WE ARE ALL GERÎLAS

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." ~ Thomas Jefferson

What Erdogan says:

"While they try to capitalise on hatred and enmity, we will build more roads, more hospitals, more schools and more workplaces," Erdogan said. "We will not back down from justice and democracy. We will bring more freedoms, more democracy, more welfare, more rights and justice."

What Kurds hear:

"Blah, blah, blah."

Wasn't all this the same kind of thing Erdogan said in his photo-op in Amed last summer? What has happened since then? The situation has become worse while Erdogan does nothing but threaten. His keepers in the MGK have him on a short leash.

Kurds demonstrating in the US are again receiving threats from the Turkish diplomatic corps, just like in the old days.

Perhaps the events of the last week foreshadow the future, but they also recall the past, as the threats of Turkish diplomats show. In looking through A People Without A Country once again, I realized that we have not left the 90s yet, as can be seen by reading the following quotes from Kurds of the time:

"We are all guerrillas, the only difference is some of us are in the mountains and some of us are here." ~ Kurdish truck driver.


"For 150 years the Kurdish Movement was a fire, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, but it was never put out completely. This fire is always in the people." ~ Faysal Yilmaz.


"The government is losing authority in this region and they are trying to solve the problem with violence. But they can never solve it with violence. The government must open peaceful and democratic channels . . . If it really wants to solve this problem. . . it must negotiate with the PKK. The PKK is the organization which is struggling for the Kurds." ~ Hatip Dicle.

I think it is because nothing has happened to resolve the dirty war, and that the wounds of that war are still fresh, at least for Kurds, that these last days make me think of the 90s.

I am one of those stubborn people that, if told, "No," my response is, "Watch me do it." This last week makes me believe that serhildan is the only answer. Serhildan is carried out on many levels, but the primary level from which it operates is the level of the will. Everything is an opportunity for serhildan.

And the government continues with threats against DTP, but DTP is holding the line, maintaining political serhildan. Government threats over reinstating "emergency rule" help to maintain the attitude of serhildan in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, while both these examples illustrate the need for serhildan.

In the meantime, we should all be eager to see if the new anti-terror law will be another opportunity for serhildan. Since the Turkish military has been crying for it, claiming that it's necessary for them to fight "terrorist problem" ( i.e. the usual euphemism for Turkey's "Kurdish problem"), I'm certain the new anti-terror law will be another opportunity for serhildan.

Every time that the government tries to silence Kurds, with every dead child, with every blow of the police baton to the head, with every body crushed under the wheels of armored vehicles, with every threat of state violence against the weaker in Kurdish society, with every act of torture, with every mutilated body, with every improper burial . . . the government makes us all gerîlas.