"Modernized" Turks vs "Fundamental" Kurds

Turkey’s evolution from a member of an Ottoman state to one that prides itself as a westernized Islamic country has left a certain sect of the population, specifically the Kurds, to be misrepresented. Since then, most notably after Ataturk’s presidential reign in the 1930s, the ideology of Turkey has encapsulated normative beliefs that have worked to silence the voices and wants of the Kurdish people; these differences have led to policy prescriptions by the Turkish majority that has caused reactions of both indifference and activism in the Kurds. The exigency of this conflict has only heightened as the various “Arab spring” revolutions have intensified the activist Kurds to achieve greater forms of freedoms. The Kurds and Turks do not fight over security, land, or wealth though. Their struggles run far deeper then that, ones that are based off differences in normative beliefs that comprise their different ideologies rather than just material. A normative belief, as defined by an international relations constructivist, is an idea that constrains or pushes state behavior.

The separation between Kurd and Turks first seemed to develop due to differences in language and culture. Countries that have large minorities speaking different languages tend to have tension that span large periods of time, such as what occurred in Czecho-Slovakia and various former Yugoslavian states. However, the Kurds are not just a small minority, in fact, ethnic Kurds establish about 23% of Turkey’s population[i]. This fact, that the Kurds account for a large amount of the population, in addition to the fact that Kurds are reproducing at a substantially faster rate than Turks has caused the Turkish government to worry about what changes their state may go through under new Kurd leadership. This is why legislation has been passed that prohibits the use of any kind of Kurdish dialect.

The ambitious attempts to destroy Kurdish culture and build Turkish homogenization has been carried out in various forms by the Turkish government; these methods include banning publication of books and newspapers, television broadcasts, religious preaching, and education to be done in Kurdish[ii]. The assimilation to force the Turkish language on the Kurds was generally successful, however, the government failed in injecting Turkish nationalism into the mind of the Kurds. This frustration with the policy prescriptions, ideology, and normative beliefs of the Turkish government caused a rebel party to rise in the early 1990s, called the Kurdistan Worker’s Party or otherwise known as the PKK. The PKK has origins that lie with socialist and communist beliefs, beliefs that vastly conflict with the democratic ideology that the Turkish government has implemented since Ataturk’s revolution[iii]. These kinds of policies that the Turkish government pursues are reminiscent of the McCarthy era in the United States, an era in which many were persecuted, shunned, and condemned for even being associated with the communist ideology, the ideology that was associated as being anti-American.

The modern government of Turkey has constructed a reality from their normative beliefs that has made it acceptable for an undemocratic treatment towards the Kurdish people, even though it conflicts with what they consider their ideology. This undemocratic treatment towards Kurds includes torture, suppression of religious based parties, trying to ban Kurdish leadership from politics, and the blocking of constitutional amendments that affect the Kurdish minority[iv]. The Turkish government has even gone as far as getting other countries, such as Denmark, to shut down Kurdish television networks such as Roj TV which was linked to the leftist PKK organization; Denmark accepted this deal in exchange for an agreement by Turkey to lift its veto against Anders Fogh Rasmussen (the former Danish Prime Minster) who was vying for Chief of NATO[v].

Liberals or realists have difficulties in explaining these actions taken by the Turkish government; what the Turks are concerned with when dealing with the Kurds are not matters of material concepts, but rather matters that deal with the new social norms of Turkey. The Kurds and their associated parties are associated with words such as the ‘past’ and ‘tradition’ while the Turks have come to value the ‘present’ and ‘modernity’[vi].

The new values of the Turks accepting democracy and modernity have been continuously proven; recent acts that prove these values include Turkey’s bid for acceptance into the European Union. However, Turkey’s bid into the European Union will mean giving up some sovereignty that they currently or have enjoyed. In 2004 they abolished the death penalty as one of the many steps that Turkey would need to go through in order to align their normative beliefs with the beliefs of the European Union[vii]. As of now, since the Turks seek acceptance in to the European Union, cooperation between Kurds and Turks has been at an all time high. The Kurds have now received a national TV station and are now able to have their language taught at private universities (though not public ones). Though the Kurds are still heavily economically, politically, and culturally discriminated against, the fact that the Turks are further looking into westernizing themselves gives hope that increased freedom of speech will be available in the future for Kurds.

The future of the Kurds and their freedom depends upon many variables that may be answered in the near future as Turkey gets closer to possibly being accepted into the European Union. The Turks seek to protect their newly formed identity of democracy, but by crushing the free speech of Kurds they are creating a dissonance between their normative beliefs, ideologies, and policies. It will be interesting to see as to whether or not wanting to be more European will allow the Turks to be more accepting towards the Kurds as recent developments have shown. Also, another interesting further inquiry to explore would be whether or not another “Arab spring” will occur considering how social media sites can now be used to increase communication between Kurds, something that Turks have feared since the age of Ataturk. To surmise, the Kurd and Turkish situation is not purely constructive, for some of the democratic and westernized principles that Turkey does follow is because of a want for more security through being included in the European Union. However, the suppression that the Kurds currently endure is not due to an economic benefit for Turkey, but because of a want to maintain an identity that is more European and modernized rather than traditional and Middle Eastern. Would Turkey be putting up the same fight that they are with the Kurds if the Kurds didn’t represent the old Turkey, the Turkey that is represented by a fundamental Islamic society?

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[i] McDowall. A Modern History of the Kurds, p.3.

[ii] K. Deutch, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966), p.96

[iii] McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, p.419.

[iv] 50. I_. Kafeso􏰀glu, Tu ̈rk-I_slaˆm Sentezi (I_stanbul: Aydınlar Oca􏰀gı, 1985); G. Bacik, ‘The Transformation of Muslim Self and the Development of a New Discourse in Europe: the Turkish Case’, International Review of Sociology, Vol.13, No.1 (2003), pp.21–38

[v] ‘Rasmussen Hedges on Roj TV ‘‘mea culpa’’’, Hu ̈rriyet, 6 April 2009.

[vi] M. Ye􏰀gen, ‘The Kurdish Question in Turkish State Discourse’, Journal of Contemporary History,

Vol.34, No.4 (Oct. 1999), pp.555–68, at p.568

[vii] Personal communication with Zafer U ̈ sku ̈ l, President of the Parliamentary Committee on Inspection

of Human Rights, July 2009.