Etyen Mahcupyan
The Turkish original of this article was published as ‘PKK ergenlik tuzağında’ on 28th July 2015.
Demirtaş, apparently under the illusion that he might be able to recover the Kurdish movement’s squandered legitimacy by returning to zero point, saw fit to bring up the Dolmabahçe Agreement. And indeed, whether for electoral concerns or not, the AKP’s rejection of that “photograph” did entail the shelving of the Solution Process. But like all other policy decisions, its price, too, was paid as 4-5 percentile points of the AKP vote went to the HDP. Nevertheless, this had no effect on the de facto truce, which was really much the more important matter of principle. The government did not attempt to start bombing Kandil as part of its decision to interrupt the Solution Process. Kandil, however, not only failed to meet the requirements of the Solution Process, but faced with the other side’s hesitation preferred to undermine the key principle altogether. They proclaimed a people’s revolutionary war and launched specific actions. They cannot possibly have been unaware of the symbolic significance of murdering two policemen in their sleep. On the contrary; when they promptly owned up to having carried out these two murders, and even more when they presented them as an act of revenge for the Cizre [Suruç] massacre, this was nothing but an open declaration of war. For the government not to accede to this invitation would have been tantamount to abdicating statehood, and indeed the bombing of Kandil quickly followed.
But then, just how had Kandil dared to take this step? Probably by placing its confidence in the US as well as its agreement with Iran. But the PKK’s imagined USA was far from being a realistic “snapshot.” They were simply unable to foresee that if push came to shove the US would be siding with Turkey — a blunder that might serve as a good reminder of just how psychological discretion can be. Not comprehending this and going ahead to murder those two policemen may be the single stupidest thing that the PKK has done so far. They may have taken some courage from the fact that their previous idiocy on 6-8 October [2014] ended positively for them. For the Kurdish movement happens to have worked up this expectation that the cost of their mistakes has to be borne by the AKP. But this requires the other side to commit an even more basic mistake. If no such error is forthcoming and especially if any “third eye” is willing to take an objective and realistic look at things, it becomes inevitable for the Kurdish movement to end up paying the price.
Today Turkey is able to keep bombing Kandil within the knowledge of the US and in conformity with NATO’s defence concept. Never before had such legitimate grounds existed, and it is the PKK itself that has gifted it to Turkey. Put in the squeeze, Demirtaş is looking for a way out by arguing that “the operations against the PKK are intended to decrease the HDP vote in the [impending] elections.” It is as if he prefers to ignore the fact that the Diyarbakır explosion before the elections meant an additional point or two for the HDP. Why is it that what was beneficial for the HDP at that time today implies the very opposite? Simply because while the Diyarbakır bombing made a persecuted victim of the HDP, bombing Kandil is not giving rise to any such perception. With everybody registering the PKK as the real aggressor, it is futile for the HDP to keep pretending that it is the victim. If bombing Kandil is really going to hurt the HDP in the elections, this is tantamount to a confession that there is an organic connection between the HDP and the PKK, and that it is the PKK-HDP that is really responsible for the current situation.
While trying to find some political breathing room for himself, Demirtaş is faced with the danger of becoming ever more deeply mired in the moral turpitude of violence which he cannot help getting spattered with. There are limits to what you can achieve through sheer propaganda and manipulation. The Kurdish movement, however, does not seem to have recognized these limits, and to have enthusiastically seized on a “strategy” conducive to its self-delegitimation. Political movements mature by paying the price for their mistakes. Unfortunately, this particular movement has so far not been able to outgrow its adolescence.