The Wise Men of Turkey

A Wise Men commission has emerged in Turkey, entrusted -- in the words of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- with the challenge of preparing the ground for   “psychological operations” to settle the Kurdish question in Turkey once and for all.

The Wise Men, a lexical misnomer with underlying sexist connotations as it contains a few women, is essentially geographically constructed to include heads and representatives from seven regions of the country. They represent social, academic, cultural, historical, economic, and political domains.

The commission consists of 63 prominent figures, including: celebrities, academics, musicians, journalists, writers, authors, business experts, consultants, directors of human rights and law organizations, as well as economic foundations and associations.

It appears to have been formed hastily, because its inception has been the cause of uncertainty and confusion among some, who learned of their membership only when their names were mentioned in the media. 

Baskin Oran, a professor, and one of the selected members, said in an interview with the Zaman that he had not been informed of his selection until he heard the news on television. The members of the commission are respectable, and prone to seeking a democratic solution to the dilemma of political order in Turkey. The country has been caught in a bloody political and military conflict for decades, so there are major challenges that this commission should tackle and overcome.

While the Turkish government and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have announced that political compromises are necessary for settling the issue at hand and finding a plausible solution, the commission’s greatest challenge is the creation of an environment conducive to a more favorable psychological state of mind, and unavoidably sociological context, for the peace process when it comes to the Turkish general public.

Undoing the failings of the past orientations cannot be achieved overnight. But implicit and explicit acceptance of past wrongdoings can somewhat pave the way for preparing and transforming the ground, when it comes to matters of public policy and its implementation.

The commission will encounter two major challenges in relation to its composition and the actual implementation of the peace process itself.

First, is the notion of democracy from above and the assumption that a largely neutral body of experts can politically and culturally set the ground for historic and democratic transformations. Obviously, public announcements, conferences, meetings and speeches by the members of the commission can begin to have some effect on the psychology of the Turkish populace, who know very little or nothing about the Kurds, have been conditioned to harbor deeply engrained biased attitudes and are deeply committed to defending the officially sanctioned values and norms.

As a corollary, the commission has to deal with almost a century of official discourse of centralized hegemony and mediatized anti-Kurdish sentiments, in a country where until recently Kurdish fundamental demands were portrayed and perceived as a serious threat imposed by internal and external enemies, and only shown through the prism of Turkish nationalism and ethnocentrism.

While the commission can try to undo the ideological implications of the exclusionary ideology, the main sociological hindrance to a democratic solution would continue to be the lack of involvement and co-engagement of the affected people and their representatives in this process.

The commission itself has the potential to be turned into the epitome of a genuine democracy, reflecting the equal representation of all sectors of society, particularly those whose history has been denied and lost.

Secondly, without broadening the scope of the work and the actors involved, no social change would be conceivable without the direct participation of Kurds and their elected representatives. The Kurdish demands would transcend the ability of the commission, unless it lays the ground for constitutional amendments and institutional practices that would create the foundation for democratization of the Turkish and Kurdish societies on a historical ground.

Unfortunately, the commission in its present form reflects a power differential between Kurds and the dominant society. Most, if not the great majority of the experts, come from outside the Kurdish communities. Muhsin Kizilkaya is the only Kurdish member in the commission. Ironically, if the purpose of this initiative is to ensure that the minority finds access to -- if not equal, then at least -- proportional power, the peace process has already failed.

One of the glaring contradictions in the Turkish Republic has been the invisibility of the Kurdish people in the country’s contemporary history. While Kurds welcome the gradual change and reforms for themselves and other minorities, they continue to be on the margins and at the periphery of decisions made for them. In other words, even the recent recognition of their grievances does not treat them as equal partners; they are seen as a problem rather than as an asset.

As Haitian historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot has argued in his writing, “Lived inequalities yield unequal historical power.” This is reflected in the structure of the commission; such an orientation can only perpetuate the current state of affairs unless the historical agency of Kurds is also recognized. Otherwise, as Bender (2009) has wittingly remarked: “Unequal historical recognition yields lived inequalities.”

Unfortunately, both of these cases seem to be at work in the current peace-building initiative.

The peace process does not account for this power differential; nor has it proposed an equitable and plausible solution to address and redress these shortcomings and disparities during the peace process or transitional stages.

Only a dialogic interaction between Kurds, their distinguished scholars, and different sectors of Turkish society can collaborate to bring about the optimal results and equity. Kurds must be closely involved in matters that deal with their identity and destiny in the future; therefore, they must be treated as equal partners and agents rather than simply as the backdrop and background of the conflict between the state and PKK.

To ensure essential consensus building, the commission should broaden its membership to embrace the wider representations of Kurds and their existing and emergent institutions. This broad-based participation would ensure the co-engagement of the wider public in a political process and struggle that would have a direct bearing on and implication for the success of a historic peace initiative. This is the most important challenge that the Wise Group would face in their historic mission. Let us hope their efforts nurture the culture of democratic pluralism in Turkey.

Dr.Amir Sharifi is president of the Kurdish American Education Society in Los Angeles