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At the root of a geno­cide there is “the oth­er”, the one sin­gled out by an X on the doors when his exis­tence is sin­gled out the bet­ter to elim­i­nate it. When the “oth­er” in includ­ed in a State pol­i­cy born from the denial of a geno­cide, hatred and exclu­sion become instru­ments of power.

Han­na Arendt in her con­tro­ver­sial writ­ings on “the banal­i­ty of evil” says : “… all gov­ern­ments, even the most auto­crat­ic, even tyran­nies, rest on con­sent, and the error resides in equat­ing con­sent and obe­di­ence. An adult con­sents where­as a child obeys…” There­fore, when the con­sent aris­es from a nation­al­ist neu­ro­sis fed since child­hood and revi­tal­ized every time pow­er needs it, the neu­ro­sis cements an offi­cial nation­al con­sent, that of Tur­kic­i­ty, in which the “oth­er”, should he declare his right to exist, is fought and erased.

*

In those rugged moun­tain­ous regions, rough-hewned men and women, advanc­ing through the snow made a sound with those steps,” says the nation­al­ist Turk­ish leg­end. “Qqqr­rrttt, qqqrrrttt…And from this sound came the word Kurd.”

This has been going on for years. The Kur­dish lan­guage does not exist. Even­tu­al­ly, for the more tol­er­ant, Kur­dish would be a Turk­ish dialect spo­ken in the moun­tains. As a mat­ter of fact, the Kurd does not exist either. So how do you expect that a lan­guage called Kur­dish should exist?

If the Peo­ples Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in Turkey (the HDP, incor­rect­ly des­ig­nat­ed in our West­ern media in a reduc­tion­ist way as “pro-Kurd”) places the moth­er tongue at the heart of its activ­i­ties and demands, it is because, fun­da­men­tal­ly, a human thinks and lives in his lan­guage before open­ing out on oth­ers and being able to excel in that also, while remain­ing him­self. Negat­ing his lan­guage amounts to con­demn­ing him or her to non-exis­tence in every field.

No need to men­tion the names of the count­less media and news­pa­pers that were shut down, books for­bid­den, films cen­sored, authors, fil­mak­ers, artists, intel­lec­tu­als charged on the grounds of “lan­guage”, be it Kur­dish or any oth­er lan­guage than Turk­ish. No need to speak of of the asso­ci­a­tions, trade cor­po­ra­tions and of the few schools that offered Kur­dish instruc­tion (dur­ing the brief time of the peace process), nor of the clos­ing by admin­is­tra­tors of the Kur­dish lan­guage kinder­gartens opened by Kur­dish city halls fol­low­ing the replace­ment of jailed Kur­dish co-Mayors…

Racist aggres­sions against the Kurds have nev­er ceased in Turkey and in the cur­rent nation­al­ist cli­mate, they are on the upsurge. Just a few recent examples…

kurdes kurdish

They had spo­ken in Kur­dish…
Ekrem Yaşlı, wound­ed, Şirin Tosun, killed, Kadir Sakçı, killed and his son grave­ly wounded…

On Octo­ber 15 of this year in Çanakkale, a 74 year old man, Ekrem Yaşlı who was speak­ing with his hos­pi­tal­ized wife was attacked in the hos­pi­tal because he was speak­ing in Kur­dish. Anoth­er patien­t’s rel­a­tive had told him he was in Turkey and had to speak Turk­ish. Feel­ing threat­ened, Ekrem Yaşlı tried to call secu­ri­ty, and was hit over the the head with a bot­tle of soda water. After break­ing the bot­tle over his vic­tim’s head, the aggres­sor attacked him with the bro­ken bot­tle. The fam­i­ly’s lawyer says he has yet to receive any infor­ma­tion on the com­plaint and even news of some cus­tody or ques­tion­ing of the aggressor…Yesterday, his lawyer and Pres­i­dent of the IHD – Asso­ci­a­tion of Human Rights, Eren Keskin announced that the com­plaint had been filed with no fur­ther action taken.

In Sep­tem­ber of this year a young Kur­dish man of 19 years, Şirin Tosun, who had gone to Ada­pazari with his fam­i­ly for the sea­son­al har­vest of hazel­nuts was attacked by six peo­ple. After remain­ing comatose for 50 days fol­low­ing a bul­let wound to the head, he died on Octo­ber 13. His lawyer, Eren Keskin announced that a file had been opened but that the pros­e­cu­tor’s office has not pre­pared an accu­sa­tion yet.

At the end of 2018 in Sakarya, Kadir Sakçı (43) and his 16 year old son were tar­get­ed. The father was killed, the son was seri­ous­ly wound­ed. Accord­ing to wit­ness­es, H.U. the author of the crime had asked them if they were speak­ing togeth­er in Kur­dish, “Are you Kur­dish or Syr­i­an?”. They answered “We are Kur­dish”. Hear­ing those words, the aggres­sor pulled out his gun and shot them while yelling “I don’t like you!”. The dec­la­ra­tion ema­nat­ing from the Pre­fec­t’s office in Sakarya stat­ed that “the inci­dent was not of a racist char­ac­ter.” The mat­ter has been brought to the atten­tion of Justice.

