A question for Turks

[ema]

Turkey has almost no oil. Turkey is number 62 in the world for oil production. Behind France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Denmark, Vietnam to name a few.

That's why the sources in the southeastern Turkey is crucial. And some Kurdish groups have their eyes on it. Controlling that sources makes Turkey even more dependent.

 

[addictionary]

For starters, things have changed a little since the 90's. Kurds don't want separation anymore. They want federation. The leaders thought, hey we already do what we wanna do in this country, why the hell would we wanna leave! Lets bribe our base society with federation and keep benefiting The turkish state.

 

[Tarkanian]

Why not just give the Kurds the land east of the Euphrates or even just south of the Murat? Why not let them have their own country? Wouldn't you gain more than you would lose. They surely would join with Iraqi Kurdistan and all that oil. Wouldn't you become the good guy and Iran the bad? I know the PKK has committed a lot of violence but now it seems you have a possible partner in Barzani. Leadership that desperately needs you as a friend and ally rather than a target.

Honestly if Minnesota wanted to join Canada I really wouldn't care.

I'm really not trying to ruffle any feathers. I just would like to know what you guys think.

You personally would not care but US Authorities would ream a new ******** to those secessionist Minnesotanians.
well,you know me, I am a college professor who happens to deal with these issues, a lot.
Today's Kurdish regions have been under Turkish sovereignty for , like a thousand year.
These places have never been under direct Kurdish sovereignty but Kurds have enjoyed a great deal of autonomy back then.
Why is that?
For the states of the time were never the pan-opticons (=Leviathans) they are now, with their hi-tech surveillance capabilities and stuff.
So Mexico does't have any sovereignty rights and claims on Florida just for the fact that Hispanics are a majority now in certain cities.
Turkey is not the ideal democracy and there have been grave and widespread violations of human rights.
This happened prolly in the worst way in Kurdish-populated areas.
That said, other regions were also heavily hit by this attitude of the state security apparatus, especially following the 1980 coup d'etat.
I mean 'twas not the Kurds only who were hit.
Especially leftist groups were smashed brutally (cold war times baby. CIA were involved too) That said, far-right pro-government militia was also target of the state suppression. Buck did not stop with them,liberals, bloody islamists everybody got hit.
So basically problem is an Human Rights issue.

However, despite her non-stellar human rights record, Turkey has never been an apartheid regime, nor an alien dominator nor an occupying force.
So Kurds have no right to secede according to International Law.
That said, future is bleak for Turkey. I am expecting a civil strife maybe war in -say- 20 years.

 

[DutchJazzer]

seriously.

the human race defies logic

 

[VINYLONE]

seriously.

the human race defies logic

In what sense?

 

[DutchJazzer]

In what sense?

murder = illogical
rape = illogical
jealousy = illogical
i could go on.

 

[♪alt13]

You personally would not care but US Authorities would ream a new ******** to those secessionist Minnesotanians.
well,you know me, I am a college professor who happens to deal with these issues, a lot.
Today's Kurdish regions have been under Turkish sovereignty for , like a thousand year.
These places have never been under direct Kurdish sovereignty but Kurds have enjoyed a great deal of autonomy back then.
Why is that?
For the states of the time were never the pan-opticons (=Leviathans) they are now, with their hi-tech surveillance capabilities and stuff.
So Mexico does't have any sovereignty rights and claims on Florida just for the fact that Hispanics are a majority now in certain cities.
Turkey is not the ideal democracy and there have been grave and widespread violations of human rights.
This happened prolly in the worst way in Kurdish-populated areas.
That said, other regions were also heavily hit by this attitude of the state security apparatus, especially following the 1980 coup d'etat.
I mean 'twas not the Kurds only who were hit.
Especially leftist groups were smashed brutally (cold war times baby. CIA were involved too) That said, far-right pro-government militia was also target of the state suppression. Buck did not stop with them,liberals, bloody islamists everybody got hit.
So basically problem is an Human Rights issue.

However, despite her non-stellar human rights record, Turkey has never been an apartheid regime, nor an alien dominator nor an occupying force.
So Kurds have no right to secede according to International Law.
That said, future is bleak for Turkey. I am expecting a civil strife maybe war in -say- 20 years.

Really? Why? Is the primary problem ideological, ethnic, economic, sectarian? (a little surprised by your last sentence tbh)

 

[♪alt13]

Politically speaking, it's probably the same reasons that Iran won't give anything to Azeri Turks. They are more there than Kurdish people are in Turkey.

