FRÉDERIKE GEERDINK
There have been several attacks on the HDP in western Turkey over the last few days in, among other places, Urla and Sapanca. Nationalists there don’t want the party in their towns, stating that they don’t want ‘terrorists’ – in Urla their objections were apparently even announced from a mosque. Don’t these nationalists realize that they behave this way because they created Kurdistan in their own minds? The Kurdistan they deny so strongly?
‘BDP should have known better’
Last year in February the BDP visited Sinop and Samsun to explain the upcoming peace process to the citizens. The places where the politicians gathered were besieged by large groups of nationalists, and the police did almost nothing about it. I remember that at the time the BDP was criticized for is visit: they knew the Black Sea region is infamous for its Turkish nationalism, so why did they show their face there? They could have known it would lead to trouble. You can wonder where the BDP and now the HDP can go with a guarantee not to make trouble. Black Sea region: out of the question. Not to Izmir and Izmit regions either, apparently. Denizli? Nevsehir? Antalya? Edirne?
Kurds are okay, as long as they are Turks
Nationalists love to say that they have nothing against Kurds. That Turks and Kurds are brothers. That’s why they never say that they don’t want Kurds in their towns. Kurds are okay, as long as they are Turks. As soon as they refuse to be Turks, they are separatists and terrorists. The Kurds that demand to live their identity, are supposed to stay in the southeast of the country.
The perception is ‘stereotypical’
The southeast of the country, where they never come. Where in their perception daily life is all about terrorism. Where the people are violent. So often I have been warned about travelling to Diyarbakir, Sirnak, Hakkari. I never even dared to tell my moderate nationalist neighbours in Üsküdar that I had moved to Diyarbakir: they’d be too shocked and too worried about me.
Who are the separatists?
The motherland is indivisible. But the more nationalist a Turk, the more he considers the Kurdish region as a part of the country where he will never ever set foot and whose borders Kurdish politicians should not cross. They passionately deny the existence of Kurdistan, but without realizing it they created the country in their minds. Who are the separatists here?
