Journal of the mental environment
“100 million people could be impoverished by the rising cost of food.”
Photo: MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images
An old Kurdish poem describes the Kurds’ existence as one of “a thousand sighs, a thousand tears, a thousand revolts.” Described in ancient history as a fierce, mountain-dwelling people, the Kurds are the biggest ethnic group in the world without their own homeland. With 25 to 30 million people dispersed throughout Southern Turkey, Northern Iraq and the West of Iran, the Kurds have undergone brutal oppression by foreigners since the Middle Ages.
Kurds make up around 20 percent of the total population in Iraq and Turkey, where their assertion for independence is a major destabilizing force in the Middle East. Their suffering is most evident in Turkey, home to 17 million Kurds: over the past 30 years, Turkey has launched a civil war against them and the PKK (Kurdish Worker’s Party), sending in their army to raid 3,000 Kurdish villages throughout the country, killing thousands of civilians and leaving over a million homeless. Kurds make up an overwhelming part of the country’s poorest and least-educated, and many who have become successful in business and the government have done so by assimilating into Turkish society. Kurdish language and music had been outlawed until 1991, and the very mention of Kurds in Parliament remains taboo. A Kurdish MP, Leyla Zana, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 1994 for swearing an oath to the “brotherhood between Turkish and Kurdish people.” While all minorities in Turkey theoretically enjoy the same rights, the Kurds have long endured treatment as second-class citizens.
Although the war between Kurds and Turks ostensibly ended in 1999 with the capture of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, conflicts continue to this day: in February, Turkey sent in troops to attack the PKK in northern Iraq, adding fire to an already volatile region.
The violent tactics of the PKK have caused them to be slapped with the label “terrorist” by the CIA and the Turkish media, yet the PKK see themselves as “freedom fighters,” no different from the Zionists during the early 1900s or the Chechens in Russia. “We are not terrorists,” said Mizgin Ahmed, a PKK leader in an interview with the Guardian. “We share the same goals of democracy and human rights as the West.”
While the PKK’s bombings have caused civilian casualties, the sheer number of Kurds killed by the Turkish army – over 30,000 – eclipses the PKK’s actions and blurs the line between “terrorist” and “state terror.” “We want Turkey to officially recognize the Kurd’s identity,” said Ahmed. “Then we will disarm tomorrow.”
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Comments
Why is the artical about hipsters longer and more popular than this artical about people dying?
Because that's the world we live in. People would rather fight for their childish identity than fight for the rights of other people.
This article's premise is a classic case of false dichotomy. The notions of "Freedom Fighters" and "Terrorist" are not mutually exclusive.
In other news...
"Turkey has launched a civil war against them and the PKK (Kurdish Worker’s Party)..."
Huh? The PKK started in the 70s with the goal of forming a Marxist Kurdish nation. In the 80's they stepped up their violence with attacks on government, civilian, and tourist targets. This is the 'civil war' that the article mentions. And the 30,000 killed that the article suggests are Kurds is actually the total number killed on both sides.
Why did the PKK step up the violence in the 80s? Many Kurds didn't actually support the PKK, possibly because their Marxist orientation at the time was at odds with with the Islamic orientation of most Kurds. When the central government started the 'Southeastern Anatolia Project' with the aim of improving the living conditions in South Eastern Turkey, it knocked the legs out from under the PKK's main rhetorical stick, that the Kurds were kept poor by the central government. Initially, most of the PKK's attacks at the time were aimed at thwarting the Southeastern Anatolia Project.
It' easy to look at from the west. This looks like an orientalist view point. I'm sorry but we dont travel with the camels in anatolia.
State has gun, PKK has gun. They're both in the name of violence, so there lots of killed women, children and young Kurds and Turks...
what's the difference?. Same shit!
Research, resarch guys and girls...PKK is not a left army, they have Kurdish right-natinonalist ideas.
note: do u now that in turkey every men has to go to army, so some of them-kurds and turks- killed each other are brothers? It is not a easy to say that "turkish army"...what is ""turkish army"?. There is not a professional army in turkey like west counties.
We know the state violence very well, i meet face to face every day, also in the east part of turkey there is a PKK violence in villages, in cities...
Do u konow that how many civil anatolian killed by PKK?
