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November 5, 2007
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"THERE CAN NEVER BE A KURDISTAN, THERE IS NO KURDISTAN, WE WILL NOT ALLOW IT!"
Kurdishaspect.com - By Miranda O'Kelly
Saturday, November 3rd: Today I went to the "Turkish anti P.K.K"(Kurdish Workers Party) protest in Times Square. It was kind of a sad affair. (For them). There were some screechy speeches about how the P.K.K. has killed so many Turkish citizens, with interludes of loud Fascist music, (but no mention that most of the 37 thousand dead were killed by the Turkish State, over three thousand Kurdish villages destroyed and three million Kurdish people forced from their land with no compensation). However, the bigger message which was clearly the
point of the whole thing, was about America (and Europe's) perception and press coverage of the Kurdish/P.K.K. issue. Speaker after speaker railed against the use of the words "rebel" "separatist" and "guerilla" in the Western press. One of the speakers shouted in outrage: "When talking about the P.K.K. they must always say terrorist"." Then he went on and on trying to compare the P.K.K. to
Al Queda and insisting they are exactly the same.
One of the most amusing speeches to me, was when a woman got up and complained about the strong Kurdish lobby here on the East Coast. "Just look at The American Kurdish Information Network's web site! She also mentioned the fact that they had held a 24 hour a day protest in front of the Turkish embassy in Washington DC (this was many years ago, but it must have wounded her deeply.)
I didn't get to the protest till three thirty and it started at one, so maybe I missed a lot, but it seemed low intensity, low turn out (about a quarter length of block had a narrow barricade rectangle set up on 40'th street) and the organizers tried to fill the space with a huge Turkish flag held by protesters. There were at most maybe 100-150 people? Ultimately there was something both very sick and very sad
about it. I tried to interview a few people, just trying to elicit their opinions. I asked " Is the Kurdish language legal in Turkey? Is there Kurdish TV? Can Kurdish be spoken in the government? "
Across the board the Turkish protesters told me "Yes, Kurdish is legal, in fact the Kurds probably have MORE rights than us.. "etc . etc. "Yes they have TV...
in fact they have many many channels that are in Kurdish, and they have radio. They have many many stations. They have full rights, they are just the same as us, even they are better off... maybe some try to improve themselves by learning Turkish but if they want to speak Kurdish they are free. "
Actually the facts are: It is still illegal to speak Kurdish in Turkey. Children speaking Kurdish in school can be severely punished. If one wants to study Kurdish, to read and write, one can theoretically take a private Kurdish class only after one has graduated through the entire Turkish school system. This policy
renders Kurdish people unable to read and write in their own language. If a politician uses the Kurdish language in any official capacity he can be charged with a crime, As slight an act as performing a wedding in Kurdish or sending out invitations in Kurdish and Turkish can lead to fines or jail. There is NO Kurdish TV station allowed in Turkey (or radio) and ROJ TV, the Kurdish satellite channel broadcast from Europe is repeatedly blocked by the Turkish government. There are ten minutes PER WEEK allowed to be broadcast in Kurdish, but this can
consist of only music and some news. Definitely no content for children.
But none of these protestors "against P.K.K. terrorism" seemed to be aware of the facts. Over and over I heard: "The Kurds have their rights, they can speak Kurdish in Turkey, there is no problem." The juxtaposition of what these people say and seem to believe is so absurdly far from reality sometimes it was hard to keep a straight face.
There was a poor old man selling books about "the Armenian lie" and when I spoke to him in Turkish, he excitedly explained about his book.. he was so thrilled to talk about how the Armenians killed the Turks. Then there were some younger men in suits near the front of the barricades who immediately asked me "What channel are you from" and when I jokingly said "Youtube" they said "So you are a spy." They were laughing, I was laughing, and then someone came up with a video camera and started filming me and someone else with an SRL camera,
with big lenses started taking pictures of me while I was interviewing people.
Obviously there is a big P.R. campaign by the Turkish government to control the language used in the western media, to control the terms of discourse in the press. Frankly this protest seemed to be 75 % about the media coverage of the issue. They are upset about the tone of recent articles in the NY times and other papers. Although there was one speaker who said "There can NEVER BE A KURDISTAN. THERE IS NO KURDISTAN. WE WILL NOT ALLOW IT". And I thought finally the point of this whole thing has slipped out.
I interviewed three men for a while and they remained very polite until at the end, one of them started saying "blood for blood.. there will be blood". Even though his words were violent, he seemed like a broken person just mouthing a slogan that made him feel stronger. It was pathetic.
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