Structural causes of terrorism

We live in a region where war and violence are quite extensive. We are not going through times where we acknowledge the wisdom of the Latin maxim "Si vis pacem, para bellum," meaning: "If you want peace, prepare for war," as there is no peace already established and the current state of violence is not a preparation for war to keep the peace. When the Middle East was divided in accordance with the Sykes Picot Agreement 100 years ago, it was handed to Western-backed dictatorships and constitutional orders that made these dictatorships permanent, which emerged over the course of time. When the examples of Syria and Egypt are considered, it is possible to suggest that there is no considerable change in the West's preferences 100 years later.

However, the problem of this region is not resolved by presenting the West's case in this way. The crux of the problem is the tutelary orders that characterized the previous century. The tutelary orders largely ignored the preferences and freedoms of a major part of society, and in some cases they violently repressed them. They excluded the greater part of society from the system, which they designed in a way to guarantee their own power. Thus, exclusion, inequality, discrimination, ideological indoctrination and militarization became institutionalized. These institutional preferences obviously had social consequences. The social segments that were ostracized from the system began to raise social opposition. It became even more inviting to resort to violence for the social minorities that did not have a majority to be the owners of a country. We cannot address the Kurdish question independently from this reality. Unless the system that poses this problem changes, it is impossible to get rid of this destructive cycle. This is because the system forms the opposition that struggles against itself. It also pushes military organizations whose hierarchical structures fight against it to take form in line with the same hierarchy. If the system has a totalitarian political philosophy or it has an inclination toward totalitarianism, oppositional military organizations will have the same characteristics. This is a way of explaining that the PKK, which has a hierarchical order and holds the sole totalitarian political philosophy among Kurdish political movements, has achieved its current status and completely immobilized other political movements. It is undeniable that other regions where Kurds live, including Iran, Iraq and Syria, have the same constitutional systems that would make it easy for the PKK to become active in such regions.

The system also gives form to the groups that oppose by means of legal politics. The political parties that are organized to oppose the system by a motive from outside the system take form in line with the same rigid hierarchical structure. When they come to power through elections, they do not have adaptation problems due to their parallel way of organizing.

Therefore, all structures with political objectives, including Kemalism, Baathism and the PKK, emerged from the dialectical relationships of political preferences that were imposed on this region with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago. Considering that the system is the ontological cause of each of these basic political problems, it is really hard to resolve them with the current system of preferences, political philosophy and discourse that each power group establishes through its relation with others.

Each group that complains about problems and verbalizes the resolution of problems, including the West, which argues that Turkey should be democratized, has almost formed a silent alliance for the continuation of this constitutional order and it is no longer surprising. So who is solving what and how? If there is a possibility to deal with the Kurdish question without addressing the existing constitutional order that produced it, we must admit that there is actually no problem. If we accept that there is a problem, which is proved by the recent killings of the PKK, we cannot turn a blind to the resolution.

Certainly, Turkey needs a more resolute and stronger will to bring a democratic constitutional order. There is a certain way of resolution and there are certain actors to undertake this resolution.