In the post-Cold War age, there are several variables but only two constants in politics:
1) The decisive victory of the liberal democracy made everyone accept its superiority. Now, even the most radical anti-democrats present themselves as democrats. See the neo-Nazis in Germany or the Islamists in Iran...
2) Everybody is a victim. Presenting yourself as a victimized person (or group) is supposed to give you a political edge over others who are not victimized enough. See US President Barack Obama, who tells about his grandmother who were victimized by the US health system which he would reform.
I am well aware of these political trends, so I always doubt when somebody presents himself as a victim. I generally see that real victims never promote themselves and they rarely raise their voices.
There is a hyper-inflation on the victim market of today's Turkey. Its reason is simple: The cake is big and delicious. As loud as you can shout will you get as big portion as possible. The Islamist government and the Kurdish nationalists fight to seize the democratic, secular and unitary Turkish state. The Kurdish Gambit is just a round in this fight.
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I could even welcome this fight in our democracy, but when terrorism is included, I emotionally become a hawk. Because I know several families whose sons and daughters were killed by PKK, either as civilians or soldiers. There are thousands of people in Turkey who experienced -and keep experiencing- this tragedy. They are the real victims and you can't talk about democracy with them unless PKK is totally beaten.
We should be realistic: The majority of the Turkish public didn't realize yet, but the AKP government has started a direct dialogue with terrorists, according to the Turkish state, as well as the US and the EU.
These terrorists are also represented in the Turkish parliament, as DTP. At first, I was hopeful about DTP. I was expecting them to set itself free from Kurdish nationalism and condemn PKK as a terrorist organization, while still remaining as the popular choice of the Kurds. They couldn't. They are getting even worse.
Emine Ayna, the Vice-Chairman of DTP, participated in the ceremony in Siirt to commemorate the 25th anniversary of PKK's first attack. "We can't say that on 15th August, 1984, the violence started. Because the violence was there since the first day of the Turkish Republic. PKK had shot the first bullet to stop the denial and the destruction of the Kurds, for peace and equality," she said.
At the same time, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan claims that he never hold a gun. He tells this lie to gain a stronger position in the Kurdish Gambit. The same day, the website of the PKK starts to delete all photos of Ocalan with guns. They forgot to delete the following one:
In any democracy, these evidences are enough to ban DTP. Its link with PKK, a terror organization without any doubt in the international community, is proven unquestionably in recent months. I don't care about the political climate, social conditions, etc. I'm talking about lawful justice here.
The justice that they have in Spain, for instance. Why Batasuna and its successors were banned? And why the Spanish police did harshly disperse a Basque protest in San Sebastian just a few days ago even though the protestors were not visibly supporting ETA (below)...
Because they are separatists and there are enough evidence to believe that they support ETA, which keeps exploding bombs in civilian areas and shoot at the security personnel, although it can't kill as many people as PKK. And because the Spanish government knows that you can't explain the terror victims why you talk to active terrorists, whether they are in the mountains or in the parliament.
PS: I'm off for two-weeks-long vacation. Tonight, I'll be flying to Adana, a southern city where PKK killed a policeman just a couple of days ago, in transit to my destinations in Mediterranean.
