Ferda Çetin
”Turkey’s initial problem is not the government, but the situation in which the society falls into it. The problem is the degenerated society. Crowds in Turkey think that they are standing by the victims and the oppressed but in fact they are supporting the cruelty, the power, the tyranny!” writes Ferda Çetin for Özgür Politika.
Turkey is “crying” for Palestine.
The Turkish state and Turkish society oppose Israel’s occupation of the land of the Palestinians.
They are opposing Palestinians being forcibly displaced and against the blockade of Gaza and its surroundings… Turkey is crying for Palestinians of whom 70 percent are immigrants and living in camps and being bombarded again.
But this sadness is not a natural human reaction felt by the people. It is not at all an empathy arising from humanity. Opposing Israel is appropriate with the conjecture, coincides with the opposition of government policy, but this way, it becomes risk-free, attracts attention and support.
This “solidarity” which is explained through Islam, it does not come sincerely with the free will of the society; the clear evidence is that of the attitude adopted in the China-Uyghur issue.
The Uyghur people are also Muslims and are under intense pressure from China. Although they demand help and support from Turkey, there is no help coming from the government.
The crowds are not crying or feeling sorrow for the Uyghurs and neither condemn China with flags and convoys.
”Turkey’s initial problem is not the government, but the situation in which the society falls into it. The problem is the degenerated society. Crowds in Turkey think that they are standing by the victims and the oppressed but in fact they are supporting the cruelty, the power, the tyranny!”
Let’s come to the point why millions are crying for Palestine.
There is no need to give examples from hundreds of events in the history.
Three news from the last week is enough …
On May 13, a Kurdish family going to Mersin from Southern Kurdistan was blocked by a Honda car, license plate 01 YG 428, belonging to Mehmet Fatih Oflaz and with three other people in it. They lynched the family with stones and sticks, insulting the family with nationalist hand gestures of the ‘grey wolf’. Mersin Governor stated that ‘the incident was a judicial case, not a big thing’. The academics, writers and illustrators who cried for Palestine and Gaza all became silent. The Kurdish elders (!), who said “Turkey has no problem with the Kurds, the problem is the PKK”, did not make a statement regarding the incident.
On May 14, while 16-year-old Y.R. was going to Sakarya from Urfa to work, he spoke in Kurdish on the phone with his family. He was attacked by a group saying “Why do you speak this language, it is forbidden to speak Kurdish here”. After being beaten the severely injured boy was hospitalised.
The chant and cry, “The war in Palestine is the war of the oppressed”, reaches from mosque to university halls, from coffee houses to stadiums, is never chanted when it comes to Kurds; The majority of Turkish society supports the oppressor, not the oppressed Kurd who speaks with his family in his mother language.
The appointed trustee by the government for the Diyarbakir (Amed) Metropolitan Municipality changed the street signs from Kurdish to Turkish. The Turkish flag symbol was added to all the signs. This is part of the policy of Turkish colonialism to “capture” Kurdistan and Turkify the Kurds.
By supporting Palestine, those who ask “From where does Israel get this recklessness?”, but they do not ask the question “From where does the Amed trustee get this courage from ?”
Those who normalise Turkish colonialism and the Turkish state’s practices of genocide, destruction and atrocities in Kurdistan with all sorts of excuses; Those who do not see the injustices, and cruelties in front of their eyes think that they provide the greatest support to the oppressed, humanity and Palestinians.
A former politician rightly said ”when legal reform’ came to the agenda, Turkey needs a reform for conscience and morality, not a legal reform”. Conscience and moral reform means individuals and society attaining their own truth and mind by getting rid of the domination of the state only after that human beings will act like human again.
