A group of international academics, lawyers, trade unionists and activists travelled to Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast as election observers to witness the country’s epochal elections to be held on 14 May. In a series of articles to be published every day by Medya News leading up the elections, members of the UK delegation share the international election observers delegations’ findings from the ground.
Emma Òr
In amongst the campaigning, members of our delegation have found some time for exploration away from the immediate area of Amed (Diyarbakır) in which we have been staying. This has given us the opportunity to obtain a different perspective on the election campaign and on the oppression encountered throughout Bakur (northern Kurdistan/southeastern Turkey). We head out on two different trips, one car headed to Merdin, while the other half of the delegation decided to visit Urfa.
A different side of Kurdistan
Travelling across Bakur means traversing military checkpoints, passing in front of watchtowers, and avoiding ubiquitous military police vehicles. But it also gives the opportunity to appreciate the rugged mountains and vast beauty of the Mesopotamian plain which provided the fertile ground for the development of this civilisation.
In Merdin (Mardin) the delegation saw a different side of Kurdistan to that in Amed, one more focussed on tourism, and catering to the desires of Western Turkish visitors. Fewer flags fly from the buildings, and fewer activists are campaigning in the streets. But under the surface, a current of Kurdish identity runs deep. Yeşil Sol (Green Left) Party vans still tour the streets, playing their catchy elections songs, but here they are joined by more visible CHP and AKP vans, the latter of which plays a pounding march of which any dictator could be proud. Whilst away from any political campaigning as we drank çay in a cafe, on hearing the Yeşil Sol tune playing from an election van, a waiter approached us to inform us that this was the Kurdish party. The people here, just as much as anywhere else in Bakur, know that this is their party.
Erasure of Kurds from history
On the way to Urfa we stopped in a small roadside shop to ask about the nearest çay place in Hilvan. Our Kurmanci speaker began to make conversation with the shopkeepers. After a tentative exchange of ‘What party do you support’, ‘No, what party do you support’ we find ourselves laughing with welatparez Kurds (welatparez is a concept by the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, referring to love of the land and often meaning that people are in support of the Yesil Sol Parti and the wider Kurdistan Freedom Movement), and we are invited to go and visit the local office. Short on time, instead we share a çay, listen to music played on the the tembûr/saz (a traditional stringed instrument with a slender neck and a gourd-shaped body) in the autobus office next-door, and head off towards Urfa. Urfa’s population is split into three; with Arab, Turkish, and Kurdish populations roughly equal. It is an important and historic city for Islam and a tourist hotspot. The majority of people vote for the AKP; even the Kurdish vote is split in half. As we drive through the city, we see several MHP campaign vans – something none of us have seen until now.
We also paid a visit to Göbekli Tepe, a critical archaeological site with a commanding view of the mountainous landscape. From the summit, we had a hazy, distant view of the border of Syria. This site has monumental implications for our understanding of the origins of civilisation, and the meaning of the findings is much-disputed by historians; it is understood to have been the earliest known place of worship, but this interpretation is not universally held. Many archaeological minds challenge this with a far more nuanced understanding of the site’s use in ancient times, 12,000 years ago at the crux of the shift away from nomadic, hunter/gatherer civilisation towards the beginnings of a more settled, agricultural society. However, the museum dedicated to the site presented a narrow view of this argument. Wandering the cool interior, we are met with a reductive erasure of this debate, hyperfocusing on a nationalistic, extremely religious explanation. This censorship echoes the Turkish state’s erasure of the Kurdish people from their history.
Green Left Party across the region
Once back in Amed, we discussed our impressions with one of the Yeşil Sol Parti parliamentary candidates. He was clear that although the surface view of politics may look different in different cities, the party knew the people of each city. Whereas one city may look less political than another, the Yeşil Sol Party remained confident of its success across Bakur, due to its close links to individual communities across the region.
