Once that was done, the Kurdish responsibles suspended, through a window looking at the Istiqlal Caddesi, a large wooden placard on which the name Enstîtuya Kurdî was written , in bold black letters . We were at the 3rd or the 4th floor, but the name was readable from Independence street . The Turkish police came soon into the Institute and ordered the placard to be taken off. Why , asked the Kurdish responsibles ? ‘Because the name Kurd is yasaq’(banned in Turkish) , said the policemen , who added : ‘you can use any other name, but not Kurdish , it is illegal’ . ‘We shall not take off the placard’, said the Kurdish responsibles. ‘Then we are going to do it’ , said the police , and they did it . The Institute’s directors said ‘We shall bring the case before justice’ . To offend in such a way a whole people numbering more than twenty millions in the sole Turkey was unbelievable. Is it this ‘democratic Turkey’, candidate at membership in the European Union ? Even Saddam Hussein, a criminal as he was, would not have behaved so shamefully about cultural issues in the region to which he had reduced Iraqi Kurdistan .
8) Repression of the Syrian Kurds by the Syrian Baath Dictatorship
The 2,5 million Kurds or so in Syria are as oppressed by the Baathist Syrian government as the 24 million or so Kurds in Turkey , and they speak the same Kurmanji . The Syrian Baath has since 1963 a planned policy of national and linguistic oppression against the Syrian Kurds (see ICV, The Persecution of the Kurdish People by the Baath Dictatorship in Syria, , Amsterdam, 1968 ; Kurdistan und die Kurden , Band 3, Pogrom 142, Göttingen, 1988 ; The Kurds in Syria and Lebanon , in : The Kurds , A Contemporary Overview , ed. G, Kreyenbroek and S.Sperl, pub. Routledge, London 1992) . To avenge the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and « punish » the Iraqi Kurds for their co-operation with the coalition forces (USA and Britain), the Syrian Baathist state savagely aggressed , in March 2004 , its own Syrian Kurds . These revolted and defended themselves with their hands. About one hundred Kurds were killed , 300 injured and more than 3000 others were arrested (see Radwan Badini, The Kurds in Syria : An Appointment with History , in Arabic, Paris, 2005, possibly also ed. in Russian .) There is, however , an important difference between the 24 or so million Kurds in Turkey and the 2,5 or so million Kurds in Syria : these , to the exception of those who had from centuries forgotten their language deep in inner Syria, continue to speak and chrish their Kurmanji language , although it is banned by the Syrian Baath . They know Arabic , since it is the sole official language, but they make it a question of honour to bring up their children in the Kurmanji language . How do they perform this, in all the Kurdish-inhabited areas of northern Syria, close to the Turkish border , from Kurd-Dagh ( also said Efrin) , northwest of Aleppo and adjacent to the former Sanjak of Alexandretta, to the province of Jazira (also said Hasaka), which is close to both Turkish Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan ? It is a matter of honour, and courage , a lesson to be meditated on by the Kurdish people in Turkey.
