Free sovereign Kurdistan now!
- KurdishMedia.com - By Axin Arbili
- 13/05/2008 00:00:00
The history of genocides shows that it is peoples and populations without their own country and state, without recognized and respected borders, that become defenseless prey to others, that go through the horrors of persecution, crimes, and murder as a whole. See, for example, the fates of Native Americans; Jews in Europe; Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds in Westasia.
As Kurds we missed a unique opportunity to declare our independence in South Kurdistan. Establishment and independence of the Kurdish state should have been the sole Kurdish goal in any negotiations with the US before the war, and we had all the legal and moral rights for that. Nothing less should have been accepted by the Kurdish leaders and by the fighting Peshmerga. Could anything less be reasonable or even possible after all the sufferings and losses under Saddam’s satanic dictatorship; can anything else guarantee the security of our people today? The Kurdish people answered this question in the referendum unequivocally: 98% want independence, want free and sovereign Kurdistan!
It was an unpardonable historical mistake not to follow the people’s will for independence, not to insist on the legitimate, just, historical necessity of our own state, and we continue to pay the price for our negligence. What were we afraid of losing when there was nothing left to lose? But instead the Kurdish leadership bowed to American, Arab and Turkish pressures, and opted for cooperation and “reconciliation” with a people history records as occupiers, exploiters, masters of Kurdistan, as suppressors, humiliators, torturers, murderers of the Kurdish people for centuries. To forgive and to reconcile are great human virtues no doubt, but in a perverse reversion of normal and moral behaviour these powers expected of the victim to seek reconciliation while no apology, remorse, compensation was expected of the perpetrator. Saddam was hanged for the murder of 148 Shiites, not for the genocide of the Kurdish people. The Arabs as a nation got away with Anfal, as the Turks got away with the murder of the Assyrian, Greek and Armenian peoples, and as long as they don’t recognize their crime and guilt, as long as there is no official acknowledgement and respect for our identity and for the sanctity of our homelands – that is the meaning of a state! –, Kurds will never be safe from attempts of annihilation in the future.
As long as Kurdistan remains legally part of Iraq ruled by Baghdad, there cannot be real peace and safety for us. Who can guarantee that the Arabs, who are chauvinist and revengeful by nature, will not turn against us once the Americans pull out? The past shows: No one has and no one will, because no one has ever cared for Kurdish lives. The only guarantor is an independent Kurdish state, recognised under international law, with a standing Kurdish army!
It is hypothetical but not unrealistic to think that a fair and fast partitioning of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines would have prevented the religious violence and have saved thousands of innocent lives. Five years on, bloodshed, murder, terrorism is still order of the day everywhere in Iraq, and a full-scale civil war between religious and ethnic groups still a possibility.
We now see how South Kurdistan is turned into another of Washington’s puppet regimes in the region. But unlike other client states, the KRG has no sovereignty or authority at all. It is not even in the second class of the American slave system. The Kurdish territory is referred to as “North Iraq”, the Kurds are “Iraqis” in the political and diplomatic language of the “international community”. They are there just to implement Washington’s instructions, and must do it without protest.
The status of Kerkuk and other Kurdish territories should have been clarified at the end of last year according to the constitution, but it is still unresolved. Everything is done to keep the Kurds under constant threat that their achievement can be taken away from them any time. See the instructions of Arab and Oil lobbyists in “The Way Forward” for Iraq, and the reports from institutes established and run by oil companies that shape Washington’s Middle East policies. The 6-month postponement of the Kerkuk-referendum is one example. It is coming to an end soon, but where is the evidence that it will be actually carried out? Americans, Turks, and Arabs are doing everything in front and behind the scenes that the Kurdish city will stay excluded from Kurdish jurisdiction because of the oil.
History is important to understand how states behave today. History teaches that a benevolent Uncle Sam has never existed. The USA is a predatory global empire, as were Great Britain, France, Germany and others previously. The historical record of Americans, Turks, and Arabs is the same: They are all conquerors and occupiers of lands belonging to others; they are destroyers of indigenous cultures and societies; for territory and resources they have murdered and carried out genocides. No wonder to see them act so similar, to see them cooperate so eagerly when the issues are of strategic and material interest.
