A Turkish-Kurdish 'by-product of the arts of peace'

War, as American satirist Ambrose Bierce wrote, may be "a by-product of the arts of peace." Since the Turks (in the majority) and Kurds (in the minority) shook hands to live happily ever after with the foundation of a common state based on a common religion they, in a time of peace, have always prepared for war. And as Bierce said, war during the several decades of their unsuccessful co-habitation "loved to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provided the night."

The founders of modern Turkey had an idea about building a nation-state. In that planned nation-state there was no room for "non-Turkish" Jews and Christians because a Turk had to be Muslim. Kurds were "Turks" because they were Muslims. In 1942 "non-Turkish" Turkish citizens, Jews and Christians, had to pay the Wealth Tax - or suffer the tragic consequences. "Turkish" Turkish citizens, Kurds, did not because they were Muslims. When there were only a few tens of thousands of non-Muslim "non-Turkish" Turkish citizens left in the country in the early 1980s, "Turkish Muslim" Kurds took up arms and started to kill for a homeland, a war that has left more than 40,000 people dead to date. 

It is not a source of pride for a columnist when the imprisoned leader of a violent terror group repeats, verbatim, the exact line the same columnist had written several years ago. But Abdullah Öcalan's latest message, through his brother, that "this is a war with no winners," was written in this column, in the exact same wording, several times. Mr. Öcalan is right. Just like in the twin paintings of Catalan muralist Jose Maria Sert that decorate an interior hall at les Palais des Nations in Geneva.

One of the paintings, titled "The Winners," depicts a proud army parade - the...