9) Kurmanji An Endangered Language
The British academic David Crystal presents his book entitled Language Death (Cambridge, 2002) in these terms : « The rapid endangerment and death of many minority languages across the world is a matter of widespread concern , among all concerned with issues of cultural identity in an increasingly globalized culture. » The author adds : « Only 600 of the 6000 or so languages in the world are safe from the threat of extinction. »
Michael L. Chyet , American author of a remarkable Kurdish-English Dictionary , the Kurdish being Kurmanji ( entitled in Kurdish : Ferhanga Kurmanci-Inglîzî , Yale University Press, 2003 , in both adapted Latin and Arabic alphabets) , remarks in the introduction of his work :
« In the time I have spent studying Kurdish, I have familiarized myself with the various subdialects of both Kurmanji and Sorani, and although they offer very interesting and illuminating differences, I fail to see how these differences present a threat : even the Kurmanji dialects at the two furthest extremes of Northern Kurdistan -- let us take as examples Efrîn in northwestern Syria, and Kars in northeastern Turkey, on the border with Soviet Armenia --, readily possess a mutual intelligibility. In San Diego, one even hears Kurmanji speakers conversing with Sorani speakers - each speaking his own dialect and understanding the other. It is not possible to avoid encountering regional differences in the dictionary of a language as rich as Kurmanji (….). A factor that complicates matters even more is that in spite of the illiteracy of the majority of the Kurdish populace, there exist three different alphabets in which Kurdish can be written : Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic. »
Yet Michael Chyet concludes his introduction by raising the alarm as to the future of Kurmanji :
« Kurmanji is an endangered language, and its survival is ultimately up to the Kurds themselves. My motto to the Kurds is : Zimaneki wisa ku zarok pê nepeyivin, zimanekî bê pasheroj e = A language which is not spoken by children has no future . Among the Kurds , there are many who say they are so numerous that the language will always be around . However, after the evacuation of the villages of Eastern Turkey – not to mention those of Northern Iraq - , many Kurds have moved to large Turkish-speaking cities, where the pressure on them to assimilate is enormous . In ten years , the number of Kurmanji speakers can fall drastically(….). If they (the Kurds) continue the recent trend of speaking to their children in more « prestigious » languages, be it Turkish or the languages of Europe, Kurdish will share the fate of many of the languages of the Native American Indians (…). If the beautiful Kurdish language dies due to lack of interest on the part of its speakers , it will indeed be a pity. »
It is unhappily true that the urban middle and upper class children in Turkish Kurdistan speak increasingly Turkish and ignore Kurdish , while the Kurdish-speaking rural population , whose villages were levelled to earth by the state security forces , in the early 1990s , pretexting the PKK fighting , had no choice but to seek a living in Kurdish or Turkish cities, if not in Western Europe. The examples experienced by the writer of this paper , some of which mentioned above, could be multiplied by hundreds . We find the same trend in the Kurdish emigration from Turkey in Western Europe. If we take the example of Germany , the children of the Kurdish workers (Gast Arbeiter) speak Turkish , but very seldom any Kurdish . That depends on their parents. In the places the Kurdish workers in Germany call komel, where they can meet to chat, eat , drink tea and have some social life , one can read, in Turkish « Please keep the WC clean. » The PKK’s documents are published first in Turkish, as the reference language – perhaps with the purpose to make them understandable by the Turks -, then they are translated into Kurmanji.
The death of the Kurdish language has been the aim of the Turkish Republic, it is the objective to be accomplished thanks to a Turkish utmost nationalism maintained by what is sometimes called deap Turkey : a mixture of military, state bureaucracy , and drug traffickers, who can mobilize the street mob against human rights and democracy. The recent murder of Hrant Dink , journalist and Turkish citizen of Armenian origin, who had mentioned the 1915 Armenian genocide in a paper, illustrates what may happen with such a Turkish nationalism. His crime was to believe in the freedom of opinion in Turkey.
10) Kurmanji , An Unwelcome Language in Iraqi Kurdistan ?
Of course Kurmanji cannot be unwelcome in Iraqi Kurdistan, since it is a part of it, but the interrogation reflects the dissatisfaction of its speakers as to its status, We are no longer in the early 1930s , when the matter was what dialect to choose to begin teaching Kurdish. We have today three large universities in Iraqi Kurdistan , one called Salaheddin (Saladin , the largest) in Arbil, another in Sulaimaniya, a third in Dehok, engeneering,, medicine, and law schools , an important teaching body, academics in different sciences, and students, young men and girls, in their thousands.
In the present paper the name of Badinan has been used to mean all the northern areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, close to the border with Turkey or Syria, where Kurmanji is spoken . Once there was a Kurdish principality in these areas whose name was Badinan (or Bahdinan) , but the name is today deprived of any administrative signification . On the administrative field , parts of this Badinan, such as Barzan and Mergasor , where Kurmanji is spoken, depend on Arbil , a Sorani-speaking city, and other parts, such as Sheikhan and Sinjar , where Kurmanji is spoken, depend on the city of Mosul , itself a mixture of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Christians, and placed beyond the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) . In other words, today’s Badinan lacks any unity and has no status and this situation is not healthy. I received about this some recent reports.
