The Turkey's Defense Industry and The Kurds.
Ismet Konak.
Washington Kurdish Institute, 2018.
This article discusses the impact of Turkey's growing defence industry on the Kurdish people.
Theft itself is a crime, and, if it becomes chronic, it seems to a profession. When this occurs at the state level and the victim is the public, it is a policy. For the thieves themselves, it is important to skillfully sweep the theft itself under the carpet and rebrand it. In the case of Turkey’s long-ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), this policy of institutionalized theft is marketed to the masses as “service” (in Turkish, hizmet). This idea of public service is
used to obfuscate the truth and justify their regime. In this context, the most tactical action of the neoliberal Turkish government is “mystification”.
The Islamist AKP regime is built on the (favoritism economy). One of the most important pillars of the rent-based favoritism economy is undoubtedly the defense industry. The Turkish government one on hand portrays its own brand of Islamism as peaceful but, on the other hand, gives citizens arms as a gifts and constantly upgrades its own weapons of war, for nearterm use in various campaigns of aggression inside Turkey and beyond the country’s borders,
all while boasting of its “virtue”. While the community, particularly the Kurds, are waiting for the doves of peace, the latest models of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), helicopters, and other military aircraft dance in the sky. The Kurdish people see this remilitarization whip used their body, and the Kurds living under Turkish rule today see little cause for hopes of peace.
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