NTV Online , Turkey
Dec 7 2012
Mustazaflar Forming a Party: Hezbollah’s wing forming political party
by Nizamettin Kaplan
[Translated from Turkish]
The Mustazaflar Dernegi [Association for the Disenfranchised], which
was closed down by the courts for acting in line with the goals of the
Hizbullah [also rendered as Hezbollah] terrorist organization, is
forming a political party. Former association chairman Huseyin Yilmaz
said, “Neither Kemalism nor Apo-ism has been able to fix the
problems.”
The Mustazaf-Der association, which was closed down by the Diyarbakir
Number 2 Court of First Instance for acting in line with the goals of
the Hizbullah terrorist organization, is becoming a political party.
The movement is going to operate in the political arena under the name
Huda-Par and will be officially founded when it files its application
with the Interior Ministry next week. Mustazaf-Der’s decision to found
a political party led to claims that “Hizbullah is becoming a
political party.” Commenting on the allegations saying, “They want to
confine our party to a small area,” chairman Huseyin Yilmaz said they
were a legal body whilst Hizbullah was an illegal body.
Chairman of the defunct Mustazaf-Der Huseyin Yilmaz spoke to NTV’s
Diyarbakir Correspondent Nizamettin Kaplan about the party-forming
process and said that the Huda Party was setting out as a third way.
Saying that the people of the region had no choice but to vote AKP
[Justice and Development Party] or BDP [Peace and Democracy Party]
Yilmaz said: “There are people that the existing parties cannot speak
for. Our association was growing every day. People who follow the PKK
torched our association. The security forces persecuted us. It was
like being in a vice. It got to the point where the need arose for
this community to have a political voice.”
Yilmaz said they had been considering forming a party for three to
four years now and that what separated them from the other parties
would their Islamic perspective. Yilmaz said this:
“When you look at the political spectrum you can see that none of the
political parties speak for this community. They do not share this
community’s views. The AKP does implement a small portion of the way
we look at events. It is able to voice some parts in its own practices
and can speak up for them, but there are parts it cannot speak for.
There are even some things in common with the BDP. They too are able
to demand some of what you are demanding. But when you look at the
overall picture there is no true representation. This rhetoric can be
found in a fragmented fashion within different parties.
“Take the Islamic headdress issue, for example. Out views do not match
those held by the AKP. Look at the Kurd problem. Out views do not
match those held by the BDP. We think the Kurd problem needs to be
fixed with an Islamic point of view. We think that an Islamic solution
would allow the Kurds and the Turks to coexist. And we are trying to
put this into practice. We are looking into ways of coexisting with an
equal and fair division, an approach, with representation; more unity
than division. And we are presenting this. The BDP is lacking here.”
People Stuck With Two Parties
Stressing that they were proceeding with founding the party with 50
founding members, Yilmaz said they would be a third way in Turkey and
continued:
“Looking at it on the whole, the people in Turkey are stuck with two
parties. In our region there is the AKP and the BDP. In the western
regions there is the AKP and the CHP [Republican People’s Party]. When
you look at the AKP’s recent rhetoric you can see that they have taken
on the MHP’s [Nationalist Action Party] role as well, up to a point.
Meaning, they appeal to the MHP’s voters as well. As a result, no
matter where they are the people are stuck with two parties. Why
should they be? Is there no third way? We say there is. We voice our
thoughts and we are thinking of entering this political arena with
this rhetoric and point of view. For us the ‘Headscarf’ and the
‘Keeping the Faith’ [Ahdi Vefa] ra llies were political rallies. If we
were going to test our strength and our rank and file, we tested them
with these two things. We believe that these people are really not
represented at all. There is an obligation. The people we know around
us, the people, are making demands of us. They are openly saying: ‘Why
are you condemning us to the AKP and the BDP?’ There are those among
them who reluctantly vote for those two parties. They do not condone
all their policies. It is because their Islamic sentiments are
dominant that they vote AKP in the hope that “perhaps the AKP might
make some Islamic improvements in this area.” There are those who go
and vote for them on election day despite not condoning everything
they do. Similarly, there are those who despite not condoning all the
BDP’s policies go and side with them because they can see that the AKP
is heading steadily towards unification with the system and they want
to distance themselves from this. If a third way, an alternative, were
to emerge people expect it to be a political body with Islamic
sentiments that will champion the problems faced by Muslim Kurds and
also champion the problems faced by other Islamic bodies in Turkey and
in the region by having an Islamic outlook. This is because neither
Kemalism nor Apo-ism has managed to fix the problems. These people
welcome us and our community. Just as we represented these people’s
religious sentiments so we stand a good chance of representing them
politically as well. They only vote AKP or BDP because there is a gap.
