Gulan: The Kurds in international mass media

The text in Kurdish.

Last week I wrote about different effects what Turkey's attack on South Kurdistan would have. There is one more important aspect but I could not explain it shortly. A full scale war between Turkey and South Kurdistan would bring the Kurdish question to international forums in a scale which is seen never before. This would be for the Kurds the second change to take their place as a nation - but in totally different conditions than during the Sévres days. Now the international community follows the situation from television and internet in real time.

Here in Europe people do not know much now about the Kurds. But every one knows about the Lebanese war last summer. And guess on whose side the sympathy of the audience is!

The public opinion has usually sympathy for the victims in armed conflicts. But in the case of the Kurds it is the opposite: mass media has the perspective of the oppressor, the state of Turkey. This is because Turks are very good to make lobby. They have powerful supporters like American Enterprise Institute and Michael Rubin. Many institutions get money from petrol companies which want to control the oil in Kurdistan. Because of this whole the Western world has the Turkish perspective on Kurds.

Kurds are active in Europe but they do not know how to make cooperation with European organisations. Their diplomacy is Kurd-Kurd diplomacy. But they are aware of this which is a good sign. Seeing the mistakes in any situation is the first step to find the solution. The Kurdish movement is developing rapidly. Kurdish associations in Kurdistan and in Europe are flexible and adopt all the time new working methods. Kurds are much more creative than Turks.
Turkish lobby is now strong but it would be difficult for it to advertise an attack to South Kurdistan.

Now European mass media does not tell much about the Kurds. The Kurdish uprising in Turkey is described as terrorism. Media coverage about Iraq is about the chaos of the Arab areas. There is very little information about the Kurds. An ordinary reader does not understand the complexity of the Kurdish reality either in Iraq or in Turkey. Until now Turkey has been able to keep the dirty reality of the Southeast away from international media. But if the conflict escalates across the boarder, the Kurdish question would finally get in media the place it deserves.

Even if there will not be a war between Turkey and South Kurdistan, the Kurds get more attention in Europe. For example there are many new books about them in English. But this process is still slow. A war would make it faster.

A war is horrifying scenario but its consequence would be that the world could not any more ignore the Kurdish question. Turkey's attack would force the international community to search a political solution to it.