Were Kurds living in democracy and prosperity before Lausanne?

It is useful to repeat the statement in the dissolution declaration announced by the PKK on May 12, which attacks the foundation of the Republic of Turkey and attempts to legitimize terror:

“The PKK emerged on the stage of history as the freedom movement of our people against the policy of denial and annihilation of Kurds, which draws its source from the Treaty of Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution… At its birth, it experienced the effects of real socialism… It carried out a legitimate, justified struggle based on the strategy of armed struggle…”

One would expect everyone who is not a servant of imperialism to oppose this statement, which attempts to legitimize bloodshed and terror with the very reason for the existence of the Republic of Turkey. I suspect that a silent anger has formed among a large segment of society. But amidst the great noise of circles that have become captives and servants of imperialism, this reaction and anger cannot be measured.

Amidst the cries of “Long live peace, a Turkey without terror” from the rabid but noisy imperialist trumpeters, the parliamentary debates that will take place will ostensibly be about a “Turkey without terror,” but fundamentally, “the unitary and secular structure of the Republic within a process involving Lausanne” will be opened for discussion.

I would expect this from those who are captives and pawns of imperialists, but I vehemently protest the CHP’s statement that “Let us discuss the issue in Parliament.” I cannot say I am disappointed. I have been repeating this for a long time. The CHP, founded by Deniz Baykal under the same name in 1992, is not the CHP founded by Atatürk. Especially during the Six-Party Table period, the statements made by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and the CHP, based on the 1921 Constitution and neoliberal economic policies at the suggestion of AKP-larva parties, are still in memory. Even though we opposed it very strongly at that time, we were a handful of people who were tried to be silenced by a rabid group with loud voices asking, “Are you opposing the opposition?” Nothing has changed now.

We do not have the space here to recount at length the approximately 30 reactionary and separatist rebellions that began during the War of Independence and have continued to the present day. But the Mosul-Kirkuk issue, which was postponed especially at Lausanne, is a cautionary tale of imperialism that we must never forget today and must consider together with the PKK uprising.

It is not a matter of the CHP top management or those who are part of an imperialist plan being influenced by the historical facts I will convey below. But I would still like to remind them.

During the Atatürk era, many reactionary and separatist-like uprisings orchestrated by British imperialism took place. All of them were suppressed, but they caused great losses to the newly established republic. The most important of these is the loss experienced as a result of the Sheikh Said rebellion. Due to the rebellion, the Mosul-Kirkuk negotiations held between Turkey and Britain in Istanbul were terminated, and the issue was moved to the League of Nations. The League of Nations, in line with Britain’s wishes, removed Mosul and Kirkuk from the Misak-ı Milli (National Pact) borders, citing the separatist and religious Kurdish rebellions as a pretext.

The Sheikh Said rebellion had been suppressed, but the British had once again gotten what they wanted. In Iraq, which it had taken under mandate administration, Britain had seized control of the Mosul oil fields.

The reactionary and separatist rebellions in the founding years of the Republic interrupted democratic developments and development initiatives, causing a large portion of financial resources to be spent on defense instead of development. The PKK uprising, which was revived by imperialism again in 1984, is a continuation of that period.

THE GOAL IS TO MAINTAIN THE FEUDAL STRUCTURE AGAINST THE ENLIGHTENMENT REVOLUTIONS

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s revolutions, while establishing the Republic on one hand, aimed to take the society, which was in a religious-agrarian empire structure, out of the state of being an ummah, servitude, and a feudal structure, and carry it into the 20th century.

Ottoman society was well behind Europe, and the Eastern and Southeastern regions were even more problematic due to their sects, tribes, and feudal structure. Although this feudal structure has still not been resolved in the 21st century.

The strange thing is, they wrote in their dissolution declarations, “The PKK experienced the effects of real socialism at its birth.” DEM spokespeople speak with leftist jargon. A group among us that defines itself as socialist or on the left still thinks DEM is a leftist party. But neither from the leftist DEM members nor from the PKK leadership, which claims to be real socialist, is there a single word spoken against the feudal structure for the sharecroppers groaning under the pressure of tribal chiefs, landowners, and religious sheikhs, or for the prosperity of the Kurdish people.

The reactionary and Kurdish uprisings that occurred just one year after the proclamation of the Republic did not emerge as an internal dynamic or with a Kurdish identity. The revolutionary movement, which aimed to change the social structure, disturbed the tribal chiefs, religious sheikhs, landlords, and feudal powers in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia. In order not to lose their power, tribal chiefs, landowners, and religious sheikhs became an important part of the imperialist plans of Britain, which could never digest Lausanne, along with the rhetoric that “religion is being lost.”

At that time, there was no race-based nationalism such as Turkish Nationalism or Kurdish Nationalism among the Ottoman subjects gathered under the identity of the ummah. It was not just the regions where Kurds lived, but the society that the Ottoman Empire had wasted in wars that was in misery for many long years, both economically and in terms of social life, all over Anatolia.

In short, there was no great and new impoverishment that occurred with the Republic in ethnic or economic life. There was already a country in misery and poverty inherited from the Ottomans. On top of that, the Ottoman Empire’s foreign debts were also loaded onto the newly established Republic. There was no new impoverishment; rather, there were development initiatives and educational drives undertaken with consideration for every part of the country. There was no reason for any uprising. There was an effort to maintain the feudal structure under the pretext of reaction and dreams of an independent Kurdistan, provoked by British imperialism.

The plan that British imperialism orchestrated in the 1920s is being staged today as a US-Israel Project, without changing its essence but with a few small modifications.

“Let Lausanne be discussed, let a new map similar to Sèvres emerge.”

And unfortunately, this project is being peddled to society by a segment with a loud voice on the internal front as “Victory, Peace, democracy, and prosperity.”