Two reports were received from Mr. Rasheed Ali Miziry, from Badinan , plus copy of an open letter sent by another Kurmanji writer , Xemgine Welat, to the Prime Minister of KRG, kak Nechirvan Barzani. Here is a summary of Miziri’s first report , dated August 27, 2006 :
When Kurmanji is used , it is in Arabic script . It is used in primary schools from the 1st year to the 4th year in Dehok district only . All other stages (intermediate, secondary) are in Sorani. In Dehok University : Sorani is used in Geography and History Depatments , but in the colleges of Economics and Administration and the college of Law, Arabic is used , not Kurmanji . All scientific colleges , Medecine, Agriculture, Engineering, use English . In Dehok Institutes Sorani is mostly used . In Arbil District : Sorani is used in all stages , sometimes Kurmanji , and English in scientific colleges. In Sulaimaniya District (Government) : Kurmanji is never used . Mr. Miziri adds : « Most of the officials in Sulaimaniya and some from Arbil dedicate all their efforts to remove Kurmanji from Kurdish dictionary and deprive Badinan area from that right and from their mother tongue. We have the confidence they will fail in their attempts, because most of the educated people in Badinan area and Arbil are protesting against that idea. » In a second report dated 31/08/2006 , R.A. Miziri furthers some other information : Study in Sinjar is in Arabic, but after the liberation of the district some new classes have been opened where pupils are studying Kurmanji beside Arabic . In Sheikhan area study is in Kurmanji in a number of villages, while in the town of Sheikhan itself, which is under the control of the Iraqi government , study is in Arabic, except for some new classes where study is in Kurmanji . In Barzan the study is in Sorani ,written in Arabic characters, though the population there are kormanjophon !
The open letter by Xemgine Welat (apparently a symbolic name , meaning in Kurmanji : Unhappy Country), dated September 26, 2006, to the KRG Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani , is a moving yet brilliant defence of Kurmanji , its outstanding role in the Kurdish Classical literature , the calamities it endures in Turkey , where « 25 million Kurds » , one half of all the Kurdish nation , are repressed . It is also a homage paid to Ahmedê Khani , the immortal poet and father of the Kurdish national idea. A Kurmanji periodical, Evro (Today) writes openly about the issue.
11 ) What to do ?
The dissatisfaction of the Kurmanji-speakers in Iraqi Kurdistan as to the status of their language, about which I had a personal experience in 1993 , mentioned above, at the Dehok’s Union of Kurdish Writers, when the 11th KDP Congress was to be held in Arbil, is obviously ongoing , No solution has been found, nor even tempted . This situation should not continue . It is a nonsense that the Kurds of Barzan, Sheikhan, or Sinjar should begin their education in a language other than Kurmanji . It is not democratic , and contrary to the interest of the Kurdish nation, if this interest is well understood, to impose education in Sorani on the university of Dehok for such departments as history and geography, or an education in Arabic, as in the law school of this university. It is not patriotic to be insensitive to the unhappiness of the Kurds in Syria and to their calamities in Turkey, not to speak of their trouble in Badinan, as to the future of Kurmanji. The Sorani Kurds in particular, who enjoy a far better linguistic position than those of endangered Kurmanji, should not let the language of Ahmedê Khani, dwindle away. They can be helpful. Then what to do ? Here are proposals which , being generally interlinked, would require a global appraisal . I was asked by Kurds from, and in Iraq, and I feel it my duty, to further them :
A --We have noted the absence of any administrative unity for the area called Badinan , where Kurmanji is spoken in Iraqi Kurdistan . The Iraqi Kurds fought for a long while with arms to obtain within Iraq a political autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan . Today that they have obtained, by the Iraqi Constitution, the recognition of the KRG’s territory as an Iqlîm , that is a state within a federal Iraq , they are still struggling , by political and peaceful means, to bring other Kurdish areas , or having a Kurdish majority, into the KRG territory , such as Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Sheikhan, Sinjar.
