Bush’s freedom crusade, Turkey’s position

By: Adil Al-Baghdadi

Jan 22, 2005

Following his inaugural speech in which he reaffirmed his crusade for spreading freedom to countries to every dark corner in the globe that is still ruled by tyranny, president Bush might be spoiled for choice as where to begin implementing this long over due mission.

The speech has also heralded a change in the direction of US foreign policy from supporting despotic and dictatorial regimes during the cold war to spreading and disseminating the tenets of freedom in post Soviet Union.

Perhaps first on the list and most strong contenders to be at the receiving end of the freedom crusade are two of the Middle East’s most undemocratic states, Syria and Iran.

The two countries have evaded many tumultuous changes which have taken place around them by stifling yet more of the normal freedom which citizens of this planet have come to know and enjoy.

No wonder that George Bush has set the US firmly on a collision course with these most vicious regimes.

The role of the champion of human rights has until recently remained unfilled even by the UN, which has failed to criticize many atrocities around the globe, including mass killing and war crimes carried out by the Ba’th regime, on the basis of the now defunct principle not to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Needless to say that this has been used as cart-blanche by many tyrannical regimes to wage horrendous mayhem against their people, which many of them have sadly gone unreported and had little coverage in the media.

It is likely that the coming days and months will see more open confrontations with Damascus and Tehran whose poor human rights records have been persistently condemned for decades by many human rights organizations.

One of the areas of human rights abuse by the said countries is the treatment of Kurdish nation in Western Kurdistan [Syria] and Eastern [Iran] Kurdistan. 

These abuses have taken legitimacy from racist constitutions which explicitly deny the existence of any ethnic groups within the boundaries of the so-called one nation state.

One other dilemma added for Bush is how to reconcile his views with the actions of other states which are supposedly on his side.

These countries do not practice what they brag about and whose human rights records are just as abysmal as any tyrannical regimes and whose penal code is also based on the principle of denying the existence and the rights of others.

One of these countries is Turkey which seems very content with being positioned in the same ranks of Iran and Syria when it comes to the rights and treatment of Kurds in Northern Kurdistan.

If compared, Turkish penal code is no different to that of Iran and Syria with regards to the rights of individuals in general and the rights of Kurdish nation in particular.

No country in the world has been so eager to pursue a legacy of a dead man’s distorted views about the world as Turkey has done with the way it faithfully executes Ataturk’s outdated tenets, which mostly have been inspired by Hitler’s Germany.

The paradox in Turkey’s position is that on the one side it is very vociferous about being the only democracy within the Muslim world and at the same time still wants to preserve much of the anti-Kurdish articles of within the Turkish penal code.

A case in point about Turkey’s extreme measures to suppress any aspect of Kurdish culture is a recent report about a Kurdish prisoner in Mardin who was not allowed to take out from jail Kurdish translation of a Turkish poetic book, which he did during his term.

The book of poems in Kurdish, which was described by prison authorities and later by the so-called Discipline Committee as being written in unintelligible Turkish wording, has now landed in public prosecutor office which also could land the man with another term of imprisonment.

If president Bush wants the best short route to ensure a smooth regime change in Iran and Syria he then has to exert more pressure on Turkey to grant full political and cultural rights to Kurdish nation in North Kurdistan.

These rights including the right for self-government in the shape of a federalist region within Turkey can truly bestow upon her the title of being the only true democratic state within the Muslim world and in Europe.

If this happens then the new momentum with the dynamics generated by the state of affairs in the new federalist republic of Iraq will create a more favourable atmosphere and an impetus for freedom loving forces in Syria and Iran to side with the US in its pursuit to topple these expired regimes.

The fear is that President Bush’s words may ring very hallow in Kurdish ears if Turkey is allowed to continue with its less than inspiring and unique paradoxical position.