I'm not much into this stuff btw, it's just too complicated for me. I try to stay away because racism/nationalism/ethnicism is nothing but very disruptive and it's sad for me to see our people(all Turkey citizens) are under heavy pressure by it being used as a provocative tool by both the internal and the external separatists, for the last 4-5 decades. PKK are not recognized as a terrorist group on a consensus by the whole world(some countries and NATO blacklist them as terrorists some don't), which is a great disgrace on the western world in my opinion because I don't know who are terrorists if they are not. Instead, they are greatly supported by particular western and mid east countries. So it's all politics for some countries and groups, while it means only horrible deaths for both Turkish and Kurdish people and their families.

In the western media for instance, they try their best to call them as Kurdish rebels, separatists, party workers or whatever they can find for not to call them terrorists. Sometimes they are even depicted almost as heroes who are getting killed by the Turkish army undeservedly while they are fighting for their freedom, on some western TVs.

The crucial point is, to know that they do not represent Kurdish people other than a non-significant part of them. Very few Kurdish people want to get divided. Today, a guy named Selahattin Demirtaş is one of the candidates for the Presidency Elections in August, he is supported by both of the Kurdish parties(BDP and HDP) and he clearly states that Kurdish people don't want to divide Turkey, they demand their rights which they were shorn of for decades. That's the biggest mistake in the history of the Republic of Turkey in my opinion. Turkish governments have caused so much suffering and injustice for the Kurdish people and that created the base and circumstances for PKK and some other terrorist groups to emerge. And the terror is the biggest mistake of the Kurdish side likewise, because after that point it's just a vicious circle. Even though the majority of the Kurdish people didn't support the PKK, they didn't exclude, denounce or deport them either. Later on, the PKK have become a great tool to use by many many external powers including the US.

But like I said before, we're just too mixed to be divided. Living together for thousands of years, married to each other and became just too intricate to simply divide. I can give myself for an example. The father side of my family is immigrants from Turkmenistan so I technically call myself much more Turk-er than an average Turkey Turk(for fun, I'm not nationalistic) since Turkish people are a mix of Anatolian/Mid Eastern/Caucasian/Balkan people today. But it's very funny that sometimes some people in Turkey think I am a Japanese or something because of my more original Turkic facial features. Yet, to prove my point, even I have a lot of Kurdish relatives. Last summer, my older brother married a gorgeous(he'd kill me if he knew I said this) green eyed Kurdish girl. And that marriage probably made the number of my Kurdish relatives more than the number of my Turkish relatives. And it's the same everywhere in Turkey. Only Istanbul itself has a great amount of Kurdish population. And likewise, the southeastern Turkey have great amount of Turkish/Turkmen population.

It was a similar situation also with the Arabs and Turkmen in the northern Iraq and Syria. After the Ottoman dissolution those lands became like Northern/Southern Korea near the borders. Millions of people got separated, families were disintegrated.

To me, dividing Turkey, is the last must-be-taken step for some people to make Turkish and Kurdish people as enemies to each other, it's the only way actually. Divide them, separate people, wait for them to forget their ties, and after a few decades implement all the political **** and poison to provoke each side, and congratulations, you have two enemy countries.

Finally, there is one more thing that is in the play. Like most of the time, it's oil. Southestearn Turkey has the only oil resources in the country and the chances are there are more oil reserves there waiting to be discovered. I'm not going to dive into that cause I specifically hate the subject. It's just the game of greedy people.

What do you think about the Scottish independence referendum? How about the Ukrainian situation? Are there any parallels themes in Turkey? Does belonging to the EU make it easier for the UK to just vote on it? Is it shared language?

 

[♪alt13]

Turkey has almost no oil. Turkey is number 62 in the world for oil production. Behind France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Denmark, Vietnam to name a few.

There is only 1 thing that I think can fix this problem. Increase standards of living. (Booming economy, more rights etc).

Native Americans and Mexican Americans don't complain too much about America because living standards are pretty good. If Turkey receives booming economy where the standards of living for all its citizens including its Kurdish citizens increase greatly, I think it would cause less terrorists to form. You think Nazi's would have come to power if Germany wasn't so dirt poor from WW1?

That's part of it but there is more to it.

The Mexicans have a state. So regardless of whether they are living in it they feel like they have a national identity. (I think)

The sentence above probably does apply to first and second generation Mexican Americans(I think) but also all Americans tend to identify ourselves as people belonging to a set of documents(The US Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, etc.). Almost all immigrants share a similar if not greater pride in them as natural born citizens do in my experience.

While I think Native Americans share pride in being US citizens they also were scorned pretty hard. Honestly the biggest reason we likely don't have a serious Native American independence movement is due to one of the worst and most complete genocides in modern history. Most NAs either don't speak their native tongue or speak it as a second language. In fact there is a real threat that most if not all Native American languages could become extinct in the next 100 years. The Native American population in the US is also, largely for the same reasons, surprisingly small.

from wikipedia

The 2010 Census showed that the U.S. population on April 1, 2010, was 308.7 million.[105]

Out of the total U.S. population, 2.9 million people, or 0.9 percent, reported American Indian or Alaska Native alone. In addition, 2.3 million people, or another 0.7 percent, reported American Indian or Alaska Native in combination with one or more other races. Together, these two groups totaled 5.2 million people. Thus, 1.7 percent of all people in the United States identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, either alone or in combination with one or more other races.

