The CHP and the Kurdish question

Given the ethnic and sectarian roots of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, some expect that the Republican People’s Party (CHP) under his leadership may take bold, new initiatives to resolve the Kurdish question.

Unfortunately, this has not been forthcoming. Since his election to the highest post in the CHP Kılıçdaroğlu has made no significant policy call to address the Kurdish question. He even tried to hide his Kurdish and Alevi origins. This has been the typical attitude of a “devşirme” ever since the time of the Ottoman Empire -- a person who climbed up through the state apparatus turned out to be the most ardent supporter of state policies to show his gratefulness to the system that brought him up to such a high position.

It appears Kılıçdaroğlu personally owes a lot to the Kemalist regime in which he succeeded to attain a high post in the state, becoming the leader of the CHP. Grateful to the regime, he appears ready to forget his ethnic and sectarian background, both of which are defined by the state as “problematic.”

Furthermore, there are more structural problems for the CHP to change its stance on the Kurdish question. The party represents something more than its current leader; its history, set of ideals and agitated grassroots all stand against a democratic solution to the Kurdish question. Even if Kılıçdaroğlu wants to, he could not transform the CHP.

It is the CHP that holds the copyright to the policies that historically denied the existence of the Kurds, who at first were supposedly nonexistent but were later claimed to be “mountain Turks.” During the single-party rule of the CHP, the main policy towards the Kurds was to suppress and assimilate them. After a trip in the East in 1935, İsmet İnönü, the then prime minister, prepared a report on the “Eastern Question” in which he bravely outlined the need to accelerate policies of suppression to be accompanied by assimilation. In response to such policies, after 1925, dozens of Kurdish revolts took place in the region. During the Dersim revolt in the area where Kılıçdaroğlu’s grandfathers lived, thousands were killed in their villages and mountains by poison gas and air raids.

Following each rebellion by the Kurds, thousands were exiled to western Turkey, where they were excluded and marginalized.

All this was conducted simply because the presence of the Kurds went against the Kemalist idea of a homogenized nation-state for which the Kurds either had to perish or be assimilated. Thus the Kemalist regime was in fact not racist: It accepted the possibility of conversion!

We should, of course, be aware of a broader anomaly in the formative years of the Kemalist regime. The state had problems not only with the Kurds but with almost any “distinct” ethnic, religious, political and ideological grouping. Anyone who did not accept Kemalism as the ultimate source of authority, knowledge, and wisdom was considered disloyal and subsequently suppressed.

This continued uninterrupted until 1950, when the Democrat Party (DP) won the first free and fair elections in Turkey, putting an end to the CHP’s single-party government. The 1950s ruled by the DP were the calmest period in the region, seeing no revolt. Development and democracy were the two key factors to explain this. For the first time in the republican era, the Kurds started to get economic benefits instead of oppression from the center and were able to be represented in the center through Parliament. Thousands who were sent into “internal exile” were able to return home under the DP. The distribution of wealth and participation in the political process eased the Kurdish perception of the central government, though there was still no policy change in the recognition of the Kurdish identity.

But there was a change in attitude. The DP under Adnan Menderes tried to integrate the Kurds into the new state. The CHP at the beginning of this period, however, warned the DP against doing this. İnönü, the president and chairman of the CHP, in late 1945 asked that the founders of the DP not do only one thing: “Do not open party branches in the East.”

But the DP approached the situation differently. Numan Esin, a member of the military junta that overthrew the DP government in 1960, shares information in his memoirs of their visit to Menderes, the prime minister who the junta hanged in 1961. Esin asks Menderes how they planned to resolve the “Eastern Question.” Menderes replied: “Our solution was democracy. By giving the liberties people deserve, we thought to solve the problem.”

Not much has changed in the 50 years since. While there was a proposal to solve the Kurdish question via a “democratic opening,” the CHP refrained from supporting it, even describing it as an act of treason. But it seems the CHP does give full support to military measures the government is working on. I think this tells us a lot. The CHP is still not far from its past policies concerning the Kurdish question. The only way they think of addressing the question is by using military means. We should not be unfair; they also suggest that some economic measures be taken, missing the whole point about the nature of the problem.

