“Democratic Solution to the Kurdish Problem” demonstration by the Peace Assembly, a civil society organization consisting of academics, journalists, trade union representatives, intellectuals and political parties, was held on Sunday (June 1) at Kadıköy with tens of thousands of people. There was a single banner at the demonstration both in Kurdish and Turkish: “Enough, we want solution”.
In addition to the Peace Assembly speakers Murat Çalikkan and Ayhan Bilgen, Vedat Türkali, Ahmet Türk, Akın Birdal, Hasip Kaplan, Sırrı Sakık, Filiz Koçali, Ercan Karakaş, Feleknaz Uca, Şanar Yurdatapan, Abdurrahman Dilipak, Celalettin Can, Nimet Tanrıkulu, Ufuk Uras, Zeynep Tanbay, Celal Ovat, İlkay Akkaya and two individuals who spoke on behalf of “Turkish and Kurdish youth” were there for support as well.
“We want dialog”
Greeting the people in Kurdish, Çelikkan said, “We know that the operations, the skirmishes, emptying the villages forcefully, isolating the people in their houses, their villages, the cities where they seek protection and shelter and the prisons are not solutions.”
Reminding the upcoming celebrations of 100th anniversary of the second declaration of the Constitutional Monarchy, which stood for the declaration of freedom for the Ottoman peoples, Çelikkan said, “This was the day when all the Ottoman subjects without considerations of ethnicity and religion had equal rights. Our wish is not much different hundred years later.”
“First of all, we want the state institutions to take up a political stance that does not put war in the center, but life. We want all the cultures and the Kurdish identity, language and culture to take part in all aspects of public life, and therefore demand the removal of all the legal obstacles in front of this goal. We want the ending of regional discrimination.”
Çelikkan addressed Turks as well:
“The responsibility of ending the losses of the Turkish and Kurdish families is on our shoulders. We cannot be equal, free and proud unless we furnish the conditions of equality, freedom and pride for Kurds as well.”
“Kurdish problem is more of a Turkish problem”
Following Çalikkan, who ended his speech with “Biji aşiti”, which means ‘peace right away’ in Kurdish, Bilgen said that the Kurdish problem was not only a Kurdish problem, but also, and even more, of a Turkish problem.
“We have to face the question ‘What do Kurds want?’. We will not answer this question for Kurds, but we must find a way to solve the problem before much more blood is shed.”
Mentioning the GAP action plan, which is devised by the Turkish state to develop the southeastern Turkey economically, Bilgen said, “Trying to explain everything away with impoverishment and reducing the solution to the development projects is an attempt to solve the whole problem with only a small part of the reality.”
Furthermore, Bilgen said “So far the governments have taken action with the understanding that ‘if Kurds need to be represented then we will do that too’, adding that the Peace Assembly is ready to take active responsibility in removing society’s prejudices regarding peace.
Demanding that a dialog must start with all the elected representatives of the Kurdish people, Bilgen said that it was now in our hands to start implementing the project of living together in place of forced togetherness.
“You cannot remove the fragmentation, falling into pieces, unless a new constitution, a new social contract, a new determination for liberation is developed.”
The demonstration ended at 15:00. Six people were detained for chanting illegal slogans. (EZÖ/TB)