Our party is going to fill that gap.”
Recalling that there will be local elections in 2014, Yilmaz explained
they were commissioning surveys into what kind of path they should
follow during these elections and added they would determine their
strategy based on the outcome of the surveys.
We Are Legal; Hizbullah Is Illegal
“The local elections are becoming a priority for us. Instead of
entering the elections with independent candidates we are thinking
about forming a party and going to the people with our own name,
identity, plans and projects, and asking them to back us. For us 2013
will be a year of congresses and of getting established.”
Arguing that rhetoric saying, “Hizbullah is becoming a political
party” is malicious and hurtful, Yilmaz said this:
“This rhetoric is deliberate. They want to confine our party to a
narrow field. This is rhetoric produced with the idea of confining us
to the region. But we say that we shall appeal to everybody regardless
of their ethnic identity. We have Turkish and Arab friends working
with us. The real reasons our association was shut down are different
from the visible reasons. The visible and fabricated reason was
proximity to Hizbullah. Yet, the actual reason was that Mustazaflar
was growing with every passing day; its popular support was growing
steadily, and this caused panic within the system. We can see the
relationship between the BDP and the PKK [Kurdistan People’s Congress,
KGK] today. They are openly saying, ‘Qandil is our will; Apo is our
will.’ Yet, to date not one of our officials has said, ‘Hizbullah
speaks for us.’ In fact, at every platform we say: ‘We are different.
Hizbullah is a different body. We are a legal body while they are an
illegal body.’ I mean, despite all we are saying the goal is to stop
an alternative body with Islamic sentiments emerging in the region. We
have been in operation since 2004. We do not build our work on top of
Hizbullah’s work. Theirs is a different field. We work in different
lanes. But what is there when you look at the regional people’s
sociological makeup? You see that the pious Kurds have some sympathy
for Hizbullah. The fact that this exists, that there are sympathizers
within our ranks or the idea that there could be does not mean there
is an organic tie here. What is it? It is material. You are appealing
to this society and the people in this society are necessarily going
to have a specific political makeup, political ideas. For example,
many of our association’s members have relatives in the mountains or
in prison for being PKK. In fact, one sibling from the same house is
our leader. Another is currently in prison on charges of running the
KCK [Assembly of Communities of Kurdistan]. That is how society is
made up. That is the raw material here. So, you necessarily have to
build on that. But if we treat this with ill intent, and there is ill
intent here… Immediately afterwards a message follows. You have to
accept a political body for what it is according to the way it defines
itself and the name it goes by, and you have to treat it accordingly.
You have to look at matters in that light. Our association has never
called for violence; not once. Our party will be a kind of litmus
test. We may face conspiracies. We do worry about that. We are going
to have problems. There is going to be manipulation. Some people might
deliberately set others on us, like what happened when we were setting
up the association, and might want to drag us into a different
adventure. I agree with every thought having a voice as long as these
different thoughts do not call for violence. That is in our programme.
Even the most extreme ideas should be given a voice.”
Yilmaz said they had proposals that did not exist in any other
political party’s programme in Turkey: “Here the minorities are the
Greeks, the Armenians, the Assyrians, the Ezidi, the non-Muslim
communities. They do not have any representation in Parliament under
those identities. We are saying this: whatever their proportion of
Turkey’s 75 million population is, whatever this translates to as a
percentage of 550 seats, they should have that amount of
representation in Parliament. They should elect their own
representatives and they should have a place in Parliament as the
representative for their own religion. We care about this. Every
thought must be represented so society can be at ease. When it comes
to fixing problems, every segment of society needs political
representation.”
[Translated from Turkish]