On Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Turkey

by Xende Biradosti.

At the core of the U.S.-Turkey partnership, for the past several decades, has been U.S. support of Turkey’s so-called “war against terrorism.” Representatives from both countries seize every opportunity to praise the other side’s virtuous and noble counterterrorism efforts, and thus, U.S. assistance continues to flow into Ankara to fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Kurdish acronym, PKK.

The PKK, who took up arms in 1984 to carve out an independent Kurdish state, but has since scaled down its demands to greater cultural and political rights for the Kurds within Turkey, is listed as a terrorist organization by both the European Union and the United States – the same list that, until 2008, included Nelson Mandela’s name. This is in no small part due to Turkey’s strategic geopolitical role in the Middle East and its membership in NATO, for the Kurds across the border in Iraq have traditionally been regarded by the West as victims of tyranny worthy of aid.

Since the international community has yet to develop an accepted comprehensive definition of the term, it is noteworthy that Article 1 of Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law defines “terrorism” as “any kind of act done … with the aim of changing the characteristics of the Republic as specified in the Constitution.”

Taking the fascist character of the country’s Constitution into consideration, one can infer that in Turkey any act of dissent or advocacy of minority rights is susceptible to classification as “terrorism” and severely punishable under the law. The enforcement of this law has been intensified in recent years, with police regularly raiding the homes and offices of Kurdish activists and politicians, rounding them up in prison for alleged ties to the PKK.

While organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for the abolition of the Anti-Terror Law, the United States has nevertheless stood firmly behind Turkey’s brutal and repressive campaign against its Kurdish population.

It was Noam Chomsky who stated, “the terrorism they don’t like is called ‘terrorism’ and the terrorism they do like, because they carry it out or their allies carry it out, is called ‘counter-terrorism.’” In fact, the term “terrorism”, derived from the French terrorisme, was originally used to refer specifically to state policies of terror. However, in recent years, we have witnessed a transformation of the definition from denoting a systematic use of violence as an instrument of governance to being synonymous with opposition to a given nation-state. In Turkey, in particular, it is a politically- and emotionally-charged word, used to incite fear and intolerance in the populace.

By branding efforts to crush national liberation and self-determination movements as counterterrorism, state governments cunningly generate the illusion that they are merely defending their sovereignty from violent thugs. By sustaining this facade of righteousness, Turkey has succeeded in rallying domestic and international support for its war against its Kurdish population. The PKK’s armed insurgency continues to be a convenient scapegoat for Turkish government officials, who have often repeated that Turkey does not have a Kurdish problem, only a terrorism problem. What is omitted from the government’s narrative, however, is the decades of oppression, forced assimilation, and genocide that were imposed on the Kurds before the PKK took up arms against the state.

Ultimately, Turkey’s propaganda machine, coupled with its overly vague Anti-Terror Law, are instruments of institutionalized racism, as they give the government the legal right to arrest Kurdish politicians and activists under the fallacious pretext of wiping out terrorism. Turkey is further emboldened, not only by the United States’ continuing silence in regards to atrocities committed against the Kurds, but by its willingness to provide it weapons and military aid. Additionally, the international media continues to regurgitate the Turkish state’s propaganda, leading to the utter criminalization of the Kurds’ legitimate struggle for basic rights and freedoms. Only after Turkey abolishes its undemocratic Anti-Terror Law and, together with its western allies, decriminalizes the rightful demands of the Kurdish people, will a peaceful and political solution to Turkey’s most fundamental and long-standing problem be possible.

So, who is the terrorist and who is the counterterrorist: the entity that systematically massacres, persecutes and oppresses the people living within its borders, or the disenfranchised masses who eventually stand up and fight back? On the subject of political violence, Nelson Mandela famously stated that, “it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor.”