Last Friday a statement made by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) on the Kurdish language debate went almost unnoticed. This silence may have something to do with the decreasing weight of the military on political issues. No one may have cared what the generals were thinking and saying about the Kurdish question.
Whatever the reason, that silence was not good for the consolidation of democracy in this country. The military should have been reminded forcefully that it was none of their business to make a remark on the Kurdish language. But all political actors, with the exception of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), remained silent. Neither the prime minister nor any other political figure in the government went public, opposing the position of the military revealed through a statement placed on the TSK’s website.
On the contrary, politicians, including the parliament speaker, heavily criticized the BDP for bringing up the issue of bilingual social space in southeast Turkey. The latter even called on public prosecutors to make a case on the BDP’s stance on bilingual social space, which is a disgrace to the democratic credentials of the parliament speaker.
The ruling party did not pass the test on this case at the detriment of its own legitimacy and democratic credentials. Is it the military that decides how to address the Kurdish question? If they are in charge of defining the problem and drawing a line for resolving the question, what then is the role of the government and Parliament?
The government should see clearly that such statements from the military are attempts to hijack the role of the government. It then becomes impossible to erode the image that the government is soft, unreliable and ready to sell the country out, and thus it is the military that the people must turn to and rely on.
It is really hard to swallow a statement by the military in which it asserts that the debate on bilingualism, the usage of Turkish and Kurdish in southeast Turkey “goes against the founding philosophy of the Turkish Republic.” What does the military know about the “founding principles”? And how were they informed about their content? And, above all, what does it have to do with the military’s profession, which is to defend the country against external aggression?
Consider the mindset of the Turkish military revealed with this latest statement. It is as if they are not men in uniform trained in combat, but wise experts on history, language, and political science. They proclaim: “Language, culture, and ideals of unity are the indispensable aspects of being a nation. The result of a lack of linguistic unity has been portrayed by many painful examples in history.” Really? I think they seem to know about everything but their own profession because they pay the least attention to it.
This is not all. “The TSK has and always will continue to stand for and side with the protection of … the nation-state, the unitary state, and the secular state,” the statement claimed.
No democratic government can swallow a military that positions itself to tell political actors the “true way of conducting politics.” This cannot be the business of the military. One likes or dislikes the argument for the bilingual use of Turkish and Kurdish. Politicians and the public should debate it. But if politicians treat the military as the final “arbiter” in this debate, then we cannot claim to have achieved democracy and the end of military tutelage.
A government that remains silent on an intrusion meant to limit political debates behind a façade of the “founding principles of the republic” cannot oppose further intrusions conducted in the name of secularism or any other pretext. Once the military is allowed to draw the boundaries of the political debate, as we know very well in this country, there will be no limit to their political ambitions.
Whatever the reason, that silence was not good for the consolidation of democracy in this country. The military should have been reminded forcefully that it was none of their business to make a remark on the Kurdish language. But all political actors, with the exception of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), remained silent. Neither the prime minister nor any other political figure in the government went public, opposing the position of the military revealed through a statement placed on the TSK’s website.
On the contrary, politicians, including the parliament speaker, heavily criticized the BDP for bringing up the issue of bilingual social space in southeast Turkey. The latter even called on public prosecutors to make a case on the BDP’s stance on bilingual social space, which is a disgrace to the democratic credentials of the parliament speaker.
The ruling party did not pass the test on this case at the detriment of its own legitimacy and democratic credentials. Is it the military that decides how to address the Kurdish question? If they are in charge of defining the problem and drawing a line for resolving the question, what then is the role of the government and Parliament?
The government should see clearly that such statements from the military are attempts to hijack the role of the government. It then becomes impossible to erode the image that the government is soft, unreliable and ready to sell the country out, and thus it is the military that the people must turn to and rely on.
It is really hard to swallow a statement by the military in which it asserts that the debate on bilingualism, the usage of Turkish and Kurdish in southeast Turkey “goes against the founding philosophy of the Turkish Republic.” What does the military know about the “founding principles”? And how were they informed about their content? And, above all, what does it have to do with the military’s profession, which is to defend the country against external aggression?
Consider the mindset of the Turkish military revealed with this latest statement. It is as if they are not men in uniform trained in combat, but wise experts on history, language, and political science. They proclaim: “Language, culture, and ideals of unity are the indispensable aspects of being a nation. The result of a lack of linguistic unity has been portrayed by many painful examples in history.” Really? I think they seem to know about everything but their own profession because they pay the least attention to it.
This is not all. “The TSK has and always will continue to stand for and side with the protection of … the nation-state, the unitary state, and the secular state,” the statement claimed.
No democratic government can swallow a military that positions itself to tell political actors the “true way of conducting politics.” This cannot be the business of the military. One likes or dislikes the argument for the bilingual use of Turkish and Kurdish. Politicians and the public should debate it. But if politicians treat the military as the final “arbiter” in this debate, then we cannot claim to have achieved democracy and the end of military tutelage.
A government that remains silent on an intrusion meant to limit political debates behind a façade of the “founding principles of the republic” cannot oppose further intrusions conducted in the name of secularism or any other pretext. Once the military is allowed to draw the boundaries of the political debate, as we know very well in this country, there will be no limit to their political ambitions.
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