İSKENDERUN, HATAY – Sporadic violence continues following the declaration on Râs is-Seni of the People’s Republic of Hatay, a breakaway state which has been declared taking advantage of the rest of Turkey’s attention being drawn towards Kurdistan by state massacres there. TÖPG, the largest organisation in Hatay and now the ruling party of the de facto republic, has ordered its forces only to respond with arms to armed threats, but provocation by MHP gangs have resulted in street brawls for days.
“Watan bülinmez!” shrieked a neighbourhood reis as he hurled himself towards a crowd emerging from the Halk Meclisi, only to limp off moments later, badly bruised.
Hatay, an island of democratic centralism in a sea of democratic confederalism, is not immune to spillover from Syria. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party has successfully put down roots in İskenderun. The SSNP has joined clashes with the MHP and TÖPG, in the hopes of establishing its own leather-jacketed street hegemony.
“We’re glad Hatay has been liberated from the Ottomans at last,” local SSNP militant Butros Çalışkan informed us. “But now these yellow bastards want to build some new soviet union in the Middle East. The people of Hatay have waited too long for a united Syria to have their hopes dashed now. We’re going to wipe out the communists and retake Cyprus. After that, wiping out ISIS and Israel should be easy.”
Local TÖPG comrades are confident that they have the support of the people of Hatay, and that the fascists will be quickly eliminated. “More and more volunteers are coming every day from Adana and Mersin,” we were informed. “But their Arabic is just the worst.”
KP’s Hatay section issued their customary condemnation of any nationalism other than Turkish nationalism, which read in part as follows:
“We may not have the biggest following in Hatay, but that’s because the workers down here aren’t conscious enough, as evidenced by their division of the Turkish working class, which around here happens to speak Arabic.”
Worker's Spatula 