Demirtaş: The birth of new politics…

After Ihsanoglu and Erdogan, yesterday it was HDP"s presidential candidate Demirtas"s turn to announce his perspective statement. The statement called "New Life Call", was explaining the "principles, suggestions, policies sequence" that Demirtas will be representing if he becomes the president. "Communal and cultural pluralism", "decentralized political structuring", "liberal laicism" were the key concepts and points of this statement. In fact, if these are observed individually, all of them are issues, which are demanded and defended by countless democrats, liberals, civilian movements and others for many years in Turkey. What"s new here is this package, which involves all these issues, is carrying and identifying the transformation of the Kurdish political movement.

We can describe this transformation (maybe calling it a "pursuit" will be more correct at this stage) as follows:

In this representation, by overcoming the Kurdish identity and Kurdish problem, it is to surround all of the victimized identities and similar problems, creating politics for Turkey"s administration and issues, and within this frame, being a nominee for filling the opposition gap…

It seems that this pursuit and being the presidential candidate of this pursuit made Demirtas, who was BDP"s and now HDP"s co-chairman and whom we know in group meetings as "competitive" and "uncompromising", feel better. Yesterday, he confronted the public opinion with a wittier, creative, free, self reliant and tolerant image. He was carrying this profile quite well and also, he was making a compatible impression that suits this profile. Also, this attitude doesn"t show any new political manner or a tactical transition; on the contrary, the Kurdish movement"s experience, elapsed road and passed stages were looking like a point, which is reached or trying to be reach via interactions with Armenians, Assyrians, Turks and a historical awareness.

Then what about the meaning?

Two matters come forth:

First, the existence of a formation, which is a candidate to fill the opposition"s gap or to be a political model for the opposition.

In other words, this is a movement, which doesn"t represent resistance, status-quo or yesterday, doesn"t dedicate all its power to overthrow the rulership, on the contrary, which is in the claim of raising the democratic bar and to compete in a democratic field… The most serious development, that shaped the formation of this table and encouraged the Kurdish political actors to play the role of one of the founders of new Turkey, is the resolution process without a doubt. The present situation is showing us that the resolution process is not only formed of expansive steps, but also of communal and political weather.

It is important to add that evaluating the contributions of the political power and Kurdish movement at this point with a view exceeding the internal politics is critical to understand Turkey and its destination.

Second, the generated importance of political developments in the sense of the point arrived at by the Kurdish political movement. This aspect, which we are trying to underline for a while now, includes a meaning, which started with the Kurdish movement"s "riot" and advance towards being a legal and legitimate part of Turkish politics. This meaning is quite valuable in terms of the resolution of the Kurdish problem, Kurdish politicization, Turkey"s future and new Turkey. This has been provided by the democratic struggle and democratic development couple. Of course, this point had been reached by struggle, but reformist policies and moves that change the layout had paved the way greatly.

In this sense, let"s underline the following sentence that takes place in the statement published yesterday:

"The Kurdish problem"s resolution is a process that will advance simultaneously with the democratization of Turkey. As the problem is resolved, Turkey will be democratized and as Turkey is democratized, the resolution will be gaining speed. This will, which will provide this, exists in us, who had been carrying out the peace struggle for years, and also exist in Turkey"s democracy powers…"

While I was listening to Demirtas and observing his intelligence, wittiness and self-reliance, it passed my mind that, if politics means will next to principle, then HDP"S presidential candidate is really representing that.