Doğan Şenses from ANKA-DER spoke out against the recent attacks on Kurdish culture and stated that Kurdish people should protect their own culture against the denialist system.
Stating that AKP came to power by criticising the monist, tutelary representation, Şenses said: It spent the first years of its rule with these discourses and claimed that it would solve all problems in Turkey, including the Kurdish question. At the current stage, the detentions and arrests made on the grounds of Kurdish dance halay and the erasure of the Kurdish inscriptions written by the municipalities on the roads in different cities for warning purposes show that the AKP is the continuation of the monist understanding of the republic.
Remarking that the AKP-MHP alliance aims to destroy Kurdish culture through oppression, Şenses said: This mentality is aimed at destroying or assimilating wherever there is a Kurd, wherever there is a Kurdish value. This mentality is the founding code of the monist republic.
Emphasising that times have changed but the mentality and elements of oppression remain the same, Şenses likened the current process to the 90s, which was marked by unsolved murders, oppression and torture: Before the 2000s, operations were carried out against Kurdish music cassettes. That's why the cassettes were hidden in the most unlikely places. There are many stories about this in almost every Kurdish village. Today, the anti-Kurdish policies of the AKP-MHP government are no different. Even more profoundly, they pursue policies that aim to destroy the Kurds' dance, language, songs, in short, all their values, which have been accumulated over thousands of years. As a matter of fact, there is no crime committed by the Kurds. A people's defence of their most basic human values can never be considered a crime.
It is not a crime to dance the halay, to make music in Kurdish, to write in Kurdish in people’s own cities, streets, avenues and shops. There is no need for any constitution or law to prove that this is not a crime. These are the most basic human values, Şenses said, adding that the Kurdish people must protect their own culture against this denialist system by speaking and keeping alive their language wherever they are. “At the same time, we must ensure the status of our language ourselves by institutionalising everywhere without any expectation from the existing understanding of power. Only then will there be a real struggle against these policies of annihilation.
Şenses stated that they, as ANKA-Der, have resisted this cultural denial and that they are determined to further increase this struggle. He concluded On this occasion, we appeal to our people. Just as they have protected their own values by making great efforts until today, they should protect and expand their own institutions and frustrate these policies of destruction.[1]