Barba is completely right here. Former Turkish governments were following way too nationalistic policies to realize that it is a natural right for anyone to speak their native language.

This is a problem caused by the common ignorance of the parties involved. On one side, there are the Kurds with medieval traditions and on the other the Turks wishing to part with the mistakes of the past.

We could not raise so many philosophers and pathfinders and we are paying for that lack now.

 Sorry but you are terribly wrong! Let me guess: you are a typical voice. You never dig deep enough to get the truth. You only recycle the garbage on the surface. Don´t let others blind you with their encouraging words like "barba is right here". Well,if not on TV, they could sing their songs in wedding ceremonies, funerals, circumcision feasts and of course in bathroom serenades!  Tell me a Kurdish person who put in jail or punished by fine just because he sang a Kurdish song while putting the cattle out to his village´s pasture, or because he used Kurdish language in the shadow of a willow tree to convince his girl friend (!) to make love with him!  It is you who needs to be realistic here. It was not only Kurdish Language, but also any language used by any ethnic group or minority in Turkey was banned. And it was not a government policy, but a state policy. And it was mainly because to provide the unity of language for better and healthier communication between the peoples coming from over than 40 different cultures and at least 10 languages. We are talking about a new born nation-state in early 1900´s. And you compare it with your Europan country in late 1900´s or early 2000´s. Shame on you! You must be ashamed for putting the apples and the pears in the same basket! Kurdish LAnguage has kept living with its all accents and sub-dialects whereas the other languages almost disappeared from our shared culture. If you need to criticise our state policy about languages, you must cry for those dead languages but not for Kurdish which is alive as it has never been before. Or maybe you are claiming that Turks don´t know how to assimilate a nation (that´s true!), or Kurds can keep living even in any terribly inconvenient circumstances. (that´s true also!   ...And if you are talking about the flag of that terrorist organization, 2 x shame on you! I would like to hear wise words from you, but you sound like a spokesman of that terrorist organization.  

p.s. May God protect me from your and your followers´ wrath because I posted this here. 

Kurdish (amongst other languages) was not allowed to be spoken in public in Turkey. This is a fact, and you know it. You can stand behind this ban if you want, but don´t pretend like it was okay for people to speak Kurdish in front of a group of Turkish police men or something. Yes, people spoke Kurdish (and other languages) inside their homes, but this does not mean that Turkey was a free country for these people at the time. During the ban (let´s take the period of the 1980´s) Turkish schools already existed in Holland. That is the comparison I was making. I think the Dutch government has failed the Turkish immigrants of that time but not putting programs into place during those times that really encouraged people to learn Dutch. This means that a lot of first generation immigrants today do not speak enough Dutch to function well in our society.

I´m not against having one common language, and making everybody learn this language. I am against pressuring people to not speak a language that they feel is "their own". However, my opinion has no effect on historical events. The ban was there, if you or me  or whoever agrees with such a ban or not.

PS: The Kurdish flag predates the existence of the PKK, so therefor I DIDN´T mean a terrorist flag, but a cultural flag.

The ban was there. Shops could not have Kurdish names either, they would close them if you did not change it to a Turkish one.

That is a fact, and things are changing to the better today

(And no, I do not have a Kurdish boyfriend nor am I brainwashed by one )

It does not take that much to study/read history, but you gain a lot from it.

My dad´s side suffered from that ban as they were immigrants from Batumi, Caucasia. I was told ,in my childhood, many times by my grandparents that they were not allowed to use their language in public. The period of time they were talking about was long before 1980´s. So the ban is not only a matter of 1980´s. As I said before, it had been a ban of long years even since the very beginning. They were not allowed to give their traditional names to their babies. And finally, I don´t know the exact date but probably in 80´s, they changed the name of our village (in Ordu province)  into Turkish from Georgian, and the name of our town into Turkish from Greek (Vona= Perşembe)...

Do you want to hear more, or you are only interested in Kurds in Turkey?     

I have never felt that I was banned to speak my native language as a circassian because by the result of Turkey´s assimilation policy my native language became Turkish and I became a perfect product of that policy. Even I don´t care about my ethnicity. I am a stranger to my language and people. I feel as a Turk. I don´t know whether it is good or bad.Overall I am a perfect product. Don´t expect much from me

So, you are a cherkes? How interesting!

Ah.. Them evil Turks and their backwards fascist ways. Why wouldn´t they follow European Standards?

Language Policy in France:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_France

"In 1999 the Socialist government of Lionel Jospin signed the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but it was not ratified. The Constitutional Council of France declared that the implementation of the Charter would be unconstitutional since the Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French."

"According to French republican ideology (see also Laïcité), all citizens are equal and therefore no groups may exercise extra rights"

Sounds familiar?

"Teaching in regional languages is not supported by the state, despite popular demand asking for recognition of the regional languages."

France´s endangered languages:

"In the 1950s, more than one million people spoke Breton as their main language. The countryside in western Brittany was still overwhelmingly Breton-speaking. Today, about 250,000 people are able to speak Breton (one-sixth of the population in the region), most of whom are elderly. Other regional languages have generally followed the same pattern; Alsatian and Corsican have resisted better, while Occitan has followed a still-worse trend."

Note: I am not trying to say "hey, French do it so we can", rather "Herkes kendi kapısının önünü süpürsün".

First of all, I´m not French so that´s all not my business.

Second of all, two wrongs don´t make a right. What does France´s behaviour have to do with Turkish behaviour? And in France foreign languages or ethnic minority languages are not banned in public, so the level of supression is nowhere near eachother.

Third of all... YES I will always think that it was WRONG for Turkey to ban Kurdish in public. I got really ticked off since somebody started denying that this ever happened. I don´t understand why you are trying to defend such a facist move by saying "look at them, they did it as well." If you think the ban was good, come up with some good arguments. If you think the ban is bad, admit it and don´t make excuses. When I see recent developments like the Kurdish tv network, I think the country is making progress, but that´s my opinion. I can defend that opinion with sound arguments, and I always will.