As developments toward a democratic solution to the Kurdish question continue, experts on the issue persist in criticizing the Turkish state for failing to offer any concrete response, despite the historic steps taken by the Kurdish Freedom Movement and Abdullah Öcalan. Sociologist Engin Sustam, an academic at Paris 8 University, spoke to ANF about the Peace and Democratic Society process.
We publish the first part of this interview.
A process fraught with risks
How can the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) decision to dissolve itself, the end of the armed struggle, and most recently the direct meeting of commission members with Abdullah Öcalan, in line with Öcalan’s call, be assessed as a turning point in Turkey’s political and social history? How do you situate these developments within a broader historical context? Do you see them as a new threshold, as they are often described?
First of all, I believe that in this process it is necessary to address both the positive aspects and the risks inherent in the PKK’s decision to dissolve. On the one hand, the end of armed struggle opens the way for dialogue in a positive sense. The decision to try another method, a political one, a civilian political method, carries a highly positive meaning both for the Kurdish political movement and for the Kurdish people as a whole.
At the same time, peace processes are always densely packed with risks. One of these risks is that processes which become embedded at the center of political capital inevitably raise questions about how gains will be secured through law, the constitution, and legal frameworks. In this sense, the fact that a commission established in parliament met with Abdullah Öcalan can certainly be considered a threshold.
However, I am not entirely certain how much this meeting should be amplified. From the very beginning, the state has, in one way or another, been in contact with Abdullah Öcalan. What is new here is that, perhaps for the first time, a commission decided to meet with him in a legal, official, and public manner, openly and before the eyes of society.
This is significant. A meeting that takes place on a legal basis can indeed be regarded as a threshold. Yet whether it can contribute to the socialization of the issue remains to be seen. Because one of the core foundations of this process, which still lacks a clear name and carries serious psychopolitical risks, is precisely the need to develop a debate on how it can be transformed into a legally grounded process.
The state must provide guarantees
There is a deeply unsettling issue here. Today, Kurds have no grounds to trust the state, its laws, or its institutional actors. As an institution, the state must first and foremost establish trust.
This is not only a matter concerning Kurds; ensuring trust is essential on behalf of democrats, opposition forces, and society in Turkey as a whole, and it is a prerequisite for the peace process to function. In other words, a peace process cannot operate without Turkey becoming democratic. I believe this has already been acknowledged by the commission that made the meeting with Abdullah Öcalan possible.
Öcalan himself places strong emphasis on this point, as does the Kurdish movement more broadly. Without a democratic environment in Turkey, resolving the Kurdish question by keeping people in prison is not possible. I see liberation as a process that advances collectively and through shared participation. In this sense, yes, this is a threshold and Öcalan has much more to say on this matter.
The state’s toxic language must change
The dissolution of the PKK and the formal end of the armed phase are interpreted as a critical step toward achieving “negative peace.” In your view, what social and political conditions are required to build “positive peace”, a more lasting peace that includes justice, equal citizenship, cultural rights, and democratic participation?
I believe the first necessity is a transformation of the institutional and social, psychosocial toxic language that has taken root within the state. This poisonous language, instilled over the course of a century, must change. We know that a solution cannot be achieved by continuing a politics that relies on a crude lexicon of betrayal, separatism, or labels such as “baby killer,” and by reproducing a debased form of political discourse. At the same time, a process of confrontation is essential; for the Kurdish question to be discussed, there must be memory. Since 1921, beginning with Koçgiri, a language of hatred has been constructed in Turkey. This racist language of hatred has both a theory and a practice, and it has produced pathological generations.
These generations show, as we saw recently in the example of Mehmet Uçum, that this language is still very much alive. It persists, the issue continues to be framed as a security problem, and the language is reproduced accordingly. This, in turn, is one of the most significant factors that puts democratic steps and democratic transformation in a disarmed process at risk.
I genuinely believe that one of the most important ways to build, or even to imagine, a shared social construction is to be attentive to the words and language we use toward one another. In this sense, while the PKK has been careful about its language, and while the actors of the PKK and Kurdish politics as a whole strive for a positive language during this negative phase, the actors of the state must also contribute to the process of socialization by moving away from pathological discourse and supporting the construction of a more common language. Such a shift would not only open the way for dialogue in a positive sense but would also make it possible to re-examine all the criteria of criminalization that have been etched into collective memory.