However as the predatory core state of the white race, the USA seeks benefits for itself and its European kin only. Washington’s interest in the Middle East has nothing to do with democracy, freedom, or justice. These values are valid, valued, and protected only within Western “civilisation” for the benefit of Western societies. Outside the Western sphere, in places where there is oil and other essential raw materials to exploit, democracy and freedom are treated as enemies of the West. In free and sovereign societies, the beneficiaries of the countries’ natural resources are the indigenous people, and not foreign corporations thousands of miles away.
In the past, under the mask of fighting communism, the USA and its European allies made sure that there are no independent, democratic governments in these regions. Instead puppet regimes and local self-serving elites were created in South America, the Middle East, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc., to obey and implement Washington’s instructions. “War on terror” is the present name and script for the global deception. The goal is the same ever since: To dominate the world and control its resources, if necessary, by all means. Hitler, for example, was very frank and direct, and Germans themselves did most of the dirty work in destroying everything getting in their path. Washington’s method is more subtle, it has created and controls a military alliance, NATO, and a political alliance, the UN, and they represent the “international community” (= Western states, and their local henchmen). Its main role is to give legality and morality to US military actions. The decision to attack Iraq, for example, was based on a fabricated lie about mobile chemical labs. And there are thousands of other lies America invented, used and spread, with the help of its media, to attack, control, and exploit other countries. Most of the management is done through local collaborators and military, see Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc. Their armies serve as mercenaries and executioners of US will. The USA intervenes militarily only if things get out of control. According to the master plan, Washington can act without moral or legal principles. In fact, it sees it as the exclusive right of the Western “civilisation” to decide what is legal and what not, what is moral and what not. The way Washington makes decisions can be summed up as follows: What is good for me (USA/West) is good for everyone else and thus right; what is bad for me is bad for everyone else and thus wrong; so either you are with me or against me; that is for good or against good. Also there is no free choice in US global empire: Every action or position unfavourable to US interests is severely punished by Washington, with threats, sanctions, embargo, proxy wars, bombing, invasion, occupation, etc.
There is no place for ethics and justice in US foreign policy. America has invested billions of dollars, equipment, and training to make sure that these countries, the local henchmen, remain loyal US allies. They will not support any change of the status quo, but neither are they neutral. On the contrary, they actively support repressive regimes and military dictatorships to crush liberation movements. In Turkey, the Kemalist or Islamist, and more recently Islamo-Kemalist Turks have been terrorizing the Kurds for decades, with the implicit approval and participation of the USA. Millions of Kurds are denied their human and ethnic rights and continue to exist in an open-air concentration camp in their own homeland. The Turks are free to do whatever they like with them as could be seen again during Newroz. Children, women, the elderly, defenceless people are beaten, kicked, shot at, imprisoned, tortured, killed by the Turkish police and military while the “international community” is watching them without any reaction. To take pleasure in doing and watching evil – that must be the joy of barbarians.
Not only in Turkey, but in the global realpolitik of the West, Kurds are not considered humans that have rights like other nations. In fact, there are more animal rights than Kurdish rights. They are told to be quite and accept the Turkish rule, to accept being slaves without identity and will. The West applies both ethnic and cultural racism. The figure such as the Dalai Lama and Tibetan mysticism are more appealing to the Western philanthropists than some Muslim mountain people who don’t live in monasteries and wear orange garments. Nelson Mandela is celebrated as a hero and everything was done to free him from prison while the same West did everything to capture and imprison Abdullah Ocalan, although he wants freedom for his people like Mandela. But officially Ocalan is marked as “terrorist” and the PKK, the people’s liberation movement, a “terrorist organisation”, in line with the fascist propaganda of Turkish state and military. These are the official attitudes of the EU, USA, UN, the Vatican towards the Kurds, and they have encouraged the Turkish fascists to continue their suppression of the Kurdish people, to maintain their genocidal occupation of Kurdistan.
