19 September  2001, Copyright © Turkish Daily News

Opinion by Gunduz Aktan

Turkey's situation

What will be Turkey's place in this era of renewed fighting against terrorism? Will it be of benefit to us? The Russians are happy they will be free to act against the Chechens. Israel is aware there is no sympathy for the Palestinians. India's position vis-a-vis Kashmir has improved.

Even in Turkey, some are hopeful that economic aid will increase as a result of our strategic importance increasing. It is not right for such a disaster as this to be used for "beneficial" ends. The greatest benefit will be in taking this opportunity to eradicate terrorism for good.

We watch on television the anguish of those who had lost loved ones in New York. It is intolerable. We are in mourning with America. We see the emotional unity in church of a community at peace with religion. Our own lost ones come to mind. Our tears flow incessantly. We understand we are unable to mourn. We forgot how to at the turn of the last century. Perhaps we never even knew ho to mourn.

While so choked with emotion it would be meaningless to talk of law now. Do what you like, life goes on.

Law is an important discipline in getting to understand complex events. If you did not know the law, then you would think the Armenian incident was genocide and many other crimes were "crimes against humanity." The law shows you that every racial attitude is not necessarily racism. If you disregard the law, then you could be deluded into thinking that your reaction to terrorism has great political weight.

Turkey has also suffered in the fight against terrorism because of being misunderstood by the West. No sympathy was shown for our thousands of dead. We were roughly treated. Religious, ethnic and ideological terrorists with blood on their hands availed themselves of the right to asylum and were given protection. The difference in viewpoints held by us and Europe regarding terrorism played an important part in this situation emerging. Their approach to terrorism mixed politics with law. Our attitude was a mix of politics and emotion.

According to its domestic law, every country recognizes attacks on the system as terrorism. The deaths of civilians, police and soldiers in armed clashes are considered terrorist acts. However, according to international law and its application, when fighting breaks out within a country, the outside world remains neutral because those initiating his domestic conflict have got political demands. Both these demands and their rejection may be legitimate. What is important for other countries is not identifying who is legitimate and who is not, but rather ensuring the rules of war are not violated during the fighting.

In this age where democracy and human rights have become important, the discussing via a democratic process all demands including those for secession make it important to identify the rules of war with human rights and to prevent violations. As it is accepted that human rights are violated not by armed groups but by states, it is only violations made by states that are monitored and criticized. The terrorist actions of armed groups are for the most part ignored. This automatically creates a situation to the detriment of the state.

Besides, ever since the French Revolution Europe has perceived terrorist violence as an unavoidable but unpleasant means of advancing democracy. It believes that the terrorist may well have rational political aims, in other words it believes terrorism has a function.

This is why Europe never helped Turkey against terrorism. Racial prejudices in Europe against Turkey and Turks have also made a contribution here.

Turkey could have fought a legal battle against this Europe. It did not. It was unable to convince Europe in international law that the PKK's murdering 4,500 innocent Kurds, regardless of whether they were women, children or old, or its slaughter of unarmed teachers, demobbed soldiers and innocent shoppers was terrorism. It could not show that the terrorist war waged by the PKK was very different to a guerrilla war and was a forbidden form of violence. It never even got round to trying to convince Europe of the pathology in looking for collective rights through the killing of innocent people by an essentially fascist movement that was ethno-nationalist, regressive and a new form of tribalism.

Now perhaps we will be able to get them to acknowledge that the murder of innocent civilians for whatever reason is terrorism. We can ensure that the distinction is made between terrorism and legitimate violence.

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