The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey

From Protest to Resistance

Cengiz Gunes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136587986
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Nationalism & Patriotism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides an interpretive and critical analysis of Kurdish identity, nationalism and national movement in Turkey since the 1960s. By raising issues and questions relating to Kurdish political identity and highlighting the ideological specificity, diversity and the transformation of Kurdish nationalism, it develops a new empirical dimension to the study of the Kurds in Turkey.

Cengiz Gunes applies an innovative theoretical approach to the analysis of an impressively large volume of primary sources and data drawn from books and magazines published by Kurdish activists, political parties and groups. The analysis focuses on the specific demands articulated by the Kurdish national movement and looks at Kurdish nationalism at a specific level by disaggregating the nationalist discourse, showing variations over time and across different Kurdish nationalist organisations. Situating contemporary Kurdish political identity and its political manifestations within a historical framework, the author examines the historical and structural conditions that gave rise to it and influenced its evolution since the 1960s. The analysis also encompasses an account of the organisational growth and evolution of the Kurdish national movement, including the political parties and groups that were active in the period.

Bringing the study of the organisational development and growth of the Kurdish National Movement in Turkey up to date, this book will be an important reference for students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, social movements, nationalism and conflict.

1 Deconstructing Kurdish Identity and Nationalism in Academic Discourses

Introduction

The lack of academic institutions to coordinate and fund research into Kurdish history and society meant that surprisingly little research about the Kurds was carried out until the 1980s.¹ For many years the denial of the existence of a separate Kurdish ‘nation’ was pursued as an official policy and the Kurds were described as ‘Mountain Turks’; in this way, the state restricted the scope of studies on all aspects of Kurdish society and culture. Unsatisfied with such restrictions, the state sponsored, produced and disseminated research, which had the aim of proving the ‘Turkishness’ of the ‘Kurds’ and was used to justify their forced assimilation.² Additionally, academic debate and research on the Kurds was suppressed as a result of the hegemonic representation of the Kurdish question in the state’s discourse as a case of ‘reactionary politics’, ‘separatism’ or ‘terrorism’.³ This classified research on the Kurds as undesirable and created barriers for researchers by preventing them from questioning the ‘official’ representation of the Kurds in the state and popular media discourses or from engaging with the pertinent questions of Kurdish identity.⁴ From the 1960s onwards, the state’s discourse on the Kurds and the Kurdish question started to face a challenge from Kurdish activists.⁵ Such a political critique was supplemented by ethnographic research carried out by sociologist İsmail Beşikci, who has been the main proponent of the critical studies of the Kurds in Turkey.⁶

The gradual emergence of the Kurdish national movement and the increase in Kurdish political activism in Turkey from the 1980s onwards witnessed a corresponding increase in books and articles on the Kurds and Kurdish nationalism. Overall these studies address a diverse range of issues and focus on different periods and aspects of Kurdish society and politics. Whereas the overwhelming number of these studies focuses on the historical origins and development of Kurdish nationalism in the Middle East,⁷ with the intensification of the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish army and the security forces during the 1990s, numerous conflict analyses and political history accounts of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey have also been published.⁸ This is unsurprising given that with the intensification of the conflict during the 1980s and 1990s, the Kurdish question acquired a central stage in Turkish politics, and had a huge impact on Turkey’s domestic politics and on her relations with the European and Middle Eastern states. More recently studies that have a narrower focus on the PKK and the contemporary Kurdish national movement in Turkey have also been published.⁹ However, in comparison with conflict and political violence, the Kurdish democratic and legal form of political engagement in Turkey has received relatively little attention. This chapter analyses the current literature to see how the issues and questions raised by my research – namely those pertaining to Kurdish nationalist ideology, and identity and mobilisation – are addressed.

The Kurds and the Kurdish Question in Turkey: Conflict Analysis and Political History Literature

Predominantly the political history literature focuses on the re-emergence and evolution of Kurdish nationalism from the 1960s onwards and the conflict between the PKK and Turkey during the 1980s and 1990s. The causal explanation provided by the political history accounts, such as Taspinar (2005), McDowall (2000) and Van Bruinessen (2000), highlight the significance of the social and economic changes that took place in the Kurdish society as a result of the modernisation process in Turkey – in particular increased urbanisation, higher levels of educational attainment and increased contact with the wider world during the 1960s and 1970s. Similarly, the conflict analysis literature as exemplified in the works of Gürbey (1996; 2000), Kirişci and Winrow (1997), Barkey and Fuller (1998), Gunter (1990; 2008) and Ibrahim (2000) examine the conflict between the PKK and Turkey within a historical framework. They trace its origins and evolution and highlight the contributing social, political and economic factors, such as economic backwardness, underdevelopment and migration.