We are dealing with an alliance which is absolutely pro-Turkish and absolutely anti-Kurdish on all levels. The Turkish-Western partnership will continue as long as US and EU global strategy of controlling energy sources does not change. That strategy – exploiting the wealth of other nations in collaboration with local self-serving traitors – will continue as long as the source is essential and profitable for the West. In case of the Middle East, the status quo will continue until the last drop of oil. Then the region will simply be thrown away like a pressed out lemon. That moment may not be so far away, the sharp increase in the oil price is an indicator. According to estimates, the peak of oil production has already been reached and the remaining half of total exploitable oil is now being used up very rapidly due to growing industries in China, India, etc. The age of oil may already end in 10 or 15 years. As there is no alternative source of energy comparable to oil, the West will continue to do everything in its power to maintain control of it, even to the last drop.
The Kurdish leaders need to see the bigger picture and take actions accordingly. Becoming slaves and servants of a different master cannot be the option. They must implement the people’s will, which is the will for self-determination and independence from all foreign rule, all efforts must be directed towards that goal. Make no mistake, there are no friends around. We are surrounded by aggressive wolves waiting for the opportunity to attack. What measures have been taken to protect the people? What will we do when the Turks decide to invade? Are there any weapons to stop them? Constructing more shopping centres, hotels, villas will not stop the invasion. These buildings can be destroyed by air in one day. Military aggression is not a threat anymore, it is real and bloody.
We trusted in the benevolence of Uncle Sam, we simply believed his promises of freedom and security. What is the result? Turkish military aggression permitted and supported by the USA! The borders to South Kurdistan are now, as before, open to the Turkish fascists called TSK to murder and destroy. And they are making use of it. The Turkish air force is launching raids as a routine now. The criminal and racist rulers in Ankara are unpredictable and could, under the pretext of combating “terrorists” or “protecting” their Turkmen brethrens, invade any time. They do not recognize the Kurdistan Regional Government; they cannot accept Kurds as Kurds with a political position and will. They refer to the Kurdish representatives as “tribe chiefs”, to the Kurds as mountain tribes without identity. The Kemalist and Islamist Turks have not changed their racist attitudes as if Saddam was still in power and the political reality the same as before. Consequently they only regard Baghdad and the Arab leaders, the representatives of Arab Iraq, as political equals. The Kurdish territory, “northern Iraq” according to Ankara, is seen and described only as “security risk” for the Turkish state, and continuously warned and threatened. The only success story of post-invasion Iraq is looked at with envious and evil eyes. For a master race as Turks believe themselves to be, there simply cannot be an independent and successful Kurdish society. There can only be Kurdish slaves in service of the Turkish people and state. That had been the theological and imperial understanding of Ottoman Turks, and today it is the view of the Kemalists and the ruling Islamists. And let us not deceive ourselves – that is not just the view of the rulers, but of most Turks!
