We are welcoming another new year. With each new year, we have new hopes and new wishes. At the end of the year, we take stock of the past year. The outcome varies for everyone, but most of the time we end the year with our expectations of a life unmet, financially in debt, and owed rights, justice, and freedom. We start over again with hope.
In October 2024, Devlet Bahçeli invited Mr. Abdullah Öcalan to Parliament, and Mr. Öcalan’s February 27, 2025 call for “Peace and Democratic Society”, rekindled hopes for democracy and freedom and made us begin to think that another life was possible. A year passed waiting for the necessary legal and political steps for peace to be taken. Of course, we didn’t just wait; we also fought. We spent a year with the struggle of those who wanted peace and freedom, especially women, and with questions about whether the people could trust the state and those in power.
This question is certainly not out of place. In this country, those fighting for democracy, freedom, and peace, particularly the Kurdish people, have been forced to live under the state’s oppressive and coercive policies. The memory associated with the state is negative, not positive.
Even if we only look at what December reminds us of, it becomes clear what we mean by this negative memory. There are certain dates that have left their mark not on the calendar but on the human heart. December 13, the execution of Erdal Eren; December 19-26, the Maraş Massacre; December 19, the Prison Massacre; December 19, the murder of Mother Taybet, whose dead body was left lying in the street for a week; December 28, the Roboski Massacre. The common thread linking these tragedies, which occurred at different times, is the violation of the right to life by the state itself.
Peace advocates argue that genuine peace is possible only through the uncovering of truth, confronting reality, and ensuring justice, so that similar suffering is not repeated. They believe that positive peace is achieved not by ignoring the past or sweeping it under the rug, but by confronting it and saying “never again.” Global experiences also demonstrate this. Of course, every country’s experience is different. Turkey must develop a peace-building process tailored to its own political and social conditions. However, the fundamental reason for the failure of the government’s attempts to resolve the Kurdish question and achieve social peace from the 1990s to the present day is that it has addressed the issue not as a matter of rights and freedoms, not as a matter of removing obstacles to the existence and freedom of a people, but as a security issue, a “terrorism” issue. When the problem is misidentified, the solution does not develop. Although the denial, annihilation, and assimilation policies developed as state policy under the 1924 Constitution and thereafter, which played an active role in the founding of the Republic, have been effectively overcome by the Kurdish people’s struggle, the failure to overcome them mentally remains an obstacle to resolving today’s problem. Developments following the February 27 call have made it clearer that this mental framework has influenced the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s reluctance to take the necessary legal and political steps, its delaying tactics, and its fragmented, non-holistic approach to resolving the issue. The focus solely on laying down arms without discussing the issue, and the failure to address it as a whole with democracy and freedoms, are also related to this.
Looking at the events of the past year, it is evident that the politics of peace are weak despite a strong public demand for peace. Partisan politics and politics reduced to elections prioritize party interests over addressing society’s demands for peace, equality, freedom, democracy, and justice, and taking the necessary legal and political steps to meet these demands. Party interests that remove society from being a priority and politics that put their own survival before that of society have alienated society and become part of the problem rather than the solution. This politics, or rather lack of politics, is exacerbating social problems and suffocating society with religious, sexist, nationalist, and militarist policies. Social reality cannot bear this situation. Society needs a new politics, a new beginning. Whoever meets this need will be the winner. The February 27 Call for Peace and Democratic Society is the name and program of this new politics.
Women, peoples, faith groups, rights defenders, and peace lovers are entering a new year with renewed hope. Peace is not a favor, it is a right. Freedom is not a threat, it is a necessity. The right to life and freedom cannot and should not be subject to negotiation.
How wonderful it would be to enter the new year with peace.
The commentary by Kurdish politician Sebahat Tuncel first appeared in Turkish on the daily newspaper Yeni Yaşam.