Sebahat Tuncel, a Kurdish member of the Turkish Parliament, spoke about the his people's struggle for democratic rights in Turkey in a mostly-full MacMillan 117 Thursday night, before a crowd which included students and Providence residents, among them members of the local Kurdish community. The event was co-sponsored by the Amnesty International chapters of Brown and Providence.
Marcia Lieberman, coordinator of the Providence chapter of Amnesty, and Professor of History Engin Akarli introduced Tuncel. Akarli said that Tuncel's election to the Turkish Parliament has introduced women's voices and sensibilities to Turkish political life, which is often dominated by a patriarchal system. He added that he hoped that she might one day be prime minister of Turkey.
Tuncel currently serves as the vice co-chair and Istanbul deputy of the Democratic Society Party, a pro-Kurdish nationalist party. Tuncel said that the DSP is the fifth pro-Kurdish party to form in Turkey - its predecessors have all been shut down by the government of Turkey. Tuncel spoke about the problems that face Turkey and the Kurdish people in the country's efforts to further democratize and in addressing the "Kurdish problem."
"We come from a very long distance, one of the most beautiful countries of the world - however, also a country which is encountering very serious problems," Tuncel said, speaking through an interpreter. She said that her personal history is very much related to the current political situation in Turkey.
The Democratic Society Party faces threats of closure from the Turkish government, she said. Hundreds of its members have already been arrested, while many more are being interrogated for allegedly belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant Kurdish organization.
The DSP is a small but powerful opposition faction in the Turkish Parliament, Tuncel said, that pushes for further democratization of Turkey. Her party asks that all the people of Turkey, including the Kurds, be able to express their cultures.
Though Turkey is multicultural, she said, growing attitudes within the country that emphasize the concept of a "single nation and single language" threaten this tradition of multiculturalism. These monolithic conceptions of the state are a barrier to democracy, she added.
Tuncel also addressed the "Kurdish question" in Turkey at length. The discrimination that the Kurdish population in Turkey faces is a serious problem, she said, that goes back to the creation of the Turkish state 85 years ago. Half of the total Kurdish population worldwide lives in Turkey - about 20 million people, according to Tuncel. Almost 4,000 Kurdish villages have been evacuated and tens of thousands of people have been faced with forced migration, and thousands more have been put in prisons. And until 1991, the use of the Kurdish language was forbidden in Turkey.
Tuncel stressed that the characterization of the Kurdish question as a matter of terrorism wrongly portrays the issue. "The depiction of the problem as a terror problem enhances (it) rather than (bringing) a solution," she said. The PKK is a consequence of larger issues, she added, and not the actual problem.
The Kurdish people, she said, want to freely use their language and express their culture. Tuncel said her party would like to engage in a cultural dialogue about these issues. "The solution to the problem lies in listening to what the Kurdish people really want," she said.
Tuncel said that Turkey's recent military operations in Northern Iraq against the PKK have given rise to significant tension. Those military operations, "which (are) supported by the U.S. government, to which many European countries remain silent, hamper feelings of fraternity" between the Kurds and the rest of the Turkish people, she added.
Addressing the issue of the PKK's demands for a Kurdish state, Tuncel said, "the Kurdish people in Turkey would like to live with the Turkish people in the same country." They simply demand freedom of expression, she said.
At the end of the speech, Tuncel said she is in the U.S. to demand solidarity. "I believe that regardless of our geographical location in the world, as the oppressed people of the world we should be united, as the oppressors are." She added that she hopes Americans will speak out against the cross-border operations that Turkey is conducting in Iraq.
Tuncel also answered questions after her speech, several of which were asked in Kurdish.
Azim Clik, a leader of the New England Kurdish Association, said after the event that the group was very glad that they brought Tuncel to Providence. He said that he also believes in the importance of a peaceful democratic solution to the problems in Turkey.
Amy Tan '09, a board member of Amnesty International, said that she believed there's an obvious interest in the Brown and local community about the Kurdish issue in Turkey.
