By Hayko Bağdat
The Ministry of Interior dismissed Hakkari Municipality Co-Mayor Mehmet Sıddık Akış and appointed Governor Ali Çelik as a trustee. The elections were stolen, the rule, law, and rights were abolished. The state did not step back an inch from its colonialist policy.
So what would you do now if you were a Kurdish youth from Hakkari?
What does it mean to speak Kurdish, sing Kurdish songs, write Kurdish books, make Kurdish news, open a Kurdish children’s channel, make Kurdish cartoons, learn Kurdish, teach Kurdish, whistle Kurdish, in short, what does it mean to be Kurdish in this country?
What is the punishment for doing politics as a Kurd, for being an MP, for being an advisor to an MP, for being a mayor, for being a municipal council member, for being a co-chair of a Kurdish institution, for winning elections?
What do you want a Kurdish youth from Hakkari to do now?
Should he vote for the Republican People’s Party (CHP), say “I am a Turk”, recite the oath, kiss the bust of Atatürk?
Should he become a Hezbollahist*, an ISIS member, join a cult, go to the Grey Wolves’** Fountain, become a member of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)?
Should he migrate to the West, become a confessor, work for gangs, village guards***, smuggle heroin, become a JİTEM executioner****, an expert sergeant or what?
Do you want him to go in front of the municipality building and defend his rights, defend his honour, his vote, his municipality, get tear gassed by the police, throw stones at the police, get hit by a panzer, get shot or killed?
Should he join the guerrilla, pick up a gun, rebel, shoot, strap on a bomb or what?
What does the State of the Republic of Turkey say to a Kurdish youth from Hakkari, what does it promise, what dream, what story is it telling now?
Which municipality is next? Which mayors will you arrest? Which Kurdish city will you loot? Which office room toilet will you put a golden toilet seat in?*****
Diyarbakır, Van, Mardin, Ağrı, Dersim, Muş, Batman, Iğdır, Siirt?
Lice, where 86 percent of the people voted, Yüksekova, where 78 percent won, Nusaybin, Cizre, Bağlar, Silvan, Kızıltepe, where 75 percent won?
What do you want the Kurdish youth of this country to do?
What place do those who long for a normal country give to Kurds in that dream?
Which side will you take in this racist order that attacks the Kurds’ desire to live like a Kurd?
When will you defend a Kurdish youth from Hakkari?
When will you recognize the existence of the Kurdish people?
Activist, writer and journalist Hayko Bağdat was born in Istanbul in 1976 to a Greek mother and Armenian father. He began his career as a journalist in 2002, focusing on minority issues in Turkey. Bağdat has written books reflecting on the experiences of Armenians and others in Turkey. He has been continuing his work as a journalist in Berlin since 2017.
The article was originally published in Artı Gerçek.
*Kurdish Hezbollah is a pro Turkish-state Islamist organisation. The group has carried out murders and disappearances against the Kurdish community. It is widely believed to be armed by the Turkish state.
**The Grey Wolves are the violent youth wing of the MHP. The group has been linked to attacks and murders both inside and outside Turkey.
***The village guard are a state supported militia, operating in rural Kurdistan.
****Turkey’s Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Department (JİTEM) was responsible for the extrajudicial killings of the 1990s, among other crimes.
*****In 2015, it was reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was installing a golden toilet seat at his new palace in Ankara.
