorism activity coordinated with the DTP should underline the fact that this party’s popular support will increase if only they fully cooperated with the state.

Last is the "audience cost," i.e., the more vocal the promises are the higher the stakes of re-nagging on one’s promise because the cost will be disturbingly high. It is understandable that the government must act in a swift yet cautious manner since this is a precarious issue for every household in this country. It is equally precarious for the DTP simple because if this ethnic Kurdish political grouping failed to control the military wing it might mean another political wing may emerge within the previous setup and the DTP’s credibility may come under scrutiny, if not disappears all together. Also, counter-terror responses should from now strive in coordination with other attempts, not to radicalize the Kurdish population so the support for extremist fractions can be lowered.

These were the thoughts running through my mind, as my friend took another sip from his drink and said: "Just like the prohibition era in America when people were forced to brew their own drinks and enter into the speakeasies with a password, we need peace, a peaceful setup in our relations."

I looked at his face and thought yes, we have all needs, food for the hungry, wet drinks for thirsty people...