Kurds and Turks, Palestinians and Israelis

A long conflict

“In 1997, the Clinton administration granted Boeing and Bell market licenses to build the attack helicopters, brushing aside human rights objections from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about Turkey's abuse of its ethnic population”.

McKiernan, 2001

Student of International Studies
The university of South Australia
By: Suheyla M Ahmed
Grade achieved: Distinction
2006


The division of Kurdistan

The starting point of the conflict between Kurds and the Turkish Government

The reasons of the conflict

Turkish Government’s policy against Kurds

The solution of the problem

The division of Palestine

The starting point of the conflict

The reasons of the conflict

The solution of the problem

***

There are many minority groups all over the world who suffer from being abused, ignored and destroyed under the governance of aggressive governments but their voice is not heard. One of those minorities is Kurds who in reality should not be called a minority because of their enormous population. Kurds have been living in Kurdistan for more than four thousand years. They have a long history of fighting for freedom but other governments such as Iran, Turkey and Iraq as well as Syria still rule them. Another group of people who have been killed and abused simply because they are asking for an occupied part of their land to be returned is Palestinians. An area of Palestinians land has been occupied by Israelis and the reason of the occupation is that Israel claims that that area belongs to them.

The main purpose of this essay is to underpin some of the issues of Kurds in Turkey and discuss the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. The paper will provide a history of a long conflict between Kurds and Turks who are two different ethnic groups living under a Turkish government. Also it provides a brief history on the conflict between Palestine and Israel. Mainly, the essay points out some of the reasons of the conflict between these two different ethnic groups such as economical, political and cultural issues. In continue the essay introduces evidences and examples of Turkish government’s plans in order to destroy Kurds and their identity in the past and present such as destroying villages and prohibiting Kurdish people from speaking their own language even at home. At the end both conflicts will be compared in order to highlight the similarities and differences.

Geographically Kurdistan is an area, which is located in the Middle East where the states of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria converge and the majority of its population are ethnic Kurds. Historically before World War I, Kurdistan was divided between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire. After WWI it was divided among five different states which the larges portion of this land is under the occupation of Turkey and the rest is under the occupation of Iran, Iraq, Syria and former Soviet Union (Gunter 2004, p.xxvi).

Kurds are known as a nation without a state. A nation that has its own history and during their long existence they have struggled to achieve self-rule and cultural autonomy and since the break up of the Soviet Union this nation has become the largest ethnic group in the world with a large geographic land and that has no independent state of their own(Ciment 1996, p.1). Kurds are also know as mountain people and according to Ciment (1996, p.1) “the mountains are where the ancient Kurds fled Babylonian hegemony and where the guerrillas of the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) fight the current Turkish regime in Ankara”. On the other hand the mountains have been a great enemy of Kurds because they have isolated this people from outside world and as a result they have been ignored as a nation (Ciment 1996, p.1). According to Barkey and Fuller (1998) the Kurdish issue is the most painful problem for Turkey and it has been with Turkey since the beginning of the republic in1923. Barkey and Fuller 1998 also state that Kurdish right have been denied and abused by Turkey and this denial and abusiveness is regarded as violating human rights therefore it irritates the relation between Turkey and EU.

In addition three aggressive countries of Iran, Iraq and Turkey rule Kurds. Also a considerable amount of Kurds are also ruled by Syria and until now they have not had a right to hold the citizenship of that country as Kurds and the Syrian government do not accept them as who they are and even as Arabs, in fact the government says that Kurds do not belong to that land (Ciment 1996). Nevertheless, Kurdish nation have many enemies and their land has been targeted by big powers and imperials for strategic purposes and to gain access to its natural resources and economic resources (Ciment 1996, p.1).

