Engin Suggests This Pluralization Should Be Seen Not As a Weakness But As an Opportunity for Democratization

Professor Kenan Engin, a political science and international migration expert at Berlin International University, has written an analysis for Medyascope examining the narrowing space for criticism within Kurdish politics, focusing on debates around the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, and the so-called "integration process. The piece, titled "Opposition or hostility? | Kurdish politics and the narrowing space for criticism, argues that the new era in Turkey—referred to as a "terror-free Turkey" or increasingly an "integration process"—has sparked a livelier debate in the Kurdish political sphere than seen in a long time.

Engin suggests this pluralization should be seen not as a weakness but as an opportunity for democratization. However, he highlights a serious contradiction: while there is complaint that Kurdish intellectuals, academics, and thinkers are not contributing enough to the process, those Kurds who question the process's content, Öcalan's current position, or the PKK's new policy often face aggressive reactions. Responding to criticism with more criticism is part of politics, Engin notes, but the problem arises when political argument is replaced by language that questions a person's political and even moral identity.

He cites the recent circulation of terms like "digital korucular" (digital village guards) on social media as a striking example, along with responses telling critics that they are "comfortable, asking "what price have you paid? or daring them to "go fight if it's so easy. Such responses shift the debate away from the content of the criticism and toward the legitimacy of the person making it.

Engin draws on Michel Foucault's concept of the "order of discourse, arguing that power's most effective form is not always commanding people to speak, but rather determining who has the right to speak, which words are legitimate, and which criticism falls outside the bounds. He argues that a term like "digital korucu" should not be seen merely as an insult but understood for its political function: if you place a person in a category instead of answering their argument, you are no longer debating what they said but the legitimacy of their right to speak. The professor then addresses a more fundamental issue: the duty of a Kurdish intellectual, academic, journalist, or thinker is not to approve the decisions of a Kurdish party, the PKK, or any other Kurdish political actor.

Defending Kurds' collective rights is one thing; questioning the policy of an organization or party that makes politics on behalf of Kurds is another. The real test of intellectual autonomy, he argues, is the ability to question not only one's opponents but also the political sphere one feels close. If the question is asked why Kurdish intellectuals are not supporting the process, another question must also be asked: what legitimate positions does the process leave for Kurdish intellectuals other than support?

If supporting is legitimate, silence is acceptable, but questioning is considered opposition, then it becomes difficult to speak of democratic pluralism. Finally, Engin raises what he calls perhaps the most difficult aspect of the issue. When the PKK emerged on the historical stage, it defined itself as an anti-colonial movement fighting against colonial domination over Kurdistan, coming from a political tradition that radically questioned the state, its institutions, and its mechanisms of domination over Kurdish society.

Today, he asks paradoxically whether a movement founded in struggle against the hegemonic state may have, over time, become a hegemonic power within its own social sphere. Asking this question, he insists, is not to deny the PKK's history or the oppression Kurds have suffered, but rather to take a critique of power to its logical conclusion. As Foucault reminded us, power is not only located in the state; power relations can also be produced within oppositional movements, revolutionary organizations, and oppressed communities.