Turkey: Erdoğan’s aggression against Turkey’s Kurds—it’s personal - by Cemal Ozkahraman

Turkey’s Kurds have long faced oppression by the state. But they have come to be seen by the Erdoğan regime as the main obstacle to its untrammelled power.

Against the background of Turkey’s affiliation to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the European Union’s official recognition of its candidature for full membership at the Helsinki Summit in 1999 gave hope to Kurds concentrated in east and south-east Turkey that they would soon obtain political rights enabling them to represent their own regions and stimulate their culture and identity. Indeed, despite the continuation of the Turkish state’s customary denial of Kurdish realities, during the early years of the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan there was some alleviation of its treatment of the Kurds. Particularly since the June 2015 general election, however, Erdoğan’s government has returned to the old ways, clamping down on the Kurds, imprisoning their elected politicians and members of their People’s Democratic Party (HDP), notably its former leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been jailed in the face of ECHR demands that he should be released.

Why did such militant antagonism towards the Kurds resurface just at the time when Turkey was on the verge of achieving a lasting peace with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)? Part of the reason is that Erdoğan is manoeuvring to regain popularity among Turkish voters before the local elections in March. Being very conscious of Turkish sensitivity with regard to Türklük (‘Turkishness’) and devlet bekasi (state security), Erdoğan constantly implies that the HDP and Demirtaş are terrorists and traitors, accusing them of supporting the PKK. By creating enemies and then spreading fears that these enemies are attempting to destroy Turkish unity, he had previously achieved substantial voters’ support for the continuation of his ‘sultanate’, enabling him to reinforce his aim of a Sunni-based, nationalist, one-party-state system of autocratic militarist enforcement in Turkish politics. He has been consistent in trying to achieve this by touching on the Turkish electorate’s most sensitive nerves, Türklük and devlet bekasi.  

But this is not the only reason for his severity. It can only be fully comprehended by seeing it in terms of resentment—an autocrat’s revenge—with the HDP the most direct object for punishment.

Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the 2002, 2007 and 2011 elections, holding a majority of seats for 13 years. This enabled him to minimise the impact of traditional opposition forces, including the military and Turkish ruling elites, the ‘Kemalists’ (followers of the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk). To cement his vision of Atatürk’s Turkey, Erdoğan seeks absolute domination, and this can only be achieved by a presidential, rather than parliamentary, system.
 
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