Racism must be removed from the institutional sphere
Third, a transformation of this language would also make it possible to break free from what we describe as the process of labeling, stigmatization. In this way, the reciprocal racism directed at Kurds, and Kurdish phobia in particular, could be completely erased from the public sphere. Of course, another positive factor that would support this process is placing the issue under constitutional guarantee.
By constitutional guarantee, I also mean ensuring its practical implementation. For example, the complete demilitarization of Kurdistan would constitute a positive step. Alongside demilitarization, the removal of landmines in Kurdistan, the abolition of the village guard system, and the elimination of trustee administrations are all among the most essential and constructive processes for establishing a democratic social life.
All political prisoners must be released, regardless of their political views, from Selahattin Demirtaş to Osman Kavala. Only then can these individuals be in a position to contribute meaningfully to the process.
Kurds must be included in the legal framework
Looking at the statements made by members of the Imralı Delegation, it appears that one of Abdullah Öcalan’s core objectives is to ensure that Kurds are included within the legal order. How should this be understood?
I think the South African example has been referenced frequently in this process, and rightly so. It is an example that needs to be taken seriously. We know that in the 1980s, the African National Congress pursued a struggle for law and justice against white racism, while simultaneously working through past crimes and advancing a legal struggle grounded in equality. If we recall this experience, it becomes clear that, in our own context, the first requirement of a genuine legal struggle is for the state to move away from its masculine and paternalistic language of the “father state.” One of the most crucial conditions for making a legal struggle possible, in my view and in line with what Öcalan has repeatedly emphasized, is abandoning the language of threat directed at Kurds and establishing equality within the law itself.
The most fundamental element that can steer us away from violence and conflict through legal means is the provision of constitutional guarantees that make it possible to confront what Kurds have experienced during this process. If Kurds are rendered outside the norm in this period, and being outside the norm means exclusion from the public sphere, the shared social space, political life, and the economic sphere, then Kurdish language rights are also included in this exclusion.
The entrenched state order must change
When we speak about Turkey’s future, we must speak about a new nomos. As you know, this is a key concept in counter-mythology, and it points to the necessity of transforming a deeply rooted state mechanism. I believe that while Öcalan refers to Pierre Bourdieu through the concept of habitus, he is also making a parallel argument. Rather than an order founded on and defined by land itself, we need to speak of a legal framework and a norm grounded in shared citizenship and common belonging.
This, in any case, means a new nomos. For an entire century, law has been systematically violated. Since 1923, and for more than one hundred years, a regime of violation has been imposed on Kurds, Armenians, and Alevis. To overcome this regime of violation, there is a need for a horizon in which sovereignty is relinquished to a certain extent and in which territorial integrity is reimagined as something shared through a common nomos. Such a nomos would enable the cleansing of hate language, hate speech, racism, and violence. In Ancient Greece, the establishment of nomos meant the creation of unity in conduct, law, and shared life among city-states.
Therefore, a nomos must be established between the Kurdish sphere and the Turkish sphere. To me, this means emerging from the ruins of the old world and entering a new phase of construction, a new world, and a new stage. This, I believe, is precisely what it means to lay the foundations of law.
The commission must be civilianized
How do you assess the role of the National Solidarity, Brotherhood, and Democracy Commission established within the Turkish Grand National Assembly in the current peace process? What structural role should this commission assume in institutionalizing the process and building social trust?
First and foremost, this commission must be civilianized. I do not believe that a commission which does not become civilian, does not reach the grassroots, and does not confront those who have paid the price of this issue for decades can build very much. Of course, the participation of elected actors has meaning, and I am not dismissing that. However, I believe that this unnamed peace process can be built not through networks of power and authority, but through a genuinely social and democratic system rooted in the grassroots.
For this reason, although great responsibilities are being placed on the commission, it must become socialized and civilianized. I have little confidence that any structure which does not undergo civilianization can facilitate the formation of a new legal framework or the establishment of this shared language and dialogue. What I mean is this. If we truly want to move beyond the culture of violence, conflict, and war in a Middle Eastern geography divided into two spheres, this issue must be opened to society in a transparent way through the commission.
For example, the commission met with Abdullah Öcalan, and everyone is wondering what was discussed. The commission must share this with society. In other words, it must move away from an engineering or cartographic approach and allow actors who can organize a genuinely democratic legal framework to take the lead. I believe this can only be achieved through civilianization.