Identity Obsession and the Abant Platform
The 18th Abant Platform continued yesterday with discussions over the role of the media on the mutual perceptions of the Turks and the Kurds of Kurdistan.
I have always been amazed to see how the media are referred to as a negative factor in such conferences and are criticized as if they have no positive contribution to the resolution of international political problems. I know very well today - I have been told by my Kurdish colleagues here - that Today's Zaman has been contributing quite positively to tearing down the barriers between the cultures for some time now. Several articles from Today's Zaman are translated into Kurdish and are published in mainstream Kurdish newspapers, I have been told.
No… They seem to have never developed an interest in my articles. But knowing that there is a potential "readers' market" there, I may provide a supply for the future demand.
I have been learning from my Arbil experience, and it seems that two days are not enough, especially since I have to have an ear to what is going on in Israel and I have to continue writing.
Here are the lessons I have taken from my observations:
1. Our Kurdish colleagues are quite obsessed with this identity issue. Turks also have an infatuation with their identity, but it has never been an obsession among them. Even if it were, this observation of mine wouldn't change. Wrong is wrong wherever you see it. Identity obsession is seen among Israeli Jews, for example. I have observed it among some Afro-Americans. Identity becomes an obsession only when it is excessively strong, only when it is at the center of all life perceptions, only when it dominates all other ideological, religious, economic and sociocultural positions an individual may assume in society. The symptom of obsession in identity is the red line after which an individual or a group starts to interpret each and every sentence uttered by others as offensive or even as a threat to his/her identity. Obsession with identity gives everything a color of identity. I have been told by a friend who attended a dinner of "obsessed Kurds" that they were quite "offended" by the remarks of Mümtaz'er Türköne, who said in the opening speech of the Abant Platform that in a sense "all of us are Kurds." "This means they want us to say that all of us are Turks. This is an attempt to assimilate us," they commented. I am not an expert on Kurdish issues. I asked experts to analyze this absurdity. "You have to understand that this is the trauma of a hundred years of exclusion," they said, by and large.
There are things that are understandable but unacceptable. I record identity obsession as one such thing.
2. Some of our Kurdish colleagues derive a kind of pleasure from a mention of the pains their brethren have suffered in the past and have been suffering from recently. Addressing the pains of the past is a condition of reconciliation, but it is not a precondition. Australians apologized to the Aboriginals of Australia only a year ago, although there has been peaceful coexistence for several decades. You first develop a culture of sitting at the same table through your similarities and then start to speak about your differences. The success of the Abant Platform will be measured not by the number of problems it will solve but by the amount of synergy it will create to bring more and more people to the table and the amount of willingness it will inspire so as to guarantee continuous participation of the parties in the discussions.
3. Kurds are quite like us Turks in seeking the ultimate solution immediately. We are all impetuous children of God. This pushes us all to face the most difficult of issues first. Kirkuk is the Jerusalem of the region. Starting a meeting with Kirkuk means ending it with nothing and guaranteeing that there won't be a second meeting. Thank God, up until the time this article was written, Kirkuk has not shown up as a major issue in the platform.
4. When it comes to making a comparative study about the situation in Turkey and in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the Kurds have an undisputable advantage compared to us Turks. There are many Iraqi Kurds who speak and read Turkish; our newspapers are well translated into Kurdish; I could watch almost all Turkish TV stations in my hotel room; and of course, the Kurds of Turkey are an available source of information, analysis and observation for them. On the other hand, intellectuals who came to the region from Turkey were certainly "laymen" when it came to the region - including me - apart from a few journalists who had been to the region several times. Their information about the region was confined, on the other hand, to issues of war and conflict.
5. Kurdish tea has a strange - not bad, just strange - taste to it, the source of which I am still trying to detect.
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