Ertugrul Ozkok: Yes, I am that "racist"
Hürriyet İnternet

There was an article the other day in the "Birgun" newspaper which was, for me, quite significant. It was a story, which was also carried yesterday in the Hurriyet, about how the Kurdish-backed Democratic Society Party had ordered all of its wings and organizations to take part in a campaign against honor killings. I congratulate the Democratic Society Party. It has gone forward with a campaign which it actually should have taken up a long time ago.


But there were a couple of sentences in the announcement which it sent to its sub-organizations that I think needs to be decoded. The sentences note that "some people" have asserted that honor killings are particular to Southeastern Anatolian behavior. It is then implied, in this announcement, that the people who defend this position are "racist."

So, let's decode these statements. I have no complexes about this. I admit that I am the person who the DTP is accusing of racism. In two different columns I wrote in the past, I did not shirk at all away from stating that "Honor killings are generally a cultural aspect of people from the Southeast of Turkey." I would write the same thing again, quite openly. Honor killings are, in their essence, a Kurdish phenomenon.

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Am I the only one who says this? The Hurriyet published statements this August from Professor Aydin Findikci of Munich University, who was speaking about research into honor killings. In the article, Professor Findikci says "Research shows clearly that honor killings are a part of Kurdish culture, and are an example of unwritten law." According to this professor's research, 90% of the honor killings which occur in Germany happen within the Kurdish community. Since when has it become racism to talk about a problem occuring within one section of society? Was there any outcry about racism when, for years, we (and you) talked about the problems Turks had with torture and human rights? For years now, wherever I go, I hear about the "Turkish culture of honor killings." For some reason, those who never raised their voices when the problem was described as "Turkish" have lost all their tolerance for this business now that it is being presented within the framework of hard statistics and research.

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Every group has its own problems. Turks certainly do, as do Kurds and Laz. Turks face a particular problem, for example, when it comes to thugs who shoot off their guns at wedding celebrations. If we are going to be embarrassed about it, let's do so together. Rather than accusing those who talk about it of "racism," we could try and find a solution to the problem. Anyway, from that perspective, I do see the steps the Democratic Society Party is taking towards solving honor killings as good, if a bit late. Yes, even at the price of being called a "racist," this development pleases me.