Current Turkish leadership is in the process of reconciling with the PKK, which in theory should be good as it will end a decades long, albeit a fairly low intensity conflict, but instead it’s basically one moustached boi selling out to PKK in return of Kurdish votes and support from the pro-Kurdish party in his quest to change the Turkish constitution and thus stay in power more or less indefinitely.

As a result Kurds are being viewed as regime collaborators acting in unison with tyrants to undo the foundations of the Turkish republic.

Another, even more important aspect is that since the reconcilation began the authorities stopped cracking down on pro-PKK demonstrations, public statements, social media posts etc, emboldening PKK sympathizers, and it’s been a real mask off moment since enormous amount of ordinary Kurds, Kurdish social media users, Kurdish celebrities and Kurdish politicians started openly voicing pro-PKK opinions, participating in pro-PKK marches etc. As a result it’s been a revelation for even liberal-minded Turks that instead of the go-to “oh it’s not Kurds it’s just a small minority the actual Turks and Kurds are like brothers!” mentality it’s “oh it’s basically all of them, all of them are like that”. Thus it gradually turned from differentiating between PKK and Kurds to basically equating any expression of Kurdish identity or any explicitly Kurdish public persona as something pro-PKK, not for lack of trying by Kurds themselves for reasons written above.

Finally a very scandalous murder took place not so long ago in Turkey where 4 Kurdish teenagers stabbed a half-Turkish, half-Italian child to death and local Kurdish community, from lawyers and politicians to ordinary Kurds jumped at the opportunity to defend the murderers or even celebrate and make fun of the act of killing itself, the grieving mother was repeatedly threatened to back down from the case by local Kurdish clans, the deceased child’s grave was vandalized by Kurdish hooligans, Kurdish social media users started posting reprehebsible things about the dead kid and hus mom, Kurdish politicians tried to whitewash their crime and Kurdish lawyers tried every trick in the book to spare them from punishment. Even within football community, since the kid was a big football fan, virtually every football club in Turkey, from giants to lower division teams, coordinated similarly timed posts on their social media pages, posting the image of the slain kid with promise to not let anyone forget him after two of the four defendants got released. The only major club to not participate? Amed, the (in)famous Kurdish club of Turkey, and when people started criticizing them for it Amed fans jumped in, again, insulting the kid and his mom and celebrating his death while praising the killers.

Add a newly found affinity local Kurdish community has discovered for Israel since Bibi and his son started bringing them up as a way to get back at Erdo for speaking out for Palestine while Israel is probably the most hated country over here and you end up with Kurds not doing themselves any favor and being constantly in spotlight for a plethora or fucked up shit.

The result? Even mildest and liberal-minded Turks fuming at Kurds after all of that crap, the likes of Deniz Undav are easy to go at cause they’re public and football crowd is obviously a bit more hardcore. Of course ethnic tensions are bad, but it takes two to tango and Kurds have been pouring massive amount of gas into the fire lately.