Modern Spain is a democratic state constituted, according to the Spanish Constitution of December 29, 1978, of 17 regional autonomies , with an elected central government. Tony Blair’s United Kingdom includes Scotland , with its own parliament and regional government, and Wales, with its National Assembly. Canada is a federal state with two official languages, English and French . Switzerland is an old federal state made of 23 small states called cantons , with three official languages , German, French, and Italian , in which all federal laws - but not those of the cantons - should be published. Should we add to this list, Brasil , India , Belgium , etc. (see : Multinational Democracies , ed. A-G. Gagnon and J. Taylor , Cambridge, 2001.)
What the area of Badinan needs , and is demanded , not to be made another Iqlim , nor an autonomous region in the political sense, but to be officially recognized as a united Kurmanji space , endowed with some cultural, that is linguistic autonomy. Within this space education at all stages, primary, secondary and at universities, should be in Kurmanji , be it by progressive steps (for the formation of Kurmanji teachers and professors if need be) , save the use of other optional languages (see below under C) : That is the wish of the Kurmanji-speaking people in Iraqi Kurdistan , and this wish should be respected . No Kurdish leader has the right to ignore the people’s wish. The united Kurmanji space should include , not only Mergasor and Barzan , but also such areas as Sheikhan and Sinjar , which are beyond today’s KRG’s territory . Even if an area as Sinjar cannot supposedly have a direct territorial contact with Dehok , it should be placed within the Kurmanji space . Since all Badinan is part of Iraq , as the KRG itself , the Kurmanji space can be created only by the top political responsibles in Iraq ,that is Mesoud
Barzani, in his double quality of President of KRG and KDP, Jalal Talabani , in his double quality of President of the Iraqi Republic and leader of PUK, and probably the Iraqi Prime Minister, or their representatives. This should be done by a law instituting a KURMANJI SPACE COUNCIL , endowed with necessary legal capacities, administrative and finanancial means , to manage the Kurmanji space. A General Director should be designated, or elected, at the head of the Council . The members should be qualified Iraqi Kurmanji-speaking Kurds , but a representation of Sorani Kurds at the Council is desirable for the purpose of co-operation and matters of common interest. Distinction should be made between present administrative divisions, that could be easily changed, and a united Kurmanji space covering all Badinan, which should be kept as inherited from history.
B—Since the Iraqi Constitution and the KRG Constitution both guarantee individual freedoms of citizens, the writer of the present paper launches an appeal to create a civil society institution independent of political parties, called DEFENCE COUNCIL OF KURMANJI KURDISH (hereafter : DCKK),.seated preferably in Dehok city as main centre, but structured as a federation , or a confederation , with branches, or similar civil society institutions, in the four parts of Kurdistan , and in the Kurdish emigration abroad, in Europe, the Russian Federation , and USA . If DCKK is structured as a confederation, co-operation and union between its components (or regional branches) are required . The aims should be : defence of democracy, human rights, self-determination, and defence of endangered Kurmanji . This defence , by peaceful means, should be done before the states dividing Kurdistan , the KRG , and on the international field, before the Council of Europe and the United Nations, possibly by mandated known lawyers . A foundation (waqf) , or several ones, should be created for fundraising to support the Council . Membership at DCKK should be open to qualified persons. A representation of Sorani intellectuals at the Kurmanji defence council is desirable , I would say required, for Kurdish and democratic solidarity , and common interest. Since the DCKK’s aims are the defence of Kurmanji Kurdish and democratic rights , and because Baathist Syria and a militarily threatening Turkey are actually still aiming at the death of Kurmanji , the Iraqi government, together with KRG, could perhaps be helpful , face to any threat , to bring the case before the United Nations.
C – As a general rule, the Kurmanji-speaking Kurds of Badinan should be educated in Kurmanji . Yet teaching scientific matters in English, such as medicine and engineering , for both Sorani and Kurmanji students, is a good choice. As to Arabic, it is the most important oriental language , in which treasures of knowledge have been vehiculed to us from the Middle Age, particularly the Abbasid era. Persian is probably the second language in importance with this respect , before Turkish. Teaching the Arabic , Persian , or Turkish languages, in their own script , as foreign languages , at official universities and institutes of Iraqi Kurdistan , should be made possible for the Kurdish students who want it, as optional programme, whether they speak Sorani or Kurmanji. It should be made similarly possible to educate Kurdish students to become specialists in matter of other foreign languages and civilisations , such as English, French, German, Spanish, or Russian, thanks to an optional choice.
