39 f
“A
ctually for me, the present is no difference from five or ten years ago. Yes, now you can speak about the Kurdish situation in Turkey. Now there’s an official Kurdish channel, TRT ŞEŞ, but my videos aren’t
played on other channels. And if you give a performance on TV as a Kurdish artist, you have to sing two songs in Turkish for one in Kurdish. It was the same ten years ago. I don’t thing there’s been a great development.”
“In the future I would like to see my language and culture flourish in a completely legal ground. Because you can’t talk about culture if it’s not in legal ground. If not, it’s sentenced to be lost. How can you bring Kurdish culture and language to a baby? The new generation looks to Western culture. At least, if you assure Kurdish is used in universities [Kurdish is prohibited as a language of instruction in Turkey, nor is it recognised as a permitted lan- guage in law, in parliament, in any dealings with the State], you have a chance to protect it.”
Can she imagine something like what happened in Ireland with the IRA? You could say that they came down from the moun- tain. ‘Coming down from the mountains’ is a familiar expression in Turkey for returning to normality from the sporadic civil war.
“It was very hard to talk about this five years ago. But now all the television channels, all the columnists can talk about it positive- ly or negatively. If you even spoke about Abdullah Öcalan [the leader of the PKK, imprisoned for life in Turkey since his capture in 1999, considered by many Turks as a mass-murdering, war criminal, who should have been hung, while considered by many Kurds, rather as many Turks consider Atatürk, the saviour of the nation] five years ago, you risked punishment. Now, everyone can talk and discuss more easily. It can also happen in Turkey, as it did in Britain. Though I don’t know if it will in the next ten or 15 years…”
What is happening in Kurdish culture in general, now the situ- ation is much freer both in Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey?
”The situation in Iraq is very different from that of Turkey.
Turkey didn’t change when TRT ŞEŞ [aka TRT 6] started in 2009. TRT ŞEŞ has had the effect of separating ‘good’ Kurds from ‘bad’ ones, and this will only affect Kurds badly. It can only create con-
flict between Kurds. If you want to solve the Kurdish situation in Turkey, you have to look to Kurds. Now, Kurds who are not in favour of what the State offers are called terrorists. But these Kurds who are called terrorists, are the ones with the strongest Kurdish identity.”
“The dissenters – whether normal people, politicians, artists, or young children [currently around 2,600 Kurdish children are in prison for stone-throwing during riots and the like] all receive the same punishment. This ‘solution’ brings a war environment, polarisation. They don’t want to solve this with guns, they want to solve it with politics, but they are also taking the people who are making politics into custody. We can’t see a sincere solution in this situation.”
www.aynurdogan.net/en F
Photo:
sedatmehder.com
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