19 July 2010, Monday

Is democracy possible with Kemalism and the military?

Last week the Friends of Turkey in the European Parliament organized a panel discussion in Brussels on “democratic changes in Turkey.” The panelists, including myself, touched upon various aspects of the process of democratization.

I particularly emphasized the role of Kemalism and the Kemalist military in the underdevelopment of Turkish democracy. Based on the questions I received in the end, it appeared that some Turkish participants with nationalist leaning were not happy with my selection of topics as they believe such “domestic issues” should not be discussed before Europeans. Sorry guys, but you better get used to all these disclosures about Kemalism and the military in any circles that discuss democracy in Turkey.

Is it possible to talk about democracy in Turkey and not mention the role of the Turkish military and the legacy of Kemalism as obstacles to democratization?

Of course not. It was the military that overthrew elected governments three times since 1950, finishing off whatever we had of democracy. Since 1961 Turkey has been ruled by constitutions made by coup makers who designed the order of things in this country according to their views and interests. While the military maintained a position of autonomy vis-a-vis elected governments, it reinforced itself as a “supervising” force over the social and political elements in Turkey. A regime of tutelage owned by the military in alliance with the high judiciary was established by the constitutions introduced by the military following military coups.

Democratization can be defined in Turkey as any step taken to get out of this tutelage regime installed by the military. It is therefore not surprising to see the privileged institutions of the state, including the military and the judiciary, resist change to the “system.”

Furthermore, it is nonsense to justify the military’s interventions by references to its so-called “role to safeguard secularism.” In three cases since 1960 in which the military deposed elected governments, those who sat in power were not “Islamists” but “center-right political parties” whose leaders had rather liberal political viewpoints and lifestyles.

Similarly, it is impossible to refrain from talking about Kemalism if the debate is about democracy in Turkey. There can be no official ideology in any democracy protected by the constitution and professed by state institutions as is the case in Turkey. In its preamble, the Turkish Constitution promises no protection for any views and activities that contravene Kemalism. Could there be freedom of thought and expression in such a system?

Unless Kemalism is abandoned as an ideology protected by the Constitution and the law, there can be no full-fledged liberal democracy in Turkey. Kemalism envisages a homogenized nation, a disciplined society, and authoritarian politics. To achieve this it uses coercive means and state apparatuses. As such Kemalism is incompatible with democracy.

Furthermore, a system of coercion justified by an ideology (Kemalism) is not capable of evolving into democracy. Thus, in order to build genuine democracy, Kemalism should be dropped as the state ideology.

In the panel discussion, I mentioned above, a British member of the EP, Michael Cashman, claimed that Kemalism has always been for Westernization and Europeanization. Well, this is simply wishful thinking. Yes, they used to be the Westernizers of Turkey when they thought it was all about “imitating some cultural aspects of the West.” But realizing in the late 1990s that Westernization via EU membership requires a transformation of the Kemalist state, its hegemonic control over the economy, society and politics, they turned away from the idea and ideal of Westernization.

For contemporary Kemalists, the West is now an imperialist bloc determined to destroy Turkey as it tried through the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 and to change the secular regime. For that, the Kemalists believe the West is working with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Islamic groups, including the ruling party.

The Kemalists’ understanding of the West is limited to the Western lifestyle, listening to Western music and dressing like Westerners. But when it comes to Western political values like democracy, human rights and the rule of law, they immediately shy away from the West. And rightly so, because through such Western political values, the Kemalists would lose their hegemonic position in Turkey. They do not want this because they think that they were “born to rule.” Being a loyal Kemalist is enough to be entitled to rule the people, who do not know what is good for them and who thus need the tutelage of the Kemalist vanguard elite. They have no respect for “democratic legitimacy.”

We cannot debate democracy in Turkey without discussing Kemalism and the military, and we cannot consolidate democracy without questioning the very role Kemalism and the military have played in the construction and maintenance of authoritarian politics.

05 July 2010, Monday