FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

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FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS society, the EU citizens will continue to frown, as the EU is built on a diversity of languages and cultures, even within its own member states. 54 So the first step is change of mentality, a mental click that the Turkish people have to make in order to progress from the modern to the post-modern state that integrates multi-ethnicity and multilingualism into its structures. That change of mentality has to break through the vicious circle of violence: the hardliners within the Turkish establishment use the violence exerted by the PKK as a pretext for a military approach of the Kurdish question. The violence by the one will always prompt the other one to violence too. The second step contains two kinds of concrete measures: on the one hand those which must prepare the field for peace and reconciliation and must make an end to violence and regulate violence-related aspects like amnesty, the village-guards and the return of internally displaced persons; on the other hand those which would guarantee the expression of the own cultural identity. In a report of NGO’s from the south-east some are named like ‘the opening of Kurdish Studies faculties at universities and the use of Kurdish in local administration as well as in schools as elective course’. 55 This sounds still modest and if cultural autonomy is built up around these elements, there might not even be a need for federalism. Does the creation of TRT 6, the Kurdish channel on Turkish state television, prove that the Turkish government has a ‘Kurdish plan’? According to the ESI-analyst Ekrem Eddy Güzeldere in the Turkish Policy Quarterly there is not much to discern yet. The party program of the AKP looks promising when it says: ‘On the condition that Turkish remains the official and instruction language, our Party regards the cultural activities in languages other than Turkish, including broadcasting, as an asset which reinforces and supports the unity and integrity of our country’. 56 The above mentioned change of mentality also appears from the use of the phrase ‘being a citizen of the Republic of Turkey’ instead of ‘being a Turk’. The draft for the new constitution laid out the notion of citizenship and cultural and civic rights for different groups. But the government program is disappointing as it reduces the Kurdish question to a matter of economy and infrastructure. Güzeldere writes that the party program and the draft for a new constitution show that ‘the AKP knows what should be done in the cultural and political field.’ 57 54 Dirk Rochtus: Self-Criticism Gives Entrance to The Western Way of Thinking, in: Zaman, 16.12.2006. 55 http://www.haberDiyarbakır.com/news_detail.php?id=9252, 8 April 2008. 56 Quoted by Ekrem Eddy Güzeldere, “Was there, is there, will there be a Kurdish Plan?” Turkish Policy Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1, spring 2008, p. 102. 57 Ekrem Eddy Güzeldere, op.cit., p. 110 128
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS The change of mentality also requires the courage to tackle the problem and to carry through the necessary reforms. But the question now is whether this will is still there, now that Prime Minister Erdoğan spoke in November 2008 about the ‘one nation’ and thus subscribed to the founding myth of the republic? The solution to the Kurdish question holds the renewed foundation of the republic as a multi-ethnic state. The accession to the EU as a post-modern entity presupposing the transfer of sovereignty to a higher authority could lend a hand to this process. The accession of Turkey to the EU would be comparable to a new Lausanne, be it not as a ‘birth certificate’, but rather as rite of passage into a post-modern world whereby some of the antiquated principles of Lausanne – such as unrestricted national sovereignty, cultural uniformity and the dominance of one ethnic group – would be shed. Yet the Kurdish question has to be resolved irrespective of Turkey’s ambitions to become an EU member. It has to find a resolution for its own sake and the sake of peace and democracy. 3.3 Is Turkey Ready for a Dialogue with Kurds? Hans Branscheidt I think that it is not only a psycho-analytical approach but also a phenomenon in history and there is an historical aspect. That is what we are experiencing today when we talk about issues in Turkey such the Ergenekon complex. It has emerged again and has become yet more clear, that which had been suppressed by violence and force and which earlier, was even forbidden to be talked about: Organised killings, a whole system of organised criminality; Vicious attacks against Kurds, including attacks against suspected or actual members of the PKK, including PKK sympathisers. Targeted murders were carried out, for which the blame was laid at the door of the PKK or Kurds The seriousness of these crimes is breathtaking, and the victims and the wrongly accused need to be comprehensive rehabilitated, while the perpetrators and those responsible should be severely punished. There is another thing that is also striking: the entire method, the procedure itself, which has been applied. If people are systematically murdered, because they are Kurds, and then there is prevention from identifying the victims, then their human existence is being denied. The power elites of Turkey presently involved in trying to settle the Ergenekon complex amongst themselves, and this is connected with the democratic process. Things that have been suppressed in the past are coming back although they would still like to keep them under control. This would be called white-washing in Germany. What do we want? What are we discussing in the EUTCC? What do we mean when we say that it is time for change in Turkey at our conferences? Firstly we are calling on the EU institutions and also on the member state governments and civil society in 129
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FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

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