Author Topic: Pot, kettle, black ?  (Read 1800 times)

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Offline KKOB

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Pot, kettle, black ?
« on: September 03, 2017, 07:54:25 AM »
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused Myanmar of “genocide” against the Rohingya Muslim minority, who have fled in the tens of thousands across the border into Bangladesh to escape ethnic violence.

“There is a genocide there,” Erdoğan said in a speech in Istanbul during the Islamic Eid al-Adha feast, which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son.

“Those who close their eyes to this genocide perpetuated under the cover of democracy are its collaborators.”


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/02/erdogan-accuses-myanmar-of-genocide-against-rohingya


Turkey and the road to genocide.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/turkey-kurds-erdogan-armenia-genocide-hdp-pkk


Offline Colwyn

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Re: Pot, kettle, black ?
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2017, 11:03:59 AM »
Thanks for the link to Bajalan's article.

The situation of Turkey's Kurds  - political, economic and, most of all, military - is deeply troubling. Whether it is well-understood through the lens of "genocide" I am unsure. Bajalan sidesteps the issue of whether the events of 1915-and-after constitute "genocide" - this is disputed - and in doing so avoids the issue of the claimed role of Kurdish military groups as subcontractors for the extermination of Armenians in the East. Bacalan might also have considered more deeply the need for Ataturk to establish the notion of a "Turkish Nation" following his military victory in 1923. In the Ottoman Empire the Turks were merely one of the many groups that fell under the rule of the Sultan-Caliph in Istanbul. Did the creation a new republican "nation" from part of the former "empire" require a clear national identity based on ethnicity? Ataturk seemed to think so, but then had the "problem" of fitting the Kurds into this scheme with their distinct language, history and culture. The notion of "Mountain Turks" may have been something of a pipe dream: but is the alternative vision of a united "Kurdistan" any more plausible? Bajalan argues that "so long as Kurds were regarded as 'potential' Turks, the total physical eradication of the Kurdish community remained off the agenda". Therefore, for Bajalan, regarding Kurds as ethnically different, non-Turkish, may potentially put genocide back on the agenda. But what also keeps a Young Turk-style vision of global eradication of Kurds off the agenda is existence of nations replacing the empire. Kurds live not only in Turkey but also, in large numbers, in Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The AKP, and elements in the Turkish military, may have aspirations to eradicate Kurds as a powerful force in Turkish politics, but they can hardly hope to physically remove them, in entirety, from the Middle East.

So what is the AKP policy towards Kurds and Kurdishness? It is unclear to me. Does Erdogan have any long-term goal or direction in relation to the issue? Or is it a series of short-term policies aimed at enhancing his own power. He was a (pretend) supporter of Kurdish rights when he saw them as "good Muslims" who would vote for him; when they voted for their own HDP he sought to disempower them by locking up their leaders and renewing military attacks in Eastern Turkey. Some sort of accommodation allowing Turks and Kurds to live in harmony in the Republic of Turkey seems as far away as ever - and, under Erdogan, getting more remote.

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Pot, kettle, black ?
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2017, 14:53:56 PM »
Aung San Suu Kyi, of Myanmar, says she has spoken with Erdogan and told him that the so-called genocide of Rohinga Muslims is actually just a military operation against "terrorists". Erdogan should be familiar with this as it is his own excuse for maltreatment of Kurds ... and Gulenists, and Gezi Park protestors, and tennis fans who boo AKP leaders ........ et cetera.




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