The
Kurds Don’t Come from Anyplace!
April
16, 2004
by
Lucina Kathmann
I went to a Turkish cultural event tonight, sponsored by the organization Connecting Cultures, at which Ms. Lale Agusman, the Vice Consul of Turkey in Chicago, was a speaker. Her talk gave the impression that Turkey was perfect in all respects.
I raised my hand immediately afterward and asked her
to comment on the retrial of Leyla Zana, the journalist and former member of
parliament from a Kurdish region, who has been imprisoned since 1994. In
keeping with the adjustments the
European Union demands of Turkey, Leyla Zana was being retried, as her
original trial was fraught with irregularities. However, I said, observers
of the retrial were quite discouraged by apparent irregularities in this one
too, for example, referring to the defendents as “the guilty” instead of
“the accused.”
Ms. Agusman said because of her position she could not
comment on a trial still in progress, but she could tell me that there was
no such thing as a Kurdish region of Turkey. There were more Kurds in the
cities than in the east.
Fortunately this answer was so illogical (there are
more Irish in the US than in Ireland, has Ireland ceased to exist?) that it
paved the way for critical questions from others.
Many congratulated me after the event, at which more
than 100 people were present.