The day Selçuk Bayraktar will leave Kurdistan

Fréderike Geerdink

Do I regret telling Selçuk Bayraktar on Twitter to get the h* out of Kurdistan? Not for a split second, even though I have never in my fifteen years’ life on Twitter triggered so much filthy, aggressive and threatening reactions. Somebody had to say something about the disgusting photo he shared of him in Hakkari province. And I am not a shut-upper.

For those who don’t know who Selçuk Bayraktar is: he is an engineer and businessman, and responsible for the development of Turkey’s drone program, including armed drones, which have been successfully sold internationally after having extensively been tested on Kurds. He is also the husband of Sümeyye Erdoğan, the president’s daughter. He has a hilarious Wikipedia page, written by a fan, a practice against which Wikipedia obviously doesn’t have a good policy.

Cheese

Selçuk is passionately adored by a lot of people. A whole, whole lot of people. A tremendous amount of people even, who love to send pictures of body bags and mutilated dead PKK fighters to me, wishing to see me dead and mutilated (and raped, of course) in a body bag as well. They also think they really insult Dutch people by calling them ‘cheese’, or sending them pictures with squeezed oranges.

Now this Selçuk Bayraktar shared a photo of himself squatting next to a fritillaria imperialis, or the upside-down tulip, as it is often called. The photo was taken in Çukurca in Hakkari province, in the mountainous heart of Kurdistan, which had, according to the account that I retweeted, been ‘cleared from terrorists’ thanks to Bayrakter drones. Selçuk looked happy and proud of his achievement.

You know what it immediately reminded me of? Of Israeli soldiers who are currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza and are celebrating the human rights violations they commit on a daily basis against Palestinians. I’m sure you’ve seen the images of Israeli soldiers mockingly wearing the women’s lingerie they find, or riding Palestinian children’s bikes, or cheering when they blow up a mosque, house or university.

Martyrdom

In essence, what Bayraktar does is no different. Kurdistan is occupied (which I convincingly argue in this piece so I’m not getting into the details now), like Palestine. And Selçuk is a representative of the occupying power who is co-responsible for the deaths of many people is proud of the suppression and killing he contributes to. Bayraktar’s drones have killed many PKK fighters and civilians – yes, also Kurdish civilians, mainly in Başur (Kurdistan in Iraq), have been killed by Bayraktar drones.

In the war between the state and the PKK, surely PKK fighters are legitimate targets, but that doesn’t change the fact that the PKK members are children of Kurdistan. Bayraktar is celebrating the death of the children of the land where he squats next to a flower that is symbolic for Kurdistan, and to many represents martyrdom.

Furious

I could have commented with an analysis like that. Usually on Twitter, I don’t just express anger but try to contribute some information or a short comment or analysis. But in this case, I just got so furious that I wanted to basically share that. So, I retweeted and added: Defol Kurdistan’dan Turkish for ‘Get the h* out of Kurdistan’. Of course, I expected reactions – but I didn’t anticipate that it would be this overwhelming. It got even more crazy after Selçuk himself, who has almost three million followers, retweeted my tweet. He added in both Turkish and Kurdish that ‘This is Turkey. This is a land where Turks and Kurds have been living together in brotherhood for many centuries’.

This ‘brotherhood’ is a typical ultra-nationalist, Grey Wolves concept. Ever since the Turkish state can’t logically deny the existence of Kurds anymore, as they have done for many decades, they refer to this ‘brotherhood’. The brotherhood means that Kurds and Turks are basically the same and share a history, culture, religion and land. As a Kurd, you have to be part of this brotherhood. Demanding any rights based on your Kurdish identity, like the right to educate your children in their mother tongue or teach them Kurdish instead of Turkish history or to manage your own political affairs autonomously, you break the brotherhood. Breaking the brotherhood is equal to breaking the homeland, and breaking the homeland is separatism, and separatism is terrorism. That’s why people in the Kurdish political movement are prosecuted for ‘terrorism’.

Violence

Even calling the land you’ve been living on for many, many centuries by its name, Kurdistan, is illegal. Selçuk denies the existence of Kurdistan by writing ‘This is Turkey’, and he does that in Turkish and Kurdish. He essentially wipes Kurdistan off the map, using the language of the people whose existence he basically denies. This is outright fascism, and only confirms that Selçuk is a representative of an occupying power.

Eventually, Kurds will be successful in demanding their rights, and they will govern their own lands. The Turkish army, which has lost all its legitimacy in Kurdistan after already more than a century of brutal violence, will have to leave. On that day, which I am tremendously looking forward to, also Selçuk will have to get the h* out of Kurdistan.

Fréderike Geerdink is an independent journalist. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her acclaimed weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan.