Gulan: Revenge before studying the case

The text in Kurdish.

I have written many columns about the political crisis in Turkey. So my plan was to write this week about Kurdology. But on Tuesday, the 22nd May, I had to change my plans because a bomb exploded in Ankara.

Turkish mass media pointed their fingers towards the Kurds before dust had got down in Ulus. No matter that the PKK announced that it had nothing to do with the bomb and Iraqi Kurds expressed their irritation because Turks had discussed their involvement. Columnists in Turkish newspapers have not asked who else could be responsible for the attack than the PKK. Like Lale Sariibrahimoglu of Today's Zaman they just wondered if the Ulus bombing could push the Turkish government into a cross-border operation. Any way, Mehmet Ali Birand of Turkish Daily News asked whether postponing the elections is the aim.

And who gains if the elections are postponed or cancelled? I do not have to tell the answer. Everybody knows it. Maybe you remember what I wrote last week about the polarization of the political combat in Turkey. I said:

"The army makes provocations to irritate the Kurds in Turkey when it needs a crisis to show its power. What would be irritating Kurds more than an attack to Kandil? ... Sooner or later angry Kurds would storm on the streets. Deep State waits it. It would be a good excuse for the army to claim an emergency rule in Turkey and put Erdogan and Gül out of power."

According to Peyamner News Agency Turkey sent last Thursday two military aeroplanes to South Kurdistan, west of Zakho. When I heard about this and other Turkish reactions I remembered a Finnish tragedy, the Mainila shots. Our neighbourhood country Soviet Union claimed the 26th November 1939 that Finnish gunfire had killed thirteen Soviet soldiers in the boarder village Mainila. Soviet Union made a revenge which led to the Winter War. It lasted three and half months. In the war died 26 600 Finnish soldiers and 126 900 Soviet soldiers. But there was never any gunfire in Mainila. It was only the claim of Soviet Union which gave it an excuse to start the war. Russian President Boris Jeltsin admitted this 1998.

Turkish columnists admit the complexity of the Kurdish question. For example Lale Sariibrahimoglu wrote that it is wrong to believe that the main cause of the problem stems from northern Iraq. But almost no one has compared the Ulus bomb to another mysterious attack in Ankara one year ago: the murder of Mustafa Özbilgin, the jugde of the Council of the State.
Mehmet Kamis of Todays's Zaman mentions that police catched his murderer Alparslan Arslan but security forces never reached the ties behind the attack. Turkish columnists have not compared the present situation to the pre-military coup period 1979-1980.

I am afraid the coming days will be very hectic. But if this week is peaceful I write my next column about Kurdology. I believe that the future of Kurdology is great. In addition to studies about Kurdish culture and language there is need for all kind of research about the Kurds: history, sociology and politics. For example, how the military coup 1980 affected the development of the Kurdish national movement? What the present Turkish provocations mean for the Kurds?