The Turkish state is crumbling

Forests in the Mediterranean region in Turkey and northern Kurdistan have been raging for days. While forest fires in Kurdistan are sometimes deliberately ignited by the army and attempts by the population to extinguish them are prevented, the state is taking police and legal action against calls for help in the social media. There are not enough firefighting aircraft, but Turkey has a proud 270 F16 fighter jets that bomb Kurdistan daily. The effects of the current fires on nature are fatal, animals and people die, ash rains from the sky, but all existing state resources are used in the war against the Kurds. Turkey is apparently allowed to go completely up in flames as long as Kurdistan remains the target of Turkish military offensives.

While the population has been pleading for help for days, President Erdogan only throws tea packs at the people in the fire regions, propagates empty promises and barricades himself in his 1150-room palace. Meanwhile, the government is waging a new smear campaign against Kurds and using the forest fires as a propaganda train against the PKK. As if on cue, Kurds are blamed for every disaster in Turkey. For this reason, several lynch attacks by Turkish fascists against Kurds have been carried out in the last few days.

What we are witnessing now is a killing-oriented system that is slowly but surely collapsing. Turkey is just one of many prime examples that obeys the dictates of capitalism and shows in practical form what it means to dehumanize humanity. The Turkish government now seems to have officially begun waging war against its own people as well. It feels like Erdogan wants to set all of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan on fire as he sees his bitter end coming. According to the motto “If I go, you all go!” the rabid ruler lashes out and seems to want to drag everyone with him into an abyss.

Kurds as a collective target of attack

In large parts of the population in Turkey, the attitude continues to prevail: “What doesn’t happen to me, doesn’t hurt me.” A small portion, however, recognizes that the policies of the current regime have been directed primarily against Kurds and other marginalized populations for decades. But while Erdogan is rapidly losing popularity and is also being sharply targeted by quite a few members of the public, many critics speak mainly of damage Erdogan’s AKP has caused to the Turkish public. There is no mention of the brutal and multi-layered war of extermination against Kurds that has been waged for decades. The inner-Turkish resistance is directed against the damage of the own interests and not against the state, which denies their existence to a people of millions, the Kurds, and makes them the target of innumerable war methods and crimes. What is revealed is a pan-Turkish aggression as well as an anti-democratic attitude, systematic hostility towards the Kurds and simultaneous ignorance, which have become deeply entrenched in the core of Turkey.

Anti-Kurdish racism has continuity

The fact that an unhealthy system will sooner or later catch up with those who until now cheered it with resounding applause now seems to be the bitter Turkish reality. Severe economic crises, repression against critics, destruction of fundamental rights, famine, massive police violence, the rising rate of femicide, constant violence and the ongoing fires overshadow everyday life in Turkey.

However, there is still a great effort in Turkey to compensate for the actual concerns of fascist-motivated attacks on Kurds and their systematic exclusion. What unites is not resistance against a bestial system of exploitation, but primarily a continued anti-Kurdish and anti-feminist stance and the criminalization of a justified liberation struggle.

Anti-Kurdish racism has continuity in Turkey. It manifests itself in many facets and in every instance of everyday life. It begins with the decades-long and targeted massacre of Kurds, their political persecution, their mass imprisonment, their forced resettlement, the banning of the Kurdish language, targeted attacks on Kurdish women’s structures, and the banning of the left-wing collective party HDP. It is also evident in the imprisonment and decades-long isolation of the key political figure Abdullah Öcalan, in occupation attacks in violation of international law, cultural robbery, and ecological and economic war. It is a systematic and genocidal war of extermination on the basis of which the Turkish state has proclaimed its republic and unity.

Change needs courage

In a country where the term “terror” is used synonymously with Kurds and any political resistance is punished with repression, the demand on every person is to take a stand. Only a person without perspective can be considered a defenseless person. We can transfer this phenomenon to any place in the world, where more and more personal concerns and anger against a system accumulate, to which the individual person hardly thinks to find answers. This lack of perspective often ends up not with the development of a revolutionary character and decisive organizing, but too often with the development of a dangerous national pride and bizarre conspiracy theories. An oppressive feeling of powerlessness is then not far away. In this process, it is now a matter of holding on with all one’s might to progressive organizing, not watching defenselessly and not becoming a perpetrator.