Turkish governments one after another have denied Kurds as a different nation to Turks and they have tried to destroy Kurdish people’s identity, culture and language in many evil ways but they have not succeeded. The conflict between Kurds and Turks started when Ataturk stated that Turkey is for Turks and there are no such people as Kurds and there are many reasons behind it. The most serious issues are Cultural, economical and political issues that Kurds have no right in participating in them or even practicing them in Turkey (Ciment 1996). To be more precise until 1991 Kurds in Turkey had no right to speak their own language in public places nor at home because the dominant language is Turkish language and Turks believe that Kurds do not have an independent language and culture. Turks refer to Kurds as Mountain Turks who have forgotten their language and as a consequence of such views the conflict between Turks and Kurds is more likely to be a cultural war.

From the political point of view Kurds have not been able to participate in running the government in Turkey. Kurdish political activists have formed political parties over years but each of them have been declined and rejected by the Turkish government after a short period of time of activity for reasons such as ‘putting the Turkish nationalism in danger’ and many other reasons which have not yet been known (Ciment 1996). The most aggressive thing that Turkey did was banding Kurds from Speaking and writing their own language. In 1923 the treaty of Lausanne maintained the stability of a Turkish state and a year after speaking or publishing in Kurdish were banned and the constitution stated that “Turkey is strictly Turkish” (Chaliand 1994, p.30). Turkey’s aim is to destroy Kurds and to achieve this aim the Turkish government has practiced Genocide in 1979 on Alewi Kurds, destroyed villages and even changed the name of many Kurdish villages to Turkish (Fatah 2006, McKiernan 2006, p.93). In 1937, an uprising of Kurds was crushed by using poison gas, heavy artillery and help of war plans (McKiernan 2006, p.94). During that time “thousands of Kurdish homes were burned, villages permanently depopulated, and civilians massacred. Hundreds of Kurds who were hiding in caves or barns were burned to death by the army (McKiernan 2006, p.94).

In addition, in 1999 the estimate number of Kurds killed by Turkish army increased to over 40,000. “According to the figures published by Turkey’s own Parliament, 6,000 Kurdish villages were systematically evacuated of all inhabitants and 3,000,000 Kurds have been displaced” (Fatah, 2006). If it is not an elimination of a people, a culture and a homeland, then what is it? According to Fatah (2006) Professor Noam Chomsky called the Turkish response to Kurds an “ethnic cleansing”, resulting in the death of thousands, the emigration of over two million people and the destruction of approximately 6000 villages. The Turkish army does not turn back on any one who is suspected of being Kurdish activists. They destroy anything that belongs to Kurds and their identity in order to destroy their history and their real identity.

According to the 1924 constitution, the term citizenship and citizen is associated with Turkishness. In addition the document states that “one had to be a Turk to become a member of parliament and the like”. In this case “Kurds could qualify as Turks, but only at the expense of denying their own ethnic identity”. As a result the seeds for ultimate Kurdish dissatisfaction were planted (Barkey & Fuller1998, p.10).

The key to success is not in the mountains of Kurdistan or the occupying countries such as Turkey, Iran and Iraq but it is in the hands of the superpowers that are afraid of loosing their interests if Kurds become independent (Ciment 1996, p.3). Turkey cannot take its hand off Kurdistan because Kurdistan is highly rich in natural resources; for instance the part of Kurdistan which is under the rule of Turkish government contains large deposits of coal as well as headwaters of Trigis and some other important river systems (Ciment 1996, p.76). On the other hand Kurdistan is an important strategic area for Super powers such as America to have control over the Middle East and to maintain its benefits in Ankara too. Barkey and Fuller (1998, p.97) suggest “one of the major grounds for hope for a peaceful solution to Turkey’s Kurdish problem is its relatively advanced stage of political development.” But arguably it seems impossible to see political development in a country which considers itself a superior and democratic country.

In 1996, in relation to Turkey’s atrocities Lord Avebury who is the head of the British Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, said that, “’just as many people in western Europe turned a blind eye to Hitler's preparations for the Holocaust in the thirties, the democratic world ignores the evidence of incipient genocide against the Kurds in Turkey today’” (Fatah 2006).
In compare to the conflict between Kurds and Turks the conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews is a modern phenomenon, which began in the 20th century. These two groups have different religions and different beliefs (Palestinians include Muslims, Christians and Druze) but religious differences are not the cause of the conflict but it is the struggle over land. Until 1948, the area which both Palestinian and Israelis claim its ownership was known as Palestine. But as a consequence of the war of 1948-49, the land was divided into three parts which were Israel, West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Beinin & Hajjar 2000, p.1).