Ottoman Turkish , thanks to the Koran , was stuffed with Arabic words and Koranic sentences , perhaps up to 70 % of its vocabulary , and with persian if not Kurdish words, perhaps up to 20 %. French was over centuries the first international language , not English, till the end of WW1 . French was used by the Ottomans for their diplomatic relations , and by the European aristocracy as the cultural language par excellence. The Turkish Kemalist Republic tried to « purgate » Ottoman Turkish of Arabic, and to replace it by French words and expressions. Yet modern Turkish is still stuffed with Arabic in matter of law and religion, and has become stuffed with French words and expressions, probably up to 10 % , if not 15 % . Once , for example, I read at a railway station in Istanbul : ‘shef de gar burosi’ which is entirely borrowed from French, to the exception of the final possessive suffix ‘si ‘ : « Bureau du chef de gare = Office of the railway station chief. » I heard such French words and expressions in their hundreds, if not by thousands , pronounced by Kurds in Turkey, speaking Turkish or Kurmanji , but both Turks and Kurds believe them to be « pure Turkish » , unless they had been educated in French. Once I misunderstood Kurds in Turkey saying Kurdan and thought they were unduly meaning the plural of Kurd, who had nothing to do in the story . Then they explained they meant toothpick= cure-dent in French , phonetically pronounced as Kurdan . Kemalist Turkey had borrowed the word from French (as a mark of civilisation !), and the northern Kurds took it from the Turks. In modern Turkish most of the words related to arts , movie and culture are French , but today’s Turks ignore it.
D – I repeat the idea I suggested to Mam Jalal , at his Qara Cholan residence, in August 1993, a few days after the KDP 11th Congress, that he said it was a good idea (see above under subtitle 5) . But I would somehow modify it , since it has never been applied . Why should Sorani be excluded from any teaching in Badinan and, vice versa, Kurmanji teaching be excluded in the Sorani-speaking areas ? Why should we, the Kurds, treat ourselves as if we were still constituted of antagonistic tribes ? Why should sorani speakers never study any Kurmanji, and Kurmanji speakers never study any Sorani, are we wild beasts? Should one of these two Kurdish dialects kill the other to survive ?
It is recommended that at primary schools teaching be in Sorani in the Sorani areas, and in Kurmanji in Badinan , as this area is defined above. At the stage of secondary schools (lycées in French, high schools in English) it is desirable, if not requested, that Sorani-speaking students may have a few hours per week to learn Kurmanji , and vice-versa , in Badinan, the Kurmanji-speaking students have the same time to learn Sorani . It is also desirable that at the stage of higher education –university level – students may have , as personal option, an education enabling those who want it to become experts , or professors, in Kurmanji in the Sorani areas, and in Sorani in the area of Badinan.
12) Recent News About the Kurdish People in Turkey
Information about the number of the Kurdish people in Turkey (one half of all the Kurds), the extent of Turkish Kurdistan (one half of all Kurdistan) , the denial by the Turkish state’s racist and nationalistic ideology of the mere existence of the Kurdish people and Kurdistan in Turkey , the economic under-development of the Kurdish areas , reduced in fact to the level of an internal , but nameless colony, the banning of the Kurdish language, Kurmanji , henceforth menaced with extinction, all this is summarily said above, under several subtitles, as a consequence of the Turkish state policy. A few examples experienced personally by this writer have been mentioned. It was also mentioned the recent murder, in Istanbul, of Hrand Dink , Turkish citizen and journalist of Armenian origin whose crime was to have mentioned the Armenian genocide of 1915. Let us add to this that the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk , winner of the 2006 Nobel prize in literature , who became the pride of Turkey, was obliged to flee his country to the United States, under threat with death by Turkish ultra-nationalistic bands, because he had paid homage, on January 21, 2007 , to the memory of Hrant Dink, and to have mentioned a Kurdish genocide , after the Armenian’s .
