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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 March 1999 Issue No. 419 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 March 1999 Issue No. 419
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Kurdish conundrum
By Naguib Mahfouz
The kidnapping of Abdullah Ocalan has done more than anything else to attract world attention to the Kurdish cause. There are millions of Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, yet the world had all but forgotten them and their plight.
Now, however, there has been an angry reaction to Ocalan's abduction, and suddenly the world has realised that the Kurds are an oppressed minority in several countries. Their national aspirations have been ignored. What, then, is the solution? How will they be able to obtain their independence from all the countries in which they live? How will they govern themselves, if they remain in these countries? And what do they really want?
I personally believe that this issue requires a collective solution, managed by the international community. The UN must begin looking for a way to solve this problem, even if the Kurds have no autonomous government to represent them at that international organisation. Theirs is a humanitarian as well as a political issue, and must be addressed. They must not be made victims and scapegoats; they must not be made Palestinians.
As for Ocalan, there is nothing we can do, apart from demanding that he receive a fair trial. Given the mass hysteria that seized Turkey in the wake of his abduction, this will be difficult. But surely it is not impossible.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
