Friday, February 29, 2008 | Mehmet Ali Birand
Pandora's box has been opened. The creatures that had been kept there for many years have flown out and scattered. They are impossible to catch and return to the box now.
Just consider the current scene and you will understand what I mean. It presents the ideal example for “how to make a complete mess by allowing the turban in universities.”
The whole situation has become impossible to unravel. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has mismanaged this issue to such an extent and acted in such a haphazard fashion that it is incredible. Each further step they took proved that the government was completely unable to calculate the next- so much so that they even drove their ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) crazy.
They had made no preparation so to speak. Nor had they done enough work on the content. They had not even been prepared for the opposition's reaction.
Chaos is the only word to describe the situation. The situation has grown so complex that it will make no difference whatsoever whether the Constitutional Court accepts the Republican People's Party's (CHP) appeal to reject the constitutional amendment.
The chaos will continue. Do you think that turban-donning students will comply with the ban like they used to, even if the few number of universities that permitted the turban after the constitutional amendment were to reverse their decisions?
To the contrary, they will want to protect what they see as their right and will rebel against the ban with the AKP's backing.
On the other hand, opening universities to the turban will also cause more chaos, for the covered and the uncovered have now been divided into two opposing camps and have carried all that tension to the universities.
A certain sector within the AKP is opposed to the attitude and the tactics that the prime minister has applied in this matter. However, they are too scared to say anything. They remain ineffectual.
It is very unfortunate that the Higher Education Board (YÖK) has been incapacitated at such a crucial time through this division.
The president of YÖK took such ill-timed and unnecessary steps that he deepened the wedge between the two sides.
Is there no way out of this mess? There is, but it is a very difficult one. Only the politicians can solve this problem now.
We can only get out of this web if the CHP and the AKP get together to find a formula to do so. It is probably needless to say that this is only a very remote possibility.
As I wrote in the beginning, the foul creatures have already left the box. It's impossible to put them back again.
In fact, the turban issue may have been considered within the context of personal freedom in the past years. At this point, however, the turban has been transformed into a religious symbol. A great majority of the people who defend the turban have now joined the religious bigot sectors.
In short, we are confronted with a complete power battle. There's no way that it will end in the near future.
To the writer of these lines, the PKK (outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party) is a terrorist organization. It kills innocent people. It pretends to have the mission to defend the rights of the Kurdish people. In fact, it has lost sight of this vision long ago. You cannot protect anybody's rights by committing murders.
That is my point of view and that is also the reason why I endorse and support the Turkish Armed Forces' military operation directed against the PKK camps in northern Iraq.
The Kurds in northern Iraq are upset by this operation. They are right, but so are we. Such operations are indispensable to us as long as they fail to control the PKK.
In addition to military operations, another approach frequently advocated in this column is the need to take the social, political, economic and cultural measures that are necessary to offer a better quality of life to our citizens of Kurdish origins and to win over our Kurdish neighbors in northern Iraq.
My objective in repeating all this is to respond to some recent criticism that I have been receiving from some Kurdish circles by reminding them of the unwavering attitude that I have always kept to, and to avoid any possible misunderstanding.
This context also proves the correct timing of the present operation. It seems that the PKK has piled up people and equipment along our border. This operation has revealed some extremely frightful facts…
This operation will not root out the PKK from northern Iraq. However, it will at least prevent a significant number of the murders planned for the spring and summer months.
The translation of M.A.Birand's column was provided by Nuran İnanç. nuraninanc @ gmail.com