In town, in the village, at work, outside or inside jail…

In the book “Diyarbakır prison” Bedran Sev­gat writes:

My moth­er who doesn not know a sin­gle word of Turk­ish had come to vis­it. A guard stood close to me, anoth­er close to her. If I said one word in Kur­dish, the risk was great that they would beat me before my moth­er’s eyes, if she spoke Kur­dish, they would put an end to the vis­it. We had already gone through this expe­ri­ence and knew it, so we exchanged looks, in silence. She was cry­ing and I looked at her with­out say­ing a word.”

Zül­fikar Tak who drew and record­ed the meth­ods of tor­ture prac­ticed in Diyarbakır prison in the eight­ies, also told us about the pro­hi­bi­tion con­cern­ing the Kur­dish language…

kurdish

At the top right-hand side: “Talk in Turk­ish, talk longer”

Although the “oblig­a­tion to speak in Turk­ish” dur­ing prison vis­its was lift­ed in 2009, pris­on­ers still reg­u­lar­ly receive dis­ci­pli­nary sanc­tions such as the pro­hi­bi­tion of cor­re­spon­dence for weeks on end, for exam­ple, “for hav­ing sung in Kur­dish”, as Zehra Doğan, Kur­dish artist and jour­nal­ist relates in her book of prison cor­re­spon­dence “Nous aurons aus­si de beaux jours” (We will also know some fine days).

During a visit to the hospital

On Sep­tem­ber 30th in the news­pa­per Duvar, İrf­an Aktan pub­lished an arti­cle, excep­tion­al­ly and sym­bol­i­cal­ly in Kur­dish, in order to share one of his recent expe­ri­ences while accom­pa­ny­ing Zehra, a six­ty-year old women from Yük­seko­va who had come for treat­ment in town.

” The doctor tells us aunt Zehra needs treatment. Fine ! But she also says she cannot take the patient in at the hospital “because that one has no tongue” !!!
Leaving Zehra in the examination room where she’s writhing in pain, we move onto the next room where the assistants gather. I tell her: “Doctor, Zehra has a tongue, but you don’t know it.” At first she answers me: “Since she lives in Turkey, she is obliged to speak Turkish”.
(…)
Making a tremendous effort of self-control, I tell her she is a medical doctor and is duty-bound to exercise certain legal and ethical responsibilities, that Zehra could just as well be a mute woman with no family, and that would not be a reason for refusing to take her into the hospital. If I were to tell her I’m a journalist and that I will publish this, or if I made threats of denunciation, I would certainly frighten her, but I would also ruin all possibility for Zehra’s treatment…At best, Zehra would be hospitalized then sent home after a botched “treatment”…
I reiterate to her constantly repeated insistence that “that one has no tongue,” that Zehra has a tongue, that her “tongue” is called Kurdish, that she is under no obligation to know Turkish, and that the State should provide each hospital with translators in Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi and English.”
(Read “Aunt Zehra has a tongue”)

The breed­ing ground for nation­al­ist, racist hatred of the oth­er, has exist­ed since the found­ing of the Turk­ish Repub­lic, Tur­kic­i­ty being seen as a duty and nour­ished through­out the his­to­ry of the young Repub­lic, and becom­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly vis­i­ble and bran­dished like a flag in times of con­flict. The con­flict itself being built on these nation­al­ist, mil­i­tarist, xeno­pho­bic and macho-inspired foundations…Populations cra­dled since birth in the notion of the sacred­ness of the coun­try, the nation­al, the flag and a State reli­gion to boot are ready to salute with pride at any war­like behav­ior con­duct­ed, sup­pos­ed­ly, in their name.

turkey

Noth­ing sur­pris­ing then in see­ing Turk­ish soc­cer play­ers giv­ing the mil­i­tary salute at the France-Turkey match. Noth­ing sur­pris­ing in see­ing the wave of mil­i­tary salutes spread­ing across social media networks.

Who is giv­ing the best salute of them all? Min­is­ters, politi­cians, artists, talk­ing heads, mod­els, sports­women or ordi­nary cit­i­zens, staff in pri­vate firms or those of Turk­ish Air­lines, school chil­dren pay­ing trib­ute to war with a mil­i­tary salute…In any num­ber of mosques where the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion is cel­e­brat­ed with the read­ing of the Al-Fath (evok­ing the vic­to­ry of Mohamet’s tribe on his ene­mies, a vic­to­ry attrib­uted to their sub­mis­sion to Allah as much as to their adver­saries being hea­thens), there is even one imam who con­duct­ed the prayer in camo mode, invit­ing the faith­ful to give the mil­i­tary salute…The alliance of nation­al­ism with the prayer rug.

Turkey

Sens­ing a win­ning streak, the Defense Min­istry opened a cam­paign of sup­port for the army on social media with the hash­tag #Mehmetçiğe­Se­lamGön­der (Sends a salute to Lit­tle Mehmet).

