Do Not Visit or Holiday in Turkey this Summer!
The Kurdish Freedom Movement have made it crystal clear.
Do not go on holiday to Turkey!
And I as a seasoned watcher of the Kurdish Freedom Struggle I would like to underline that.
I do so, because of how gloomy I am feeling, of just of how badly, generally, events are unfolding in Turkey and because I fear we are reaching a tipping point in just how far the patience of the Kurdish side can be stretched! I sense we are reaching a point of no return!
It has been recorded in numerous places of the total number of ceasefires, declarations, appeals for dialogue that the PKK as a Kurdish Freedom Movement have made over the years.
Indeed, the legal Kurdish party, or should I say, the latest legal Kurdish party as party after party after party has been closed down by the Turkish authorities have also made endless streams of declarations and appeals to the Turkish authorities for peaceful and political dialogue in the solving of The Kurdish Question in Turkey.
All, seemingly, to no avail!
We are now at a point where the Kurds in Turkey are no better and indeed worse off in terms of freedom of expression, political representation and human and linguistic rights!
All democratic avenues being shut down, shut down and shut down.
Not just shut down, but with naked attempts to humiliate and denigrate such as the arrest and attempted prosecution of the DTP Leader, Nurettin Demirtas.
The fascist attacks during Newroz and May Day are the exact same approach of repression and humiliation of the Kurdish people and their representatives.
No wonder the armed struggle of the Kurds began, faced with such fierce and inhumane denial and barbaric repression.
If the Turkish authorities think that they can solve the Kurdish issue with military and political repression, again, in 2008, trying the same tactics as the nineties, then they have made a very serious mistake. As have the Western countries that attempt to assist them in that tactic, such as Germany, US, France and others. Statement after statement such as the Kurdish National Congress below fall of deaf ears, time and time again.
The Western Response to Turkey's Repression of the Kurds!
If every democratic offer of negotiation is ignored and answered with bombs, lies and psychological misinformation then a pressure cooker is building up. If the anger, humiliation and frustration that is building up cannot find expression and is kept out of the so called democratic process, then the outlook is looking increasingly grim.
I am very afraid that the time is very close when Kurdish patience, understandably, will run out.
And if I am right, I am picking up signals from different places that that time has very nearly come.
So, I would again urge, if you read this post, DO NOT GO TO TURKEY FOR YOUR HOLIDAYS THIS SUMMER!!!
Turkey brings in $18 Billion from tourism, and is the biggest earner in the Turkish economy. It is also used in the psychological war to promote Turkey as a 'paradise preserved' and cover up the atrocities and suppression being committed against the Kurds.
I would hope that you would not go, because you have listened to and would like to be in solidarity with a people who have a justifiable and legititmate profound freedom struggle, but at this point I would urge you also not to go for your own personal safety!!
It could possibly get very hot in Turkey this year!
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5 comments:
So if we want to visit our Kurdish friends, we should not go see them? What about Kurds in the diaspora who want to visit their homeland?
mihacir, this year is going to be crucial to the Freedom Struggle.
Kurds in the diaspora will of course go and come as usual. The appeal to those who are considering going to Turkey to spend tourist money and give Turkey a cloak of respectibility as being wonderful holiday resort when the war in Turkish occupied Kurdistan goes on relentlessly.
Personally, I'm not going to Turkey this summer in solidarity with Freedom Struggle even though I have family there.
I think people have to make their own choices.
How will killing innocent people earn people's trust, sympathy and solidarity? How will the PKK achieve their aims without international support?
(Okay, they will not lose, inasmuch as they will continue to be able to fight, but they will not win and "not losing" does not help them or the innocent Kurds they claim to defend.)
Kurds killing innocent people is as immoral as Turks or anyone else killing innocent people. They commit a vile crime and consolidate the conflict every single time they do so.
They must know this; so, it appears that they must want the conflict that has killed so many in their community.
Why, then, should we show solidarity with the PKK (as opposed to the Kurdish and, indeed, Turkish communities that have suffered so much), especially when it is the same, you're-with-us-or-against-us approach as the US's?
lol, Sam.
Who supports or has ever supported the Kurds? Please tell me, which country? I've been campaigning for over 15 years and still we only see a few backbenchers and individuals who support the Kurdish Struggle for Freedom.
Its a very good point, though, that you raise, but firstly, my post is MY post and not the official Kurdish Freedom Movements position.
I am putting my opinion across as an observer of events.
Secondly, I'm afraid to say that one only has to look at the IRA and how they eventually brought the UK Government to the negotiationg table.
It was only after the biggest bomb in the economic centre of London, the Docklands area, that the UK government opened negotiations and now as know, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness are politicians in N.Ireland.
No-one would have imagined for a second during the IRA's bombing campaigns that they would ever get anywhere with it.
But frankly, and this is a lesson I've learnt after campaigning tirelessly for over 15 years, in every field and organisation, is that peaceful campaigning and diplomacy has not got us anywhere.
You look at the overwheming might of the Turkish army attempting to crush the Kurdish Movement in the mountains and in the democratic arena and you cannot come to any other conclusion that Turkey is not interested in peace and the international community remains silent in the face of Turkey's murderous and racist onslaught against the Kurds.
So, as with the IRA's reliance on their own people and their own organisation and their own tactics if they were to decide to target Turkey biggest economic earner, tourism, who could blame them, frankly!
I am flabergasted that they have always concentrated their military struggle in the mountains, wearing military uniforms and taking on the might of one of the worlds biggest armies, that has the support of the whole world.
How anyone can call these young brave Kurdish volunteers, who are motivated to fight against their oppressors by a sense of fighting a massive injustice, 'terrorists' is quite simply beyond me.
How would you suggest the Kurds proceed against such overwhelming suppression of thought, political rights, cultural identity and human rights?
Because God knows they have tried everything!
I would judge it more strategically productive to target Turkish state / military / police infrastructure within cities popular with tourists, whilst putting out graphic propaganda in major tourist languages in places where it will be seen - posters, leaflets etc. Tourists should go home one way or another more aware of the war that is going on and what it's actually about (i.e. defending the basic human dignity of the Kurdish people). Attacking them simply makes them more inclined to believe the Turkish version of events and categorise the PKK with the generally despised (amongst westerners) Islamist terror groups of the region.
Certainly some tourists know and don't care, but many are merely ignorant of the nature of the Turkish state. They are potential allies and potential enemies...ideally they should leave Turkey with a greater likelihood of becoming the former. Hitting them directly makes them the latter for certain. Instead, they should be made witnesses.
To defeat Turkey for good, the facade of modernity and respectability built up by its paid lobbyists and collaborators, which depends on weak public knowledge of the history of the region, must be torn to pieces - which requires co-ordinated efforts to raise consciousness of the Kurdish, Cyprus and Armenian issues, which are inherently related by the character of the Turkish state and its historic behaviour.
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