Cemil Bayık: Kurds are not property of the Turkish state.

KCK Executive Council Co-President Cemil Bayık described the Turkish state’s attacks as illegitimate and inhumane, and noted that Kurdish people would not acknowledge the government and the state as long as the state does not acknowledge Kurdish people’s self-administration and Turkey does not democratize.

In his article published in Yeni Özgür Politika and Azadiya Welat newspapers, which has been translated from Kurdish by ANF English service, Cemil Bayık wrote the following:

Whatever AKP officials and suck-ups may say, the AKP government is hostile towards Kurdish people. The AKP government expressed it hostility when Erdoğan said “Kobanê is about to fall” and this hostility is at its peak in the form of enmity towards the PYD. The state shows its hostility through its destruction of civilian areas in North Kurdistan, massacres, and attacks on the HDP. We can say that no political power has been as anti-Kurdish as the AKP government. Such enmity has not existed in Iraq, Iran or Syria. The attacks of the AKP are beyond human comprehension.

For the AKP, Kurds have no value. Speaking of the Kurds is an objection to the strategy of the Turkish state that aims to destroy all Kurds. For these policy makers, Kurds should either suck up to the state or face brutality and torture. If a Kurd defends her identity and wants a free and democratic life, she will receive the worst insults and treatment for her act.

The Turkish state views Kurds as its property, a cadaver that can be treated in any way. This is why Kurds may be treated brutally. This mentality and policy is at the root of the Kurdish issue. This approach will not change as long as Kurds’ free and democratic life is not accepted. Of course, Kurds do not accept the Turkish state’s insult. The western world speaks of democracy and the values of humanity, but does not object to the Turkish state’s policies towards Kurds. Turkey, an ally of the west, is normalizing the policies of insulting and brutalizing Kurds!

Turkey now directs its policy of insulting and crushing Kurdish people to the parliamentarians of the party that these people voted for. Turkey thinks that these parliamentarians are not people’s representatives but paid civil servants of the state! Turkish politicians and AKP officials say that ‘these parliamentarians are paid by the state, so they should implement the state’s policies and accept whatever the state dictates.’ Turkey should know that HDP parliamentarians are not paid civil servants; they are the representatives of Kurdish people. The salaries they mention come from the taxes that Kurdish people are forced to pay. If they say that HDP parliamentarians should betray Kurdish people because of their salaries, why should Kurdish people pay taxes? Why should the people acknowledge the courts, when the courts are institutions of brutality? Why should the people acknowledge governors, when governors give massacre orders targeting the people? Why should the people acknowledge the state, when the state arrests the mayors elected by the people? Nothing can be as legitimate as the Kurdish people’s decision to declare self-administration in the face of state policies. The Turkish state’s attacks are illegitimate and inhumane. Kurdish people will not acknowledge the government and the state as long as the state does not acknowledge Kurdish people’s self-administration and Turkey does not democratize. This is the right of Kurdish people and nobody can question why the Kurds do not acknowledge the state. Nobody can legitimize the policies, discourse and applications of the Turkish state.

The Turkish state now disrespects the pain and attacks the condolence tents of Kurdish mothers and fathers. All political actors including the President and the Prime Minister go to the funerals of soldiers and police officers that massacre hundreds of Kurdish people, but other people are not supposed to go to the condolence tent of the young person who carried out the event in Ankara. If people can go to the funeral of soldiers and police officers that destroy Kurdish towns and kill civilians including babies and old people, everyone can go to the funeral of a Kurdish youth. Whether it is a soldier-police officer or a Kurdish youth that dies, even if one does not like their ideologies, one cannot attack a funeral. Parents mourn the death of their children, but the state prohibits Kurdish mothers and fathers from mourning. They even arrest Kurdish parents for mourning. Their goal is to make parents curse their deceased child, just like the state does.

The AKP government has gone mad, it does not have any humane, moral or conscientious values. AKP does not respect the traditions and values of Kurdish people. The most basic cultural values of parents who mourn the death of their children are ignored. Is it up to the state to decide which families can mourn the death of its children? This is the tyrant state that Kurds resist. This is a state that does not tolerate the will and culture of a society. This is the mentality at the root of the Kurdish issue.

It is not surprising for those that rip apart and desecrate dead bodies for revenge to attack parents that are mourning the death of their children. It is a duty of neighbors to visit the funeral of a neighbor, and it is shameful if neighbors fail to fulfill this duty. Someone from HDP can visit the family of a person that voted for the HDP, and nobody can prevent this visit. It is not up to the state to decide who can go to a funeral and who can mourn for their deceased relatives.

In fact, the pressures on HDP parliamentarian Tuğba Hezer have nothing to do with her visit to a funeral. The AKP state wants to silence everyone on the dirty war it is waging against Kurdish people. The pressures on the HDP aim to silence the only opposition in the country.