The discussion of Kurdish political activism during the 1960s in the political history and conflict analysis accounts designates a significant role to the new generation of activists and mentions the activities they have engaged in, especially the publication of magazines. However, this descriptive account does not examine the contents of the magazines that Kurdish intellectuals published.¹⁰ Not only would such an analysis appropriately provide detail on the specificity of the demands that Kurdish activists were raising during the 1960s, but it would also draw attention to their conceptualisation of Kurdish identity and difference, and the cultural and political issues that they discussed in their magazines. By shedding light on how the Kurdish issue and demands were constituted in the discourses of the new Kurdish activist, such an analysis – as provided in this book – would allow us to formulate a better understanding of the process of selfreflection and self-understanding during the 1960s that the Kurdish intellectuals fostered among the Kurds, which in later years led to the re-conceptualisation and re-interpretation of Kurdish identity and its articulation through the discourse of Marxism.

The main focus of conflict analysis and political history accounts is the conflict and the evolution of the Kurdish national movement from the 1970s onwards. In particular, the PKK’s hegemony over the Kurdish resistance is dis-cussed; for example, Van Bruinessen cites the PKK’s relations with other political groups and states in the Middle East, such as Syria, as a significant factor.¹¹ Conversely, Taspinar argues that what enhanced the PKK’s appeal amongst the Kurds was the state’s excessive and often indiscriminate use of force and repression, which was most acute during the military rule between 1980 and 1983, and included the use of indiscriminate violence against ordinary people and widespread torture against activists.¹² Barkey and Fuller, on the other hand, attribute the PKK’s dominance to its ability to fight the Turkish military and survive against the efforts to eradicate it. It is argued that the PKK exploited and benefited from the existing tribal rivalries and established and maintained ‘a broad infrastructure that facilitates its recruitment campaign’.¹³ Bozarslan (2000) also draws attention to the role that the ‘state’s coercion’ played in the PKK’s use of violence. He argues that the construction of the Kurds and the Kurdish identity demands as a threat to national security made the integration of Kurdish demands into the Turkish political arena difficult.¹⁴

Although an overview of Kurdish politics in Turkey since the 1970s is provided in the political history and conflict analysis literature, the ideological specificity of Kurdish nationalism and the demands articulated by the Kurdish national movement have received insufficient attention. This is because the above-mentioned studies do not incorporate into their analysis the vast amount of primary sources and political and ideological literature produced and disseminated by the Kurdish movement. In fact, there is either very little or only superficial discussion on the ideology and discourses of the Kurdish national movement. The lack of sustained attention on ideology and discourses of the Kurdish movement creates certain barriers to understanding the nature of the conflict and antagonism between the Kurds and Turkey. For example, the discussions provided by Gürbey (1996), Taspinar (2005) and Barkey and Fuller (1998) accept the form of antagonism between the Kurds and Turkey as given and draw attention to the conditions that made antagonism possible. They describe the subjection of the Kurds to state violence and persecution that made them react and oppose such practices. However, none of them focus on how the Kurds interpreted or saw their experience as oppression and how they proposed to challenge it.¹⁵ More specifically, they do not elaborate on how the relations of oppression were constructed within the discourses of the leading political groups and how this construction of antagonisms, in a particular way, implicates Kurdish identity in Turkey. Although most Kurds would have been victims of indiscriminate state violence, especially during political crises and military rule, many chose assimilation instead of resistance, whilst others chose to support Turkish left or Islamist groups. Hence, there were other avenues that could and were used to channel Kurdish discontent but the following relevant questions are not discussed in political history and conflict analysis literature: How did the Kurds interpret and formulate the solution to their oppression? And what made the Kurdish identity and demands articulated by the Kurdish national movement more appealing than the alternatives?

Ideology and Identity

As stated above, in general there is insufficient discussion of the ideology and discourses of the Kurdish national movement. In fact, the specificity and ideological diversity of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey are ignored and the issues of identity, especially how Kurdish identity is constructed within the hegemonic discourses that have been articulating Kurdish national demands, are not raised. For example, scholars often refer to the PKK as a Kurdish nationalist organisation without clarifying what is presupposed by this definition and without examining the key demands the PKK articulates. Such a characterisation creates confusion particularly when the PKK’s national liberation discourse is analysed. Barkey and Fuller set out to determine whether the PKK is a ‘nationalist’ or a ‘socialist’ organisation. They state:

The PKK’s program mirrored the slogans of the extreme Left: Kurdistan with all four of its segments, controlled by Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, represented the weakest link in “capitalism’s chain” and the fight against imperialism was a fight to save Kurdistan’s natural resources from exploitation.¹⁶

Despite acknowledging the PKK’s socialist credentials and the influence of the ‘extreme left’, in discussing the PKK’s discursive transformation, they argue:

In fact, behind the left-wing rhetoric, the PKK had always been a nationalist movement. Its promise to save the exploited of the Middle East notwithstanding, its very formation represented a break with the Turkish Left and abandonment of the ‘common struggle’.... Hence, its assumption of a nationalistic image is in fact not just in keeping with the times but also a return to its real self.¹⁷

Furthermore, Barkey and Fuller state: ‘Although the PKK is primarily a nationalist organisation, it would be wrong to assume that it has completely abandoned the political Left. Its discourse is that of a national liberation movement dedicated to the construction of a socialist state.’¹⁸ We do not know what Barkey and Fuller mean by ‘nationalist movement’ as they do not offer any definition but they presuppose that a national movement cannot use ‘left wing rhetoric’ or it cannot remain nationalist if it does so. As I argue in Chapter 2, it is very difficult to define a movement as ‘primarily nationalist’ because nationalism is strongly connected to other political ideologies and nationalist movements are involved in some other aspect of political demands. This is evident in the Kurdish case because since the creation of Turkey, Kurdish national demands were articulated within various discourses; initially, within the Islamist-conservative discourse (the early 1920s), as a modernist discourse (1920s and 1930s), underdevelopment (1960s), Marxist-Leninism (1970s and 1980s), and, finally, democracy (1990 onwards). Therefore, it is possible to articulate Kurdish national demands within a Marxist or socialist discourse and doing so would not mean that claims of social equality, as traditionally articulated by Marxism or socialism, are diminished; however, such an articulation changes the meaning of Kurdishness by altering the nature of the national demands. Also, instead of interpreting the PKK’s ideological and discursive changes as a ‘return to its real self’, focusing on how the articulation of Kurdish demands within different political projects conceptualises Kurdish identity in a specific way would help us towards a better understanding of the contemporary Kurdish political identity.

The discussion of the ideology and discourses of the PKK provided in White (2000) also suffers from similar limitations and simplifications. Without making any attempt to understand the ideological complexity of the PKK and the key claims that it has been articulating over the years, he argues: ‘The PKK claims to be Marxist and Leninist, but its ideology, strategy and tactics are a mixture of Stalinism and nationalism.’¹⁹ Furthermore, in his discussion of the PKK’s strategy and tactics, he again makes the connection to ‘Stalinism’:

In theory, the PKK remains formally wedded to a Stalinistic two-stage theory of revolutionary strategy, in which the first stage is the achievement of a united democratic and independent Kurdistan (including the current Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria), via a ‘national democratic revolution’.²⁰

White’s assertion is a serious simplification of the PKK’s discourse as it does not seek to understand the specific claims and demands articulated by it. The specific articulation of Kurdish rights and demands and what conceptions of Kurdish identity emerge within the discourse of the PKK do not feature in his account. Hence, White’s account fails to provide a sufficient discussion on the processes of identity formation and does not discuss the contours of the contemporary Kurdish political identity as has been constructed within the discourse of the PKK or other Kurdish organisations.

The debates on Kurdish identity in the political history and conflict analysis literature converge around two dominant positions: they either deploy an ethnicist and subjective conception of Kurdish nation and national identity, or they question the claim that the Kurds are a nation. Izady (1992) is a good example of the former and he reconstructs the entire history of the Kurds and Kurdistan dating far back to the ancient period, covering geography, history, language, culture, economy and national identity. He defines the Kurds rather generally as ‘a multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-racial nation, but with a unified, independent, and identifiable history and culture’.²¹ Furthermore, he treats the category ‘Kurd’ as something that has always existed and has been internally constituted and, consequently, the interpretation of Kurdish identity demands or its representations does not feature in his study. Hassanpour (2003) also deploys a subjective understanding of nation and defines the Kurdish society as ‘the population that identifies itself as Kurds’ and Kurdish identity as ‘the feeling, idea, or experience of belonging to a collective entity called “Kurd”’.²² He examines the pre-twentieth century historical and literary discourses to trace the expression of this ‘distinct’ Kurdish identity; however, he does not offer any discussion of how the Kurdish collective entity is defined or re-interpreted by the Kurdish national movement in the contemporary period.

Conversely, the scholars that question the categorisation of the Kurds as a nation do so on the basis that the Kurds do not meet the necessary ‘objective criteria’, such as ‘a well-defined stat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviation
• Introduction
• 1. Deconstructing Kurdish identity and nationalism in academic discourses
• 2. Understanding Kurdish identity and nationalism in Turkey
• 3. The organic intellectuals and the re-emergence of Kurdish political activism in the 1960s
• 4. The emergence of the Kurdish socialist movement
• 5. The Kurdish national liberation discourse
• 6. ‘Becoming a Kurd’: the ‘national liberation’ war and mass mobilisation
• 7. Dislocations and the PKK’s turn to democracy (1992–present)
• 8. Contesting democracy and pluralism: the pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index