(Brotherhood of Peoples)… The Greatest Political Deception in Modern Turkish History
By Sherzad Mamsani
President of the Israel–Kurdistan Alliance Network
EastMed Contributor
A Reading of the Moment of Exposure in Turkish Discourse Toward Öcalan and the Kurds
In politics, the importance of major statements lies not only in their wording, but in their timing and in what they reveal about deeper structural fractures. From this perspective, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement that Abdullah Öcalan will not be released, and that he himself does not want to leave prison, cannot be read as a passing remark or rhetorical maneuver. Rather, it signals the collapse of an entire phase of tools long used by Ankara to manage the Kurdish question.
So what has changed? Why is this being said now, and with such bluntness? Why does Ankara appear to be exposing, by its own words, what was once surrounded by ambiguity, sanctification, and political utility?
The answer, in essence, is that two major theories have collapsed simultaneously:
The theory of (Brotherhood of Peoples) in its Öcalanist–Kemalist form,
and the theory of (Islamist Internationalism) in its Turkish neo-Ottoman form.
Despite differences in language and slogans, both served the same function: delaying genuine recognition of Kurdish rights, masking Turkish dominance, and reproducing subordination through ideological narratives.
1: (Brotherhood of Peoples) as a Mask for Domination
What was promoted for years under the label (Brotherhood of Peoples) was not, in substance, a project of equality among peoples, nor a free contract between equal nations. It was an ideological construct designed to redefine injustice as partnership, and submission as brotherhood.
True political brotherhood requires equality, recognition, mutual rights, and clear guarantees. But when a people is asked to abandon its identity, postpone its demands, and relinquish its right to self-determination in exchange for being called (a brother), this is not brotherhood. It is a hierarchical relationship disguised in emotional language.
In practice, this theory functioned as a mechanism to pacify the Kurds rather than empower them. It did not produce constitutional recognition, nor balanced political partnership, nor legal or international guarantees. Instead, it often served to absorb anger, buy time, and drain the Kurdish cause of its emancipatory content.
This is why it has burned out.
It burned because the Kurds are no longer what they once were.
And because Kurdish political awareness has long surpassed this superficial framework, recognizing that brotherhood without rights is not brotherhood, and partnership without equality is not partnership.
2: Turkish Political Islam as the Other Face of the Same Crisis
On the other side, Erdoğan’s Islamist model attempted to present itself as an alternative to rigid Kemalism. Yet in reality, it was another attempt to reproduce Turkish centralism under a religious veneer.
If Öcalanist–Kemalist discourse spoke in the name of (peoples), Turkish political Islam spoke in the name of (the ummah). If the former marginalized national rights through revolutionary rhetoric, the latter did so through religious legitimacy and Ottoman nostalgia.
But the outcome was identical:
No real recognition of the Kurds as a people with political rights,
no genuine acceptance of equal partnership,
and no willingness to establish a new contract based on equality and guarantees.
More importantly, this model has become a burden not only for the Kurds but for Turkey itself. It has clashed with the structure of the modern state, deepened internal contradictions, and entangled the country in conflicts beyond its capacity.
Thus, (Islamist Internationalism) has not merely failed to solve regional problems—it has become one itself.
3: Why Is Erdoğa Speaking So Bluntly Now?
When Erdoğa states that Öcalan will not be released and that he does not even want to be released, he is not merely attacking an individual—he is signaling the exhaustion of a political function.
Implicitly, he is admitting that the Öcalan card no longer performs as it once did. He is also acknowledging that what worked in the past is no longer effective.
Öcalan’s value, from Ankara’s perspective, has never been about genuine resolution, but about function. His significance lay in his symbolic isolation, not in his free presence; in his ambiguity, not in his real engagement; in his name as a tool for interpretation, not in his direct political agency.
Here lies the core paradox:
Öcalan inside İmralı is more useful to Ankara than Öcalan outside it.
The former can be interpreted, instrumentalized, and spoken through.
The latter risks exposure, contradiction, and irrelevance.
4: Why Has the (Imralı Phantom) Lost Its Effectiveness?
Because time has changed.
Because the Kurds have changed.
And because the region itself has changed.
In earlier phases, a message from İmralı could shift political balances or recalibrate Kurdish dynamics. Today, Kurdish arenas are no longer unified under a single reading, leadership, or symbolic authority.
Kurds across Bakur, Bashur, Rojava, and Rojhelat now possess diverse political experiences, awareness, and international connections. The Kurdish issue has become embedded in broader regional and global equations, making it less susceptible to manipulation through a single figure or narrative.
This is why the old tools are losing effectiveness.
Ideology alone is no longer enough.
Symbolism alone is no longer enough.
And isolated figures can no longer dictate the course of a living, evolving political reality.
5: The Kurds as Political Actors, Not Objects
This is the fundamental transformation.
The era in which Kurds were treated merely as objects of negotiation or instruments of regional politics is over.
Despite internal divisions and challenges, the Kurds have become active participants in shaping political outcomes. They are increasingly capable of distinguishing between rhetoric and reality, between manipulation and recognition, and between temporary utility and lasting rights.
Any future political framework—within Turkey or the wider region—must acknowledge this:
Kurds are not subjects to be managed, but partners in shaping outcomes.
Their rights are not concessions, but entitlements.
And any discourse that fails to recognize this will replicate the failures of the past.
6: What Has Truly Burned?
What has burned is not merely a tactic or a political card, but an entire system of illusions:
The illusion that Kurds can be contained indefinitely through slogans of brotherhood without rights.
The illusion that political Islam can absorb the Kurdish question into a broader religious narrative.
The illusion that imprisoned figures can indefinitely serve as effective instruments for managing a dynamic people.
And above all, the illusion that Ankara can continue balancing denial and exploitation without consequence.
The ground has shifted.
What was once managed behind the scenes can no longer be controlled so easily.
And this is why the state itself is beginning to reveal what it once concealed.
Erdoğan’s statement about Öcalan matters not only for what it says, but for what it reveals: the limits of the Turkish project in both its Kemalist and Islamist forms, and the exhaustion of the tools used for decades to manage—rather than resolve—the Kurdish issue.
Old slogans have burned because reality has overtaken them.
Masks have burned because people now see beyond them.
And political instruments have burned because the Kurds are no longer a people that can be easily managed from behind walls or through ambiguity.
This moment of exposure, harsh as it may be, could mark the beginning of a necessary transition:
Away from managing the Kurds within external agendas,
and toward recognizing them as equal, free partners.
For in the end, the truth remains:
There is no stability without justice,
no partnership without equality,
and no real democracy without full recognition of Kurdish rights.