Yet recent events seem to put in evidence a positive mental change among the Kurds in Turkey, with more courage and demands on their part, even on the political ground :
-- By mid-January 2007 , a symposium was held at a room of the Belgian parliament in Brussels, by Kurmanji-speaking Kurds from Turkey . In its final declaration , Turkey was requested to authorize education in the Kurdish language at the state’s public universities and institutes ; the European Union was requested to ask Turkey to abolish, or review Article 3 of the Turkish Constitution , so that education in Kurdish, at state’s universities, may become legally open .
-- At the same time, mid-January 2007, a Kurdish conference was held in Ankara, with a general thema entitled Turkey’s Search (or Road) For Peace , and a subtitle , The Kurdish Question and its Solution. The meeting was political as well , attended by about 200 persons, writers, MPs, politicians. Among the participants there were the internationally known writer Yasar Kemal of Kurdish origin (born in Van) who wrote in Turkish and was translated into foreign languages , and the well known Kurdish novelist Mehmet Uzun , who published in Kurmanji , especially in Sweden, and is back home (unfortunately he has a health problem.) This conference demanded , as the Brussels symposium, that Kurmanji Kurdish be recognized as an education language at the state universities in Turkey . The political and social demands can be summed up as follow : A general amnesty for the PKK members and their reinsertion in the civil society ; liberation of the political prisoners ; the return of the Kurds whose villages were destroyed by the security forces to their original places, and reconstruction of their villages by the state ; abolition of the so-called village-protectors units (armed Kurdish auxiliary units under the order of Turkish security or military forces) ; economic development of the Kurdish-inhabited areas ; abolition of the « election dam » requiring 10 % of the valid voices for a party or a district to be represented at the Turkish parliament. These demands are mentioned in a final declaration of the conference, which was read by Yasar Kemal .
-- There are Kurds , and Turkish democratic people, who demand a federalist solution for the Kurdish national question in Turkey . One of them is Abdul Melik Firat, former MP and grandson of late Sheikh Said, the leader of the 1925 Kurdish uprising who was executed by Turkey (we still ignore his burial place.) Another is Serefettin Elci , former Kurdish minister in the Turkish government.
-- Since 2004 , private broadcasting or television programmes are authorized in Kurmanji , under many conditions : They should be only cultural, no international news , no programmes for children ; limited to a total of 4 hours and 5 days per week . At a Turkish state television channel , there is a programme in Kurdish , 45 minutes per day , with a Turkish translation on the screen. In the electoral campaigns , whether municipal or parliamentary , the oral or written use of any language other than Turkish is forbidden .
-- The Kurdish municipality of Diyarbekir has trouble with the Turkish state . It is known that in the Islamic lunar calendar, the end of the fast month of Ramadan is celebrated as a feast, with exchange of good wishes and gifts. On the occasion of the last feast celebrating the end of Ramadan (in September 2006 ?) , the municipality of Diyarbekir expressed its good wishes on its Web site , and apparently by sending written cards, in three languages , Turkish, Kurmanji , and English (in Kurmanji : Jejna we pîroz be.) Because of the use of Kurdish by the municipality of Diyarbekir , the Turkish minister of Home Affairs has opened an official inquiry against it . Furthermore, the two municipal counties, or subdivisions of Diyarbekir, Sur and Yenishehirof, have instituted a bilingual service , in Kurmanji and Turkish, according to which no new municipal civil servants can be employed unless they know Kurmanji . This had as a consequence the opening of another inquiry by the Turkish home affair minister, and of a criminal inquiry by the Turkish state prosecutor , against the Kurdish municipality. Those initiatives, accomplished by Kurdish duly elected municipals, are considered as illegal and anticonstitutional by the so-called democratic Turkey , said to be « advancing on the way of democracy » by the European Union.
