YETVART DANZIKYAN

Yetvart Danzikyan

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Sacrificing the children for the election

According to our new state and new mass media, we turned back to the conflict environment after the attacks of PKK. Though we keep in mind that this is an atmosphere that primarily AKP government has chosen as the election is getting closer, the people who watch these events from a distance will never know who fired the first bullet; or rather, they don’t care about it anymore. Only within the last week, there were busts in Silvan, Lice, Varto and other places, which remind us the ‘90s very much. In Diyarbakir, Siirt and other cities, soldiers and policemen were killed due to PKK attacks. Seeing how fast we went back to the ’90 is unfortunately surprising and really thought-provoking.
As I said, this was a path that Erdoğan and his clique have “chosen”, because they are not happy with the result of the election and the fact that HDP has come to the fore; and they gave us a cue about what will happen even before the election anyway. Erdoğan came up against the monitoring committee and left the resolution process aside; these steps foreshadowed what is happening now. When two cops were killed at their home after the Suruç Massacre, the state must have thought that they got the opportunity they were expecting, so they started a war under the guise of “attacking ISIS”; and PKK got involved in the war just as fast; apparently, they were getting ready for this war. As I said, it seems that the majority of the society doesn’t care about who fired the first bullet anymore. However, we see that especially the Erdoğan state is implementing its plan step by step. Coalition meetings remained inconclusive, just like AKP ideologist implied on the night of the election, and everyone waits for Erdoğan to call for an early election. 
As I wrote, it is obvious that Erdoğan and his clique want to go to election in this war atmosphere and avenge upon HDP which debarred AKP from coming to power alone. Within last couple of weeks, we clearly saw this: While AKP and its media organs insistently and maliciously misrepresent HDP as the “ones who want war” despite HDP’s calls for peace and demands for stopping the conflict and attacking PKK, they show themselves as the “ones who want solution” though they consistently make calls for war. Of course, this is what every state would do, especially if they control the media organs. Particularly the AKP MPs and ministers make sly accusations like, “The hands of the ones who voted for HDP are bloodstained” and this shows that they will keep raising the bar until the election and they seek for ways to dropping the vote rates of HDP. 
Well, is that possible? I have written that the success of HDP stems from the fact that the religious Kurds who had voted for AKP before voted for HDP this time because of Erdoğan’s attitude before the election. It seems unlikely that the religious Kurds will vote for AKP in such an atmosphere. Obviously, the aim is to prevent people in the “west” from voting for HDP by criminalizing the party, so that AKP once again will come to power alone. 
However, though it is questionable whether their plans will go as they wish or not, it is possible that PKK will attack more in order to upset Erdoğan’s plans. Probably considering the experiences that they gained in last 30 years, PKK might be thinking that no government can hold on in the presence of such a blast of attacks and death knells coming every day and that after a while, the reactions toward the government in martyr funerals will increase.  
Now, we can leave the plans and calculations aside. There are several things I can say in the face of this situation and probable plans. First of all, this land got enough of blood. This war is going on for 30 years and too many lives are lost. The current government says that it has changed, but it doesn’t matter since it has the traditional characteristics of a Turkish state. The most obvious example to this fact is this: they drag the naked bodies of women who were killed in the clashes. The state doesn’t hold off from turning the region into hell and while we try to understand what is happening there, once again the locals are suffering. This is the 100-years-old code of the state. 
Secondly, the world is being reconstructed every day. Even though it is obvious that AKP and the new state don’t intend to solve this issue, people couldn’t embrace a solution that is obtained by inflicting losses to the state. Maybe the state is losing power and falling apart vis-à-vis these losses, but if our ultimate goal is a peace that is embraced by all, this is getting harder. After all these resolution process, the state, society and media turned back to the ’90s so fast; in fact, this stems from the residues of the previous period. 
Thirdly, now we know very well that coming to power again is not AKP’s only goal, it also targets the HDP’s stance and discourse that gave hope to Turkey and has a tendency to grow. In short, they try to shatter this ground. However, if we believe in that ground, we have to protect it. This is a task that we cannot leave only to HDP officials. 
Lastly, Prime Minister Davutoğlu expressed the mentality of the state very well by saying, “We are ready to sacrifice our children.” He means the children of these lands, of course. First thing to do is to say, “We won’t let you to sacrifice our children”…