BY TAHA AKYOL
MILLIYET- Former deputies Leyla Zana and Orhan Dogan, speaking to Hurriyet, criticized the recent attempt to burn Turkey’s national flag and urged that respect be shown to the flag. Now is this respect for a flag of a ‘foreign country,’ or respect based on the sense that it is a flag for all of us? ‘I have respect for the values of both peoples,’ [meaning the ethnic Turks and Kurds] said Zana. Dogan struck a different note, emphasizing the need for ‘a respect for the shared vales of our common homeland and for the flag which is our shared value.’ Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) leader Tuncer Bakirhan’s words were also very important. ‘This flag is not only the flag of the Turks, but also the Kurds,’ said Bakirhan. ‘It is also our flag and it would be wrong to question this.’ These are pretty words, but why is the ‘flag of our common homeland’ missing at your party meetings?
All three called the attempt a provocation. ‘This could have been done by circles who are against Turkey’s democratization,’ said Bakirhan. But, they have provoked the Kurdish concept in chauvinistic and ethnic national terms instead of using it as a democratic and cultural identity and damaged shared values with different flags and maps, and are now talking about provocation. All nationalistic movements have extreme, chauvinistic feelings, but the terrorist group PKK, which shed enormous blood in Turkey, turned this into a totalitarian fanaticism and at the end was militarily defeated. The world outlawed it and it didn’t even receive half of the votes of Kurds in Turkey. Now it’s trying to paint itself as moderate.
The Kurdish movement has to change its ‘ethnic national’ movement. If the concept of moderation is a mere tactic, then they cannot hide their true intentions, and they will reveal themselves, as in the recent incidents. The issue is not about two young people being unaware of what they are doing. The real issue is that chauvinistic emphasis still exists in this movement and they still insist on a different flag. Thus their claim of a ‘common flag’ is unconvincing. A different flag has only one meaning: partition. Of course people are protesting this. Even Kurdish citizens don’t vote for them. Turkey is improving its democracy. The DEHAP movement also has to abandon its ethnic nationalistic and totalitarian character and transform itself into a movement of democracy and cultural pluralism. Hiding behind deceptive maneuvering isn’t the same thing.