-- Apparently the PKK leadership , present on the terrain, pays more attention that Kurmanji be learned and spoken by the guerrilla , even by those who are not Kurds . I have with this respect a personal experience. A Swiss idealistic young man named David Rouiller , from the district of Lausanne , with whom I had once met (he preferred to be called Patrick rather than David) , left suddenly the easy life in Switzerland , his studies, and disappeared one day of December 2003, when he was about 30 , without giving any news to his worrying parents. I was told by Kurds in Lausanne who had known him that he should have joined the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan . I managed by a space phone number to talk with my old friend Osman Ocalan, still in Iraqi Kurdistan , who said David was there and in good shape . He was unwilling to leave Kurdistan, even to write to his parents. I told the parents about the good new , and his courageous mother arranged a journey to see her son in Kurdistan, together with a Kurdish film-maker living in Bern. The result was a movie documentary and somehow family film , which was projected as a special programme at the Cinémathèque suisse , in Lausanne, in January 2007 . Together with the Rouiller family and hundreds of Swiss and Kurdish spectators , I heard David , who was promoted to the rank of a unit responsible, speaking Kurmanji Kurdish , amid mountain forests, in the presence of his fellow-PKK partisans, boys and girls , defending justice and the rights of the Kurdish people. David has learned Kurmanji within the PKK . The PKK’s guerrilla camps in Iraqi Kurdistan are scattered over a large area , and camouflaged, face to the threat represented by about 200'000 Turkish soldiers concentrated at the border , with an air force . The film shows life at the PKK camps extremely Spartan ; everybody has something to do in house-, or rather cottage-keeping ; men’s and women’s quarters are separate and any romance between them is strictly forbidden ; yet sociological and political lectures, arms training , and if need be, defence operations are shared by the two genders. Those bases are not terrorist , as they are said by Turkey , but patriotic camps , animated by men and women with a purpose in life , to do the Kurdish people justice , if possible by peaceful means. That was said by David in Kurmanji, and French , in the presence of his mother . Apparently, David has won to the case he defends the support of his family, including his father, former judge at the Swiss Federal Court .
13) Turkey, the European Union, and the Kurds
During the years of fighting between the PKK guerrilla and the Turkish state (1984-1999), especially in the 1990s, the European Parliament and the Legislative Assembly of the Council of Europe , by successive resolutions , launched appeals asking the Turkish government and the Kurdish people, including PKK , to reach a political solution to the Kurdish question by dialogue and peaceful means. When Abdullah Ocalan, president of PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), thanks to an international conspiracy , had been arrested , handed over to Turkey, in February 1999 , and unjustly condemned to a death penalty by the Turkish State Security Court , the European Union (hereafter : EU ) stopped suddenly to speak about a Kurdish people in Turkey and the need of a political solution to the Kurdish question. That was shameful. Besides, PKK had no other choice but uprising against injustice.
At the Helsinki EU’s summit of December 1999 , the name of Turkey was put on the list of states “candidate at membership” , without any reference to the Kurdish question . The European Commission , following the summit, adopted in 2000 the general criteria of Copenhagen , about democracy, respect for human rights and the rights of national minorities, as the basis for the democratisation of the candidate states , in their constitution and their practice . Turkey was similarly requested to comply with those criteria, without mentioning the mere existence of the Kurdish people, nor any reference to their old and ongoing national question, while the future of democracy in Turkey depends on a just solution to the national question of the Kurdish people. In the Turkish program for compliance with the European criteria , no reference either was made to the question , not even to the existence of Kurds in Turkey . When the project « Turkey 2000 Accession Partnership » , prepared by the European Commission , was submitted to the European Parliament for discussion, the Parliament adopted on 15 November 2000 a document entitled « Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession » containing 29 points, which constitute addenda bringing precision to the project , or bridging its gaps. Several of these addenda concern the Kurds, especially points Nos 11 to 14 , which mention specifically ‘ the Kurdish people’ and the need of a ‘political solution’ to their question, demand “an international fund for the reconstruction of the Kurdish destroyed villages and the return of their inhabitants.” These addenda about the Kurdish people were not mentioned in the final document submitted to Turkey . In other terms, the EU has no respect for the resolutions of its own parliament . If the EU , proclaimed as being based on the highest principles of justice, peace and democracy, has no respect for the European Parliament itself , how could it have respect for the Kurdish people and their rights ?
