We've come a long way in the Kurdish issue but...

In my article yesterday I wrote about the seven years after Öcalan was caught during which Ankara did not take any steps to ease the Kurdish issue or meet at least some of the expectations of Kurdish citizens, and missed out on the big opportunity. In the 1980s the Kurdish identity was not recognized. Turkish Kurds were claimed not to exist. Especially the military claimed that the Kurds were Turks living in the mountains. Books and essays called scientific research were published. Of course, no one accepted it. The military coup on Sept. 12 is mainly responsible for the deepening of the Kurdish issue. The military government prohibited everything.

It prohibited speaking in the Kurdish language, singing in the Kurdish language, naming a newborn in Kurdish and even villages formerly named in the Kurdish language were renamed in Turkish. If we add to this the torture exercised at the Diyarbakır jail then we will understand how easily the PKK developed. Let me give you an example of what I did.

I wrote a book about the Sept. 12 military coup. President Kenan Evren had accepted a chat with me on the condition he’d receive a copy of my book. Thus, as I finished my book, I sent a copy to the presidential palace. While talking about reasons for the coup, he told me that the spreading of the Kurdish issue was among them and I had taken it up in my book. After a while I received a phone call from Çankaya saying that Evren wanted to see me.

His first words when I met him were, "I told you about it but you need to take out the part dealing with the Kurdish issue then I will allow you to publish it." Evren was objecting to the presence of the word "Kurdish" in the book. I accepted it against my will and the book was published. This incidence taught me how sensitive the military was and how wrongly it perceived the Kurdish issue. Do you see where this has taken us? Nowadays the Kurdish language is spoken. Nobody questions it.

Kurdish names are allowed. The possibility has been granted to villages to regain their former Kurdish names. It is possible to learn Kurdish. The most important thing is that the government’s formal TV channel broadcasts in Kurdish. Even if we only consider the broadcasting, it means that the Turkish Republic has accepted the Kurdish presence. In other words, formal politics that said for the past 20 years, "There is no race called Kurds," has come to a point of "Embracing the Kurds."

But those steps are so untimely that have not achieved the expected effect. If they had been taken in time, the swamp created by this issue would have been cleared more easily. I don’t know whether to call it incompetence or political cowardliness. The scariest truth I know or learned from conversations in this matter with the state’s upper-level leaders for years is that institutions in Ankara could not agree in matters regarding Kurdish politics.

In Ankara the military and National Intelligence Organization, or MİT, think differently, formerly the presidential palace and administrations would come out with different views and no mutual politics would result from this cacophony. Ok the situation might be a little different these days. At least the palace and administration looks out the same window but still there is no harmony with security forces.

Despite all provocation, no Turkish-Kurdish fights
We should nevertheless be content that within this chaos, despite provocation of the Turkish and Kurdish society, they do not become agitated. For the past 20 to 25 years we have been several times very close to an internal fight. We have witnessed horrible assassinations and funerals that tore apart hearts. But at any rate it never went beyond the particular and known fights of Turkish and Kurdish groups. Most of society was discrete about it.

I don’t believe that from now on the old fear of an internal fight will come true. As long as the political authority decides on what to do. It is almost obvious what needs to be done from now on. Turkey must simultaneously take brave precaution in the general Kurdish issue and against the PKK. There is no other way out of this hole. Even if I said Turkish and Kurdish societies are discrete about it we need not to play around with our patience.