To add further perspective. While only 0.9% reported being American Indian or Alaska Native alone 13.2% reported being Black or African American alone and 17.1% reported being Hispanic or Latino alone. There is not to my knowledge 1 majority Native American city or town in the whole of the US that approaches 100,000 people. You see Native Americans, their language, and their culture has been almost completely annihilated. A fact most Americans still have a hard time facing.

There have been some pushes over the years from groups like AIM(American Indian Movement) and there are members of the Lakota Sioux that want an independent Nation in parts of what is now Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. The truth is reservations are probably the closest Native Americans will get to having an Independent Nation not because they never wanted one but because they were pushed to the brink of extinction.


That's the way I see it anyway

 

[Tarkanian]

Really? Why? Is the primary problem ideological, ethnic, economic, sectarian? (a little surprised by your last sentence tbh)

belated nationalism.
Kurds are on a roll and they are in right in the middle of a full throttle nation-building process.
Nation building is a fascinating phenomenon, which is, as Dutch reminded, apt to be "illogical" at times.
You need to find stuff or create some, which should define your group as well as some "others" who shall play the evil guy.
For Balkans, that other was the Turks.
I am afraid, Kurds of Turkey seriously "dislike" the entity called Turk.
Because this entity also offers an "identity" which tend to -succesfully- create a melting pot in the expense of local identities.
Turkey has its own peace process, making use of sophisticated peace instruments.
In such processes you, first of all things, have to reject the archaic winner-loser dichotomies; all those stemming from zero-sum-game logic.
However, despite the fact that Turkish government has been succesful in its delicate approach, I have failed to see the same responsible attitude on behalf of Kurdish parties and politicians. They have been utterly singing hymns of victory, which defies the logic of peace building and conflict resolution methodology.
They have been raising the bar and voicing -for Turkish society at least for now- unacceptable demands.
They have amassed serious popular support in their regions and everybody there believes Government was brought on to its knees.
Now that is wrong.
In Semdinli PKK tried to raise the flag of revolt, like 2 years ago. There has been an efficient censorship but I know for a fact that PKK aimed to create a controlled zone and failed at that with 6 to 9 hundred corpses left back, in a week!
In a week!
That is one of the biggest military fiascos PKK experienced!
Following this, now enter the rather victorious and imprudent attitude, which really don't appreciate the insightfulness of the government approach but tie everything to their military prowess (?).
This hunger cannot be stopped!
Kurds will want moar, Turks will reject and chaos, mayhem and bloodshed baby!
Barzani "is" another actor BTW, PKK is someone else.
There is no such thing as a Kurdish side. There are many Kurdish sides jockeying for power.

 

[ema]

Really? Why? Is the primary problem ideological, ethnic, economic, sectarian? (a little surprised by your last sentence tbh)

I would think that he's also afraid of the government, the ruler party, AKP. Erdoğan is not only a wannabe dictator but also a stupid one. He has a New Ottoman dream and he sees the Kurdish controversy as a tool in that. Now in hindsight, I think he wanted to have a word on the Northern Syria when he was trying to take down Essad. I think he though he could have authority on the newly designed areas in Rojava(Northern Syria) and he would use those lands as negotiation assets and give some lands from there to the Kurds to process his ongoing so called peace course.

Of course he screwed up with his Syrian policy and now we have to deal also with Isil thanks to him. But a bigger mistake of him was, in my opinion, the figure he has chosen to negotiate his so called Peace Course with. The leader of the PKK, Apo, who should have been executed when we caught him. But instead we revoked the whole supreme punishment just not to hang him. Anyway, Apo is just the leader of a pathetic terrorist group, he didn't lead Kurdish people, he didn't lead Arab people in the Southern Turkey, he didn't lead Turkish people in the Southern Turkey, he didn't lead any sect, religion, ethnic groups or whatsoever in the region and he did nothing to have the tutelage of any of those people, but now, thanks to Erdoğan, he holds a great authority over all people living in those lands, while he's in prison in an isolated island. Erdoğan even put the highest ranked military personnel into prison for the negotiations he was doing with Apo.

Btw, I'm calling it so called peace negotiations because there isn't anything resembling peace with the PKK conflict. PKK continues arming and they are kidnapping 10-16 years old kids to recruit, they are recruiting from the universities, and violence continues in the Southern Turkey while also the Kurdish people gets slaughtered by secretly AKP-supported Isil terrorists. It's just so much for negotiating peace.