"If they do it, it is terrorism! If we do it, it is counterterrorism" Chomsky
Turkey has always been governed by xenophobia; all western countries have hidden agendas against Turkey, and yes, yes, rest of the world is also the enemy of Turkey. As a result, all troubles come from outside. If anybody does anything wrong against Turkish order, that person must have been brain-washed. They got to be because no person in Turkey dare to do such an act (look at the strict but very humane socialization process!); no person should have an ability, has a brain, neither is capable (mentally and physically) of doing such things (because Turkish dominant ideology destroys any potentials that individuals could have). That’s why for example, any arrested person (for any crime not just thought crime) is interrogated by asking the following questions: who brain washed you, who made you do this…So Turkish people never do anything wrong. This vision is true for anyone in Turkey including Turks, Kurds, Muslims, Armenians, and Arabs. By the there is no even such an ethnicity, Kurds! Kurds are mountain Turks.
In short, Turkey has done anything wrong. For example, Turkey has never oppressed Kurds. See our ex president publically announced that he has a Kurdish origin!!!!! Turkey has never tortured anybody, never killed anybody in police custody. Those who accuse Turkey of doing such things must have been brainwashed like those “poor brainwashed man on the mountains”.
Sometimes people disappear, sometimes 12 years old kids are extra judicially executed by the Special Forces, and sometimes entire village people are forced to eat shit, but these are just an unintentional accidents and Turkey has nothing to do with any of this. Turkey never does such things. Why does Turkey want to get involve these horrible crimes? Does this sound logical?
Amnsty International’s millions of pages of reports? Ovvvv they are just full of craps and lies. (And by the way, AI is another organization that western imperialists founded). Turkey has never violated human rights.
Is Jenny Uechi an Adbusters staff writer?
Why are you asking about the writer? Are you offended! Will you get the person fired?
Ahh the classic western perspective over issues that's going on there.
First do you think it's easy to launch a civil war over 20 million people? If that was true there had to be a continuous bloodshed on the streets, because almost half of this number lives in the big cities in as in Istanbul or Ankara.
The eight president of Turkey(Turgut Ozal) had openly said that he has kurdish origins and people elected him 2 times as prime minister and the president of the country.
He was not the only one, there's always several kurdish parliament members in various parties.
Regardless of these, the past governments and especially the military had terrible mistakes and plays over the whole nation not only kurds.
Pkk IS a terrorist organization, if they were fighting for freedom they could fight to get it from Iraq or Iran as well. But Turkish military being happy from their terrorist profile never wiped them out. It's the second biggest military power in the NATO with around 1 million soldiers ready for combat. They are fighting with pkk which has 2000-3000 armed men at most for over 20 years. Does this look logical? No it's a delusion, if they had wiped Pkk out they would also wipe their popularity and acceptance among the public. After every terrorist attack against some civilians in Turkey, some General shows up on the TV and says "we will find the ones who is responsible for this cruel attack and punish them severely."
So if there was no PKK people would be asking 'wait why are we paying 20 billion dollars to buy new Choppers from France or Germany or Italy?'
Yes and there's that side of the issue. European counterparts of pkk are content with this situation because these poor brainwashed man on the mountains keep the area warm and make Turkey to spend money on military. Those are not idealistic democracy fighters those are paid soldiers, their arms are provided by the US, their political backbone is in Germany, Sweden Belgium, they make huge amounts of money from drug trafficking, and keep that area as a gate for the drug traffic between afghanistan and europe. Who doesn't want a tool like PKK? Everybody loves them and they like them to be terrorists and when it's necessary they become a loose cannon against Iran as well. PKK Arms Scandal Fuels Turkish Suspicions
After all, these matters are not in favor of Kurdish peeople who lives in Turkey, it's their ethnicity that's put in the headlines. The word Kurd surely creates some irritation among public just as muslim or islam creates a fear and suspicion in the world now. Turkish government had great efforts to develop the area. The biggest budgeted project of the Turkish History Gap Project has been launched there. Turkey definitely needs to clear out the issues about democratic and human rights. And that can be done by cutting the fascists from power, a process that's recently been started by a god sent public prosecutor. Ergenekon Network
This is so contradicted! I am confused! Has Turkey used state terror or not against its civilians, its minorities, and its own people, or not?
Is not Turkey ally to those countries that this comment accuses of supporting terror?
Is not true that Turkish generals get permission from USA and other imperialist countries to over thrown the government?
Is not Turkish army members paid?
It is delusional that people do not want to accept existence of Turkish racism, Turkish state terrorism, atrocities and human right violations...
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