I do not make it a mystery , I was much surprised by the hypocrisy of the EU . I denounced the Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi , and Syrian oppressive policy toward the Kurds at the federal Canadian Parliament, in Ottawa , on 6 June 2000, on the invitation of Canadian parliamentarians . I said publicly what I think about the shameful attitude of the EU’s executive bodies , regarding the Kurdish question in Turkey , in my speech at the meeting held at the House of Commons (British Parliament) , Grand Committee Room, London , on Tuesday 23 January 2001 , in the presence of British MPs, Lords, intellectuals , artists, friends of the Kurdish people , and before the Kurdish intelligentsia at the British capital . I repeated the same criticism at the meeting held the next day at the National Assembly of Wales, in Cardiff, and , at another date, in a press conference held at the European Parliament , in Brussels . I presented the same criticism toward the EU, in courteous terms, to Mr. Romano Prodi , president of the Euopean Commission , in a letter dated 14 November 2002 . I requested in this letter the EU to work for a real and political solution to the national question of the Kurdish people in Turkey , by peaceful means, in consultation with representatives of the Kurdish people. I repeated this criticism again at the KNK’s General Assembly of December 2002 , before our European guests and friends . It is to be afraid the EU attitude means the Kurds in Turkey were considered as a respectful people , worth efforts for the resolution of their national question , as long as they were fighting by arms for their rights, and that they are worth nothing since fighting by arms has been brought to an end ,
Only a few examples of my action as president of Kurdistan National Congress (KNK in Kurdish initials), are mentioned above . There are many other examples, by hundreds , from 1999 to 2004 . That was done with the assistance of my brothers and sisters at the KNK’s Executive Council. I tried as KNK’s president to be helpful to the case of the Kurdish people in the four parts of Kurdistan and the outer diasporas . My old and basic idea , over more than fifty years , for the solution of the Kurdish question , has been political federalism for Kurdistan , and between the Kurds and their neighbours. There can be no federalism without democracy and self-determination. As to KNK , my intention was to resign its presidency already in 2003 . On the demand of its Executive Council , that was postponed for a year, in order to prepare an extraordinary general assembly ; the assembly took place in June 2004 , then I resigned . I was president of KNK over five years (1999-2004) , as an independent Kurd expected to bring together , if it was possible, the Kurdish political parties , including PKK, according to the KNK’s charter . When I had seen this was impossible, I resigned . Time had apparently not come for a Kurdish nationwide, and efficient , organisation.
In a column of Le Monde , issue of 19 November 1998 , the French daily says : « The Kurds are the last grand people to whom self-determination is refused » . The Time magazine , issue of March 1st , 1999, put it in these terms : « The Kurds constitute the world’s largest ethnic community without a status of nationhood » . The present writer would have said « the world’s largest stateless nation. »
Helmut Schmidt , the former social-democrat Chancellor of Germany, in an interview with a German daily , Berliner Tagesspiegel , dated 31 December 2000 , says : « The Allied Powers committed a gross mistake at the Versailles Treaty of 1919 , in not deciding to create an independent Kurdish state.” Then , criticising the decision admitting Turkey as candidate at accession to the EU , without a prior solution to the Kurdish question , Mr. Schmidt adds : “The Kurdish and Turkish communities are fighting each other in the streets of Hamburg , sometimes with arms . Are we going to introduce this serious conflict into Europe ? The admission of Turkey as candidate at accession to the EU was a gross mistake . The price to be paid by Europe would be very high.”
Valerie Giscard d’Estaing , former president of the French Republic, who chaired the European Convention that laid down a draft Constitution of EU , stated repeatedly in 2003 and 2004 that “Turkey is not European”. He said “only 5 % of the territory of Turkey is at the edge of Europe, all the rest belonging to Asia.. » We know both the French and Dutch peoples have rejected, by referendum, the draft EU constitution, essentially because of Turkey’s candidature , while a unanimous acceptance by member states, of a new member , will be required . Besides , Turkish membership is nowadays more than problematic and, supposedly , it could not be attained before 10 or more years, if ever.