In the collective memory of the Turks we are the last remaining indigenous people of Anatolia. We represent the shadow of the Turkish psyche, the shadow of their past which they do not want to see because it is criminal, cruel, and murderous. In the Turkish eyes, we are the final obstacle to the complete conquest of Anatolia, the final obstacle to the realisation of their goal: “Turkey for the Turks”. They hate us because we are still there, because we have survived their barbarism and genocide measures, because we resisted their forced assimilation; they hate us because we remind them of their crimes against us and against humanity as a whole. We were never “fellow Muslim brothers” as they sometimes call us in their propaganda. If we were brothers, let them answer the following questions: Have Turks ever gone on the streets and demonstrated for Kurdish rights? Have they ever protected us from state and military oppression, from the terror of military and secret police? Have they ever protested against the burning of our villages, against the deportation of our people? Have they ever declared their solidarity with us and demanded that the crimes, racism, assimilation policies of the Turkish state must be stopped? Have they ever said that there is a Kurdish language, a Kurdish people, that there is Kurdistan? Have they ever done anything to question the fascist Turkish ideologies, to stop the injustices, to overcome the military dictatorships? Have they ever demanded punishment of those responsible for burning 4,500 Kurdish villages, deporting millions of people, for uprooting an ancient society, for imprisoning, torturing, killing thousands of Kurds just because they were Kurds and wanted to live as free Kurds? Have they ever demanded justice for their brothers? The answer to all these questions is recorded and clear: No, they have not! They have never regarded and treated us as equals. On the contrary, the Turkish people endorse the Turkish state and the Turkish army wholeheartedly. The army provides them with the sense of physical power and honour – the most important elements in the Turkish reality and experience. The army is the centre of their existence, the source of their pleasure: It is great to feel powerful and strong, to control and dominate, to be master over life and death, to belong to the master race. Ask any Turk if he or she wants to give up that feeling of superiority and the answer will be negative. Ask them if Kurds can have the same rights as Turks, if they can have their own way of life, if they can have control over their own lives and future, if they can have Kurdish schools, universities, institutions, if they can have the right for self-determination and independence – the answer, in 9 out of 10 cases, will be negative. They are against Kurdish rights because they do not want to lose the power and possibility of ruling and exploiting. They are against free and self-determined Kurds, rather they want to keep the slaves to serve them. They are against a free and sovereign Kurdistan because it would mean the end of their colonial rule over Anatolia, the loss of the only remaining heritage of Ottoman imperialism, the end of Turkish dominance forever. Having developed a superiority complex from the mix of Islamism and Kemalism, Turks believe themselves better than others peoples of the Middle East. Arabs are regarded dirty and inferior; Kurds as sub-humans. They do not want be seen as part of Asia or the East, they want to be accepted as part of the West, the world of super civilisation. See the feverish desire of being member of the EU, see how they have been asking and begging to be admitted for centuries, to be accepted and respected as Europeans. But Europe is not convinced and that makes them angry. Turkish anger and aggression builds up and needs to be released, a victim has to be found, a scapegoat for the Turkish failures. The Kurds are the ideal scapegoat. One can insult, beat, torture and kill them, all that without consequences.
The Turks should understand that a free and independent Kurdistan is to their advantage, not to their disadvantage. If they really want to join the EU, they need to look as European as possible, culturally and geographically. The EU will never accept a T.C. with an impoverished, underdeveloped “South-East”. In fact, they use the Kurdish question as the main argument for keeping Ankara out of the European Union, and as long as there is a Kurdish question they door will remain closed. But the “elitist” Kemalo-fascists want it all: the financial benefits of EU-membership AND the pleasure of absolute power from military dictatorship; the international recognition and respect for being part of “supercivilisation” AND the freedom to do at home as they like; total freedom and wealth for themselves AND never-ending slavery and poverty for Kurds.
Not all Kurds see these facts and the reality called T.C. They have been deceived and manipulated by Turkish state ideology and propaganda for decades. Their minds are confused and they have lost their sense of orientation, the sense of being and belonging. They are neither Turks nor Kurds, they hide their identity. The Turkish state created pseudo-Kurds or crypto-Kurds, slaves without roots and conscious of self. They are robots that are programmed to do and say what the master race wants. They repeat the state’s doublespeak rhetoric of “brotherhood”, of “1000 years of living together”, of “brothers and sisters walking arm in arm”, of “Muslim brothers; and of “terrorists that want to split us and the country”.
These fascist phrases are repeated by Turkish state and media for decades. The past and present actions of the Turks reveal the real terrorists. We need to understand and make it clear: A fair and equal co-existence between Kurds and Turks is not possible as long as the Turks believe in being the master race that can do anything it wants; as long as there is Kemalism, military dictatorship, pseudo-democracy in T.C.; as long as there is political Islamism the Turkish style; as long as the state denies Kurdish rights and identity; as long as the state does not officially admit all the crimes against us and against humanity; as long as the “strategic alliance” between the West and local self-serving power elites continues; as long as there is no fundamental change of mentality in the Turkish society. The talk of human or democratic rights, too, is meaningless and only to deceive or please the EU.
