The Turkish left
Social or national?
(210.94 and so on.)
The question was avoided during the creation of the ÖDP, though the party's supporters in some Kurdish districts did begin to organise as ÖDP. In January 1999, the ÖDP decided to present itself in this month's elections under its own name, in all parts of the Turkish state, except where a specific local agreement was made to do otherwise.
A majority of the ÖDP's current membership consider that the party is "a force for Turkish and Kurdish workers." Opposition to organising the party in the Kurdish region is made more difficult by the lack of a clear counterpart. There is no Kurdish party similar to the ÖDP, no force with a similar social programme. Socialists in the Kurdish region are not welcome in Hadep, and, if the ÖDP does not organise itself there, they will be left without a voice.
Since its foundation, the ÖDP has organised a series of peace demonstrations in cooperation with Hadep. But this co-operation has been limited to the struggle for peace, and against the "dirty war" in the Kurdish region.
The two parties have different social programmes, and a very different analysis of the Islamic question. ÖDP rejects the ultra-Jacobin republicanism of the Turkish state, and calls for respect of religious sensibilities. Hadep goes much S further, and panders to the Islamic beliefs and identity of its base.
(The PKK recently added "freedom of religion" to its seven key P demands, and defines the Muslim re
A population of the world as part of
K "progressive humanity.")
The weakness of the left in the P Kurdish region meant that this was
Atl a rather secondary debate, until recently. But the success of the ÖDP is equalising the balance of forces P between the left and the Kurdish
Th nationalists.
Si
In 1995, the BSP (the forerunner of the ODP) made an electoral a alliance with Hadep, with a comte mon programme of peace, work
-and liberty. But Hadep only
Pd campaigned on the peace question, and the coalition won only 4.2% of
Pd the vote. Despite the BSP's strength
= in Istanbul, where one in four people are Kurds, the joint list V
G scored a disappointing 2.5%.
Opinion polls just before the arrest of Öcalan suggested that the ÖDP will score 2-3% in the April elections, and Hadep around 5%. Divided, neither will enter parliament. [FO/JD] *
Until the 1980 coup d'etat, the pro-Moscow communist parties were the dominant force in the Kurdish part of Turkey. The more radical Dev Yol was almost absent, but dominated the far left in the rest of the Turkish state.
The PKK was very small, and, in many areas, the Stalinists "forbid" PKK activity. At that time, the Kurdish nationalist movement had clear roots in the socialist movement.
Today, the national movement has a mass base in Kurdistan, while the socialist left is still trying to reestablish itself after the savage blows received during and after the coup.
The debate within the left on the Kurdish question has hardly evolved since 1980. A shrinking minority still believe that the Kurdish national movement can have a revolutionary dynamic. But most consider the Kurdish question as a matter of democratic rights.
This division has consequences for the question of alliances with the Kurdish nationalists. Some Turkish socialists are opposed to organising in the Kurdish-populated regions, and forming an alliance with the Kurdish nationalist parties there. Others see no reason why Turkish parties cannot represent the interests of workers of all languages and cultures. Embracing, abandoning...
Links between the national movement and the socialists began to be rebuilt in the 1991 elections. The pro-Chinese Workers Party (IP), which scored 60-100,000 votes nationwide, had excellent relations with the PKK in the early 90s. P leader Perinçek even inspected the PKK camps in the Beka'a valley, 4 International Viewpoint #310 April 1999 alongside Öcalan. Today, however, the IP has lined up completely behind the Turkish state, and considers the Kurdish national movement to be "a lackey of imperialism," against which "the gains of national independence and the Turkish state must be protected."
The Labour Party (EP), which has its origins in the pro-Albanian wing of Maoism, and the smaller Socialist Power Party (SIP) have recently decided to organise themselves in the Kurdish region (as late as 1995, the SIP had an electoral alliance with the Kurdish nationalist Hadep party). ...and combining
Most of the Turkish revolutionary left is organised in the Party of Liberty and Solidarity (ODP), a regroupment of various currents, including supporters of the Fourth International.
While the ÖDP has a clear programme of support for Kurdish rights and the demilitarisation of the region, its supporters disagree on how to relate to the Kurdish national movement.
Former members of the Kurtulus group argue that Kurdistan is a separate country, and that the Turkish left has no business to organise there. (Some even argue that, in return, the Kurdish nationalists should not organise outside the south-east of the country, despite the fact that half the Kurds of Turkey now live outside historic Kurdistan!)
Others opposed ÖDP organising in the Kurdish areas for more practical questions-the state of war, inadequate resources, the polarisation between the army and the PKK,