Interview with Emine Ayna

An interview with Emine Ayna, Co-Chair of pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), recently appeared at Kurdistan-Post. Emine Ayna talks about the past two years, the oppression on Kurds and the recent operations against DTP politicians and party members:

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There was a positive atmosphere about the Kurdish question recently. Both sides had their hopes up but then the environment completely changed. Do you think this was a trick or someone disturbed the environment? You, as a party [DTP], play an active role. What do you think happened? Is there still hope for a solution?

People don't change overnight. It's not like the Prime Minister and the President [of Turkey], while they were in denial yesterday, have changed overnight and said "okay let's accept it today". This is not about the Prime Minister and the President either. This is about the system. Conditions dictate solutions and they will have to solve it [the Kurdish issue]. They [the President and the Prime Minister] have their own policies based on being in charge. Their policies are their own vision and they won't change unless challenged.

TWO YEARS

Kurds have demonstrated strong opposition to denial and destruction policies [of the state]. We have been through two years during which it was said that DTP was finished and but DTP came out [of the local elections] stronger and made its demands clearer; two years during which DTP said "No, we don't want individual liberties [related to Kurdish language and culture] we are a people and it's our right to have collective liberties"; two years during which DTP said "No, we don't want private training in our native tongue, we want education in our native tongue" and filled the streets and set up blackboards in the streets [for symbolic lectures in Kurdish]; two years during which DTP said "while the war is going on we cannot celebrate festivities" and showed ownership of Newroz struggle; two years during which 13 people were killed [by state security forces] during demonstrations. During these two years armed clashes such as Zap and Oramar took place.

THE STRUGGLE WHICH MADE THE PRESIDENT SAY THAT WORD

During a time with external and internal forces on its side, Turkey has been trying to crush the Kurdish demands, Kurds filled the streets. In 22 July [2007] elections [general] DTP doubled it's votes. This is the struggle that made the President say those words.

SELF CRITICISM

We stalled when the President and the Prime Minister said "The Kurdish question is a serious one and good developments will happen". We have to self-criticise here. We entered the phase of let's wait and see what the government will do since there were talks about a solution. I am talking about slowing down, not stopping. This period of stalling slowed us down a little. If we had continued our struggle more decisively after those words were said, we would have given them the opportunity to continue on to the next step and we would have caused a betterment. Using past tense doesn't mean this opportunity has passed. Conflict-avoidance period is in effect until 15 July [2009] and the work is progressing. We have our council meeting coming up soon. We will come up with a plane before 15 July.

Will you have an active plan?

Of course we will have an active plan. We are not calling this phase as conflict-free period. There is a decleration and will from one side. We are aiming for this phase to evolve into conflict-free phase. We will come up with a plan in this direction until 15 July [2009]. Those who are in charge, who have power to oppress, don't easily change into defenders of the oppressed. The oppressed struggle for this and make the oppressors into defenders of rights of the oppressed.

The positive environment has changed all of a sudden and got tense and nationalistic expressions began increasing on both sides. What do you think about this? Have the high hopes been replaced by pessimism?

We still have hope. We were hopeful before the President said anything. Because as we have been saying the solution to this problem won't come out of expectations from others, but the solution will develop out of this people's power.

CHANGE OF CONSTITUTION

This struggle will continue as long as the constitution remains unchanged, the war continues, and Kurdish people's rights and liberties are not part of the system. One can't talk about solution unless the constitution changes completely and unless the militaristic mentality changes. If the President said something like this it would give us hope in the sense that he was saying something different than yesterday. It's wrong to be hopeful by expecting something from the state.

The fascist state is targeting key figures in the party in response to DTP's success in the 2009 local elections. AKP and CHP, despite all the support from the state (heck even the soldiers and the police were working for the AKP and other state parties such as CHP and MHP). We read on...

DTP has achieved a successful trend in the last local elections [March 2009]. Then your party was targeted. How did this situation affect your activities?

55 party members from the central management were arrested. Wouldn't that slow us down? All 13 members of the local management council were arrested. That means we have to establish a new local management council and start from scratch. That's why we have postponed our party's Local Managements' Conference indefinitely.

Don't such attacks increase mass support for DTP?

It increases the solidarity. But none of our friends has backed off because of such attacks. These are not our very first friends who have been arrasted. Kurds have been in legal politics since 1991. During this time, the city managers were killed, central council members were killed, parliamentarians were attacked, parliamentarians were imprisoned for ten years, party members were imprisoned many times and these people have been banned from participating in politics. None of these attacks created an effect such as party members backing out.

Can the goal be to make DTP ineffective by arresting its effective staff rather than closing the party?

Such tactics slow our progress down. There are a lot of individuals to replace those arrested but those arrested had a few years of experience. The new people do not have that experience and this slows us down. Slowing us down is a tactic and they [the state] are doing this.

Will you have any measures against this?

Kurdish political movement has always valued political training and we value it now as well. This may not be an activity carrying a school's name but we have efforts on this subject. Of course, experience gained in practice is not given in schools but with education and training individuals can be prepared up to an extent.

It seems Turkey didn't arrest enough DTP members as the arrests are continuing to date... It seems Turkey will run out of prison space soon.

Another thing that differentiates DTP from other parties in Turkey is it's approach to women:

You are a Kurdish woman. There are problems in Kurdish society, honour killings and marriage by force, to name a few. What does your party do against such issues?

What distinguishes our party from others is that it backs genuine autonomous organization of women. We work to organize women rather than trying to get their votes. It is not only about only organizing women as DTP members but organizing women as freedom should be in their ideals. Problems such as domestic violence, honour killings, and marriage by force are not the type of problems that can be solved by a political party educating women. Solution to these problems can only develop with women's struggle to become free and independent. In places where the Kurdish movement has deep roots, one can see that the process of women's independence has been wide spread and improving and women's resistance to traditions has been growing.

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Women are seen as equal participants. Not as objects, not as "tools" for conformance to any superior power but as humans. Simple as that.

In solidarity with DTP!