Question: Shall we now all wait and see when and if all these things happen there, or shall we be realistic? Shall we continue being slaves for another thousand years and accept occupation of Kurdistan, or shall we all together work to achieve what is our historical, natural, undeniable right: Our freedom and the freedom of our country. That is the moral, legal, natural right of every Kurd – dead, alive, or to be born! We owe that to the millions of victims of oppression and tyranny, we owe it to the tens of thousands who sacrificed their lives for Kurdistan. What we need to understand and declare is that we are the ancestral inhabitants and rightful owners of our country, and not the Turks. It is them, not us, who came from inner Asia as conquerors, who have been occupying territory that historically does not belong to them.
The idea and talk of a “democratic republic” is illusionary as the vast majority of Turks vote for Kemalofascist and Islamofascist parties. The real question is why do we bother? It is their own choice if they don’t want democracy, and it is their right to reject it. Why do we need to impose it upon them? Why do we exhaust our energies to convince them of the benefits if they are quite happy with their Kemalist ideologies of a “third way”. It is their way of life, and we have no right to change it. Let them have that way, let them have a society and state as seen by their leader Kemal Ataturk. He is not our leader, it is not our society and state. The reality is that there are two distinct ethnic populations. Our only goal must be independence. The Turks will not take us serious as long as we talk of a “democratic Turkey”, of “cultural and human rights”. This is not a question of language or cultural rights. The fundamental question is whether or not Turkey accepts the Kurdish nation.
A nation without its own state is an existence without honour and future.. That is the message Kurds need to understand and the only one to send out. Further, we do not have to compare ourselves with so-called “Kosovars” or “Palestinians”. These are Albanians and Arabs who already have their own states, but want to enlarge their territories. Historically these lands belong to other nations, Serbs and Jews respectively. If we want to compare, have a look at the methods employed by them to achieve their goals. Who is training suicide bombers and hijackers? Who is kidnapping, torturing, killing civilians, targeting non-military objects? Who is flying airplanes into skyscrapers? Who is using religion and Islam for political means, to justify violence? Note that Arabs are not suppressed, their culture and language is free, they have 22 (in words: twenty-two!) independent states, the total Arab land mass is larger than the USA. They are not under American or foreign occupation, on the contrary, they are allied with the US and get the full financial and political support of the “international community”. Not one day passes without favourable Western media coverage of the “Palestinian plight”. In Israel, Arabs do not have to hide their identity, they are full and equal citizens, and Arabic is the second official language of the state. Alqaida attacked the USA just because America has one or two military bases in the “holy land of Islam”. One wonders what Arabs would do if their country was under real occupation for decades, if another nation prohibited anything Arab, the Arabic culture, language and education. The Turks are right when they repeat Ataturk’s words: “How happy to be a Turk.” They can send prayers of gratitude to Allah that it is not an Arab population that they are oppressing; that the Kurdish response has not been terrorism, but patience, search for dialogue, and peaceful insistence on our natural rights. And they should thank Allah that they have the support of the whole world who supplies them with the weapons, tanks, F-16s, etc. to “defend” themselves against a defenceless people. But Turks seem to be like the Arabs – they are never satisfied. While they could regard themselves happy and blessed with all the support they are getting, they still continue to cry for more understanding and more assistance. It seems they want the whole world to join in killing Kurdish “separatists and terrorists”. Note that they already have military, logistic, and intelligence support from America and Israel, and it would not come as a surprise if one day there will be an international army, lead by the Pashas, to go after the few free Kurds in the mountains and get rid off the Kurdish question for good.
But whatever the Turkish and international actions, if and when Kurds are united in the goal of re-establishing our homeland as united, free, and sovereign Kurdistan, no other force can prevail over the power and will of the people!
- KurdishMedia.com - By Axin Arbili
- 13/05/2008 00:00:00