At the same time, across Turkey, dozens of social media accounts were inves­ti­gat­ed for shar­ing crit­i­cism of the “Source of Peace” oper­a­tions. Some account own­ers were arrest­ed. Only a few days ago, Fatih Gökhan Dil­er, edi­tor of the infor­ma­tion site diken.com.tr and Hakan Demir, respon­si­ble for the inter­net ver­sion of the dai­ly Birgün, were both placed in cus­tody, then freed under judi­cial con­trol. Both edi­tors are charged with “incit­ing hatred” and “ter­ror­ist pro­pa­gan­da”. On Octo­ber 19, it was the turn of Nur­can Baysal, a Kur­dish jour­nal­ist and defendor of rights. She announced on Twit­ter: “This morn­ing at 5 am 30–40 armed police offi­cers raid­ed my house and asked for me. I am cur­rent­ly abroad, there­fore not detained, but my 2 kids ter­ri­fied. There is no trace of human rights in Turkey. But what­ev­er the cost, I will con­tin­ue my strug­gle for human rights and peace!”

Luck­i­ly, there are still some peo­ple who call a war “a war” and dare demand “peace.” There are some left. “All of them ter­ror­ists”? But of course…

A familiar tune?

Look­ing at shows aimed at large audi­ences and func­tion as pro­pa­gan­da tools, we see find com­plete con­sis­ten­cy in this regard. The clip below was done with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of well-known artists who are called, iron­i­cal­ly, the “Palace choir”. It is offered up to the glo­ry of the Turk­ish army, in order to praise the inva­sion, known as “the Source of Peace”, ongo­ing in Syria.

The song says: “The moth­ers give birth to lions and knead them with love for the Coun­try. Thus is the brave one formed, becom­ing the Nation’s ram­part. My Mehmet strike on the front, make the world small for the ene­my. For sad­ness not to fall on his heart, the Nation’s prayer is all he needs.”
Enjoy…

How­ev­er…

It so hap­pens that this song, announced as being a “com­po­si­tion” by İbrahim Kalın is, in fact, a tra­di­tion­al Kur­dish song “Hozan Kawa Zeryam Nişan Kırın”  (When they betrothed my swee­heart). It has been inter­pret­ed by a num­ber of dif­fer­ent artists includ­ing a ver­sion that fig­ured, twen­ty years ago, in an album by the Kur­dish singer Murat Bektaş…

It is a love song…“When they betrothed my sweet­heart, they re-opened my wound. They filled it with salt, no rem­e­dy will suf­fice. It is the heart’s woe, what can I do? To hearts of stone, there is no rem­e­dy. What will become of us?”

A num­ber of Kur­dish songs like this one are redone with Turk­ish words and pre­sent­ed as orig­i­nal Turk­ish songs. Just as the songs from oth­ers peo­ples, oth­er cul­tures, oth­er con­fis­cat­ed lan­guages reclaimed as Turkish…

Elected officials don’t exist either

The judge asked Remziye Yaşar, co-may­or of Yük­seko­va and tak­en into cus­tody on Octo­ber 15 for shar­ing a quote from Tol­stoy on Twit­ter. “War is not a hol­i­day to be cel­e­brat­ed with trum­pets. Its land­scape is blood, death” with the hash­tag #Savaşa­Hayır (no to war): “What exact­ly did you mean? What is your opin­ion on the peace plan oper­a­tion that our coun­try’s secu­ri­ty forces has launched? Express yourself.”

As for İrf­an Sarı, he was tak­en into cus­to­ry on the same day as his Co-May­or Remziye Yaşar and his Twit­ter read “No mat­ter who wins, each bul­let will find a moth­er’s heart… No to war!”

The two Co-May­ors elect­ed on March 31 with 66% of the vote were removed for office and replaced by admin­is­tra­tors. On the same day, Cihan Kara­man, Co-May­or of Hakkari, Semi­re Ner­giz and Fer­hat Kut, the Co-May­ors of Nusay­bin were also arrest­ed and replaced by admin­is­tra­tors. Just as was the case two months ago for the Co-May­ors of Diyarbakır, Mardin and Van.

Thus, the votes the pop­u­la­tion of these three towns placed in the urns on March 31 were only valid for 4 months. And those of Nusay­bin and Yük­seko­va, for six…

While writ­ing these lines, we learn that today, the HDP Co-may­ors of four oth­er local­i­ties with Kur­dish majori­ties, Kayapı­nar, Bis­mil, Kocaköy and Erciş, have also been removed for office and arrest­ed. Since the elec­tions of 31 March, a total of 12 HDP may­or­ships have been placed in the hands of administrators.

Even Kur­dish voic­es do not exist…

 


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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Naz Oke
REDACTION | Journaliste 
Chat de gout­tière sans fron­tières. Jour­nal­isme à l’U­ni­ver­sité de Mar­mara. Archi­tec­ture à l’U­ni­ver­sité de Mimar Sinan, Istanbul.