According to Beinin and Hajjar (2000) “Jewish claims to this land are based on the biblical promise to Abraham and his descendants, on the fact that this was the historical site of the Jewish kingdom of Israel (which was destroyed by the Roman Empire), and on Jews' need for a haven from European anti-Semitism”. On the other hand “Palestinian Arabs' claims to the land are based on continuous residence in the country for hundreds of years and the fact that they represented the demographic majority”. The Palestinians strongly reject the idea and if the Arabs of Palestine engage the biblical argument at all, they have every right to claim the land because Abraham's son Ishmael is the forefather of the Arabs; therefore God's promise of the land to the children of Abraham certainly includes Arabs as well. They believe that they should not sacrifice their land in order to compensate Jews for Europe's crimes against them (Beinin and Hajjar 2000, p.1).

Until now the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has not ended and everyday citizens of both sides are killed or injured in clashes between the Palestinian fighters and Israeli army. A large number of Palestinians have immigrated to safer countries such as Jordan and many places have been destroyed during the conflict. Although the united nation and some other countries have tried to settle down the problems and put an end to the conflict and violence but until now there has been no success. According to the US department of state a peaceful solution to the conflict is to stop violence and terrorism. The US department also believes that the Palestinians need a strong leadership to fight terrorism, practice democracy based on tolerance and liberty in the region with the help from Israel. Also both groups need to accept each others independent states and certainly Arab states must cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups who are supporting and engaging in violence and terror (U.S. Department of State 2003).

Now the differences between the two diccussed conflicts can be pointed out. For instance, Kurds in Turkey fight for their divided land, but the major reasons of their anger which has resulted in violence and conflict is the fear of being destroyed ethnically by Turks. Kurds are asking for freedom of speech, and keeping their identity, culture and language. In fact, today Kurds are facing a big problem which is the disappearance of their culture, identity and language under the government of nationalist Turks while the Palestinians do not face those problems. In fact Palestinians fight Israel to take back a part of their land that has been separated and occupied by Israeli government while living in other part of their land and under the rule of their own government.

To conclude the roots of the conflict between Kurds and Turks are in their long history. Kurds have suffered under the Turkish government simply because they are asking to keep their own identity and culture. They have been killed, humiliated and removed from their own homeland by the Turkish army and nothing has been done to stop the Turkish government form being so aggressive with Kurds by United Nation and other super powers. People in Palestine ask Israel to leave their belonging land, in return Israel kill them and destroy their homes and cities. Both conflicts are over political, economical and cultural benefit and the victims are Kurds and Palestinians who seems to have no choice but to fight until a peaceful solution puts an end to these entire two huge problems in the Middle East.

Reference:

Barkey, H J & Fuller, G E 1998, Turkey’s Kurdish question, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC, New York.

Beinin, J & Hajjar L 2000, Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli ConflictA Primer, Middle East Report, viewed 10th November 2006

http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/intro-pal-isr-primer.html.

Chaliand, G 1994, The Kurdish Tragedy, Zed Books LTD, London & New Jersey.

Ciment, J 1996, The Kurds: State and Minority in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, Facts on File, Inc. New York.

Fatah, R 2006, The accepted genocide of Kurds in Turkey, Kurdish Media, viewed on 5th November 2006

http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=13491.


Gunter, M.M 2004, Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, The Scarecrow Press, Inc, Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford.

McKiernan, K 2001, Human Rights vs US Arms Sales To Turkey, Common Dream News Centre, Viewed 14th November 2006,

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0113-02.htm.

McKiernan, K 2006, The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland, St. Martin’s Press, New York


U.S Department of State 2003, Roadmap to Solution of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, USINFO, Viewed on 8th November 2006,
http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Feb/04-725518.html.