What do you think about the Scottish independence referendum? How about the Ukrainian situation? Are there any parallels themes in Turkey? Does belonging to the EU make it easier for the UK to just vote on it? Is it shared language?

Funny you asked about Scottish issue as I recently read one of my fav writers on the subject. He was complaining why all the Scottish and similar conflicts/deals(like ETA, Ira, Wales etc)were bad examples(those are being discussed in Turkey a lot) for comparing with the Kurdish issue.

The Kurdish separatists want a separated independent country(lands) with an independent army. The non-separatist but strong Kurdish nationalists want strong autonomy with legislative, executive power along with the power on the oil and other resources on the area. These are far from what British gave or willing to give to the Scottish, Northern Ireland or Wales. This is the case even though those fellas have their own major history of state/governmental structures. They had kingdoms, states, armies, wars and everything related to state tradition unlike Kurdish people. They had fronts, borders, they stayed much more homogenous, and now they want their independence "back".

As for the referendum, a British friend of mine thinks it's a joke and will be useless. According to him, the majority of the UK don't even think that the Scottish parliament has the power to order such a referendum and he thinks it's unlikely the results will get any recognition to lead a full independence. Maybe UK would give them more independence as in legislative power or etcetera if the results are overwhelmingly pro-independence but otherwise, he thinks it will be noneffective.

Now comparing the referendum with Turkey's situation, I don't think there would be any referendum for the independence of the Kurdish people ever, but there might be one for a federation-like structure for a local Kurdish parliament etc in a couple decades. But for the sake of being hypothetical, even if we had a referendum for a Kurdish independence a la Scottish referendum, the results would be overwhelmingly a big NO to it because, unlike the Scottish referendum, it would have to include all of the Turkish citizens in the voting process, so not a chance. There wouldn't be any chance of positive outcome for the Scottish independence either, if all the UK citizens were voting.

About the Ukraine question, obviously no countries or international organizations think that the Crimea referendum is legal and fair. Only Russia and its a few satellite friends, like Kazakhstan and Armenia recognize it. Beyond being illegal, the results are suggesting it was awfully a fraud. How can the outcome be 97% in favor of joining the Russian Federation when almost the half of the Crimea are Ukrainians, Crimean Turks(Tatars) and other ethnic groups. And that demographics is after only the heavy Russification of the lands. In 1900, 40% were Tatars, and only a quarter of the population were Russian, but they settled over a million Russians there over the time so now, more than half of the population is Russian while Ukrainians are in the minority and the Tatars are almost disappearing at only 12%.

 

[ema]

belated nationalism.
Kurds are on a roll and they are in right in the middle of a full throttle nation-building process.
Nation building is a fascinating phenomenon, which is, as Dutch reminded, apt to be "illogical" at times.
You need to find stuff or create some, which should define your group as well as some "others" who shall play the evil guy.
For Balkans, that other was the Turks.
I am afraid, Kurds of Turkey seriously "dislike" the entity called Turk.
Because this entity also offers an "identity" which tend to -succesfully- create a melting pot in the expense of local identities.
Turkey has its own peace process, making use of sophisticated peace instruments.
In such processes you, first of all things, have to reject the archaic winner-loser dichotomies; all those stemming from zero-sum-game logic.
However, despite the fact that Turkish government has been succesful in its delicate approach, I have failed to see the same responsible attitude on behalf of Kurdish parties and politicians. They have been utterly singing hymns of victory, which defies the logic of peace building and conflict resolution methodology.
They have been raising the bar and voicing -for Turkish society at least for now- unacceptable demands.
They have amassed serious popular support in their regions and everybody there believes Government was brought on to its knees.
Now that is wrong.
In Semdinli PKK tried to raise the flag of revolt, like 2 years ago. There has been an efficient censorship but I know for a fact that PKK aimed to create a controlled zone and failed at that with 6 to 9 hundred corpses left back, in a week!
In a week!
That is one of the biggest military fiascos PKK experienced!
Following this, now enter the rather victorious and imprudent attitude, which really don't appreciate the insightfulness of the government approach but tie everything to their military prowess (?).
This hunger cannot be stopped!
Kurds will want moar, Turks will reject and chaos, mayhem and bloodshed baby!
Barzani "is" another actor BTW, PKK is someone else.
There is no such thing as a Kurdish side. There are many Kurdish sides jockeying for power.

Turkish government is far from being successful at anything related to the Kurdish problem. The biggest mistake is, imo, dealing with PKK. Yep, PKK brought the AKP on its knees. But it's far from that bad picture you draw public wise. It's bad in some cities but most of the cities with Kurdish majority, there isn't that dislike you talk about towards the Turkish entity.

I agree with you on many points especially with your previous post but I think you overreacting to the chaos that Erdoğan created. When they are gone, I believe the waters will be much more still.