[kitchencabinetforum] FEAR OF KURDISH GENOCIDE

There is a fear Turks might commit a Kurdish genocide. Hillary Clinton asserts we do have a moral obligation to confront genocides, because they are violations of our common humanity. Occidentals share this commitment and believe we do have a responsibility to act. But it isn't just the morally right thing to do. These crimes undermine stability in countries and across regions. They spark humanitarian crises and send refugees streaming across borders. They reverse economic progress and stymie growth for generations. They create bitter cycles of vengeance and retribution that can scar communities for decades. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Turks and Kurds lock horns over Northern Kurdistan. Kurdistan will eventually become an independent nation. Kurdish people are definitely a nation deserving of a sovereign homeland out of the territories where Kurdish people form a majority. Currently, these territories lie in northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria. Twenty million Kurds live in Northern Kurdistan occupied by Turkey, ten million in Eastern Kurdistan occupied by Iran, seven million in Southern Kurdistan occupied by Iraq, and three million in Western Kurdistan occupied by Syria. The wish of forty million Kurds cannot be ignored by civil society.

Clinton points out that preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest as well as a core moral responsibility. So if a government cannot or will not protect its own citizens, then Occident and likeminded partners must act. But this is not code for military action. Force must remain a last resort, and in most cases, other tools will be more appropriate through diplomacy, financial sanctions, humanitarian assistance, and law enforcement measures.

The Kurdish army is fighting for an autonomous Kurdistan. Abdullah Ocalan, the heroic leader of Kurds, was betrayed by the government of Greece, and Ocalan was captured in Kenya in 1999, while being transferred from the Greek embassy to the airport of Nairobi, in a coordinated operation of the intelligence services of Turkey, USA, and Israel. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Turks planned ahead in committing the Armenian genocide, the Pontian genocide, the Greek genocide, and the Cypriot genocide. Clinton notes genocides and mass atrocities don't just happen spontaneously. They are always planned. Genocides are preceded by organized, targeted propaganda campaigns carried out by those in power. Extremist leaders spread messages of hate often disguised as something else – a song on the radio, a nursery rhyme, or a picture book. The messages filter down. Those in power begin to dehumanize particular groups or scapegoat them for their country's problems. Hatred not only becomes acceptable; it is even encouraged. It's like stacking dry firewood before striking the match. Then there is a moment of ignition. The permission to hate becomes permission to kill.

Northern Kurdistan's area is a third of Turkey. The region forms the south-eastern edge of Anatolia. It is dominated by high peaks rising to over 3,700m and arid mountain plateaux, forming part of the arc of the Taurus Mountains. The occupation of Northern Kurdistan is opposed by all Kurds, and has resulted in a long-running separatist conflict in which fifty thousand lives have been lost.

Americans are putting their elements of this strategy – prevention and partnership – into action through the Atrocities Prevention Board. Now, it might not be obvious that creating yet another government board will address a problem as entrenched as this. But the fact is a body such as this can drive the kinds of institutional changes that we envision. It can help galvanize efforts across our government to focus on prevention, to ensure that all our tools and resources are being put to good use. And it will give us an organizing principle, if you will, because it is difficult.

Northern Kurdistan saw several major Kurdish rebellions. These were forcefully put down by the Turkish authorities and the region was declared a closed military area. The use of Kurdish language was outlawed, the words Kurds and Kurdistan were erased from dictionaries and history books, and the Kurds were only referred to as Mountain Turks! http://venitism.blogspot.com

Clinton says that whatever form atrocities take, however society explains, rationalizes, even tries to justify, we must be committed to preventing and ending all of these actions that truly dehumanize all of humanity. We have, in our lifetimes – those of us of a certain age – seen evil and hatred overcome. And in the tragic history of genocides, we also see the stories of the heroes – the men and women who did the right thing, even when confronted and threatened by evil. And we're inspired. We're inspired by their courage and their resolve, what drove them to try to save a life.

That resolve continues to grow stronger. If one were to look at the great sweep of history, one has to believe that we can together overcome these challenges, that there will slowly but inexorably be progress. And at the root of that must be our resolve, and that resolve must never fail so that we can say and mean it, "never again."

Turkey's Article 301 outlaws insulting Turkishness. The law is used against Kurds and Armenians, because in the Kemalist vision that shaped the country, there are no Kurds or Armenians. There are only Turks, united in a single vision and a single story. This impulse is unexceptional, particularly in 20th century nationalism. As empire disintegrated, projecting a single vision became important. In this way, Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide, the Pontian genocide, the Greek genocide, and the Cypriot genocide may be different from Holocaust denial, driven by fierce nationalism alone, rather than the combination of nationalism, classic and modern anti-Semitism and paranoid conspiracism which drove the Holocaust.

But both are driven by distrust of the other, and by seeing diversity and cosmopolitanism as stumbling blocks on the path to perfection. But while the two may differ, there is no difference in the free speech argument on laws covering them. Proscribing speech, whether it confirms or denies historical truths, is an offence to history, a barrier to dialogue and an insult to memory.

As Syria's crisis deepens, Western Kurdistan occupied by Syria, is now liberated. Syrian Kurdish groups have formed a de facto state in the north of Syria. The Kurdish army took control of several provinces near Turkey's border. Kurdish flags and posters of Ocalan fly from buildings in Western Kurdistan towns.

Davutoglu threatens the new state of Western Kurdistan: We will not allow the
formation of a terrorist structuring near our border. We reserve every right. No
matter if it is al-Qaeda or PKK we would consider it a matter of national
security and take every measure.

Combating genocide denial and the hatred it fuels are obviously necessary and praiseworthy goals, but they cannot be achieved at the price of violating the constitutional principle of free expression. Turning historical fact into an unassailable dogma imposed by the state opens the door to dangerous excesses. No parliament has been empowered by a constitution to determine historical facts. Many genocides clamor for attention and if legislators recognize a dozen of them tomorrow, historical research will be turned into a minefield. Genocide denial is in the process of becoming the new blasphemy.

The penalties envisaged by genocide laws are neither necessary nor proportionate. Envisaging a prison sentence for abusing freedom of expression contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights, the principles of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other international obligations. People must be free to examine and critically analyze history in order to learn from our past mistakes. By banning the discussion of certain issues and historical events, society cannot move forward. Criminalizing free speech is anti-democratic.

Genocide laws violate international standards on the right to freedom of expression. These stupid laws unduly interfere with an individual's right to know and their right to free debate. They elevate historical events to the status of an ideology. A blanket ban on denying genocide or historical events, regardless of context or impact, goes beyond the established international law standards on incitement to hatred. http://venitism.blogspot.com