Kurdish Question and Civil Society

Kurdish Question As an issue of As an issue of democracy Why? external terrorism internal terrorism economic inequality As an issue of democracy Why?

A Short History of Kurdish Question Kurdish revolts during the 1920s and the late 1930s (WHY?) Sheik Sait Rebellion in 1925 Democrat Party (1950) Kurdish Question as a problem of economic backwardness 1960s and 1970s (after the 1960 military coup) Parties talking about Kurds Integration of the Kurdish intellectuals into the leftist movement

PKK Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, [PKK] (1978) Emergence of legal political parties State’s Response to PKK terror: OHAL (emergency rule) Radicalization of Kurdish movement as a reaction Capture of Abdullah Ocalan (PKK’s leader) in 1999 European Union

Civil Society and Ethnic Problems Organizations can put restrictions over the state’s ethnic policies (The more organizational networks cut across ethnic boundaries, the harder the politicians to polarize communities). Organizations can reduce the conflict between ethnic communities through interethnic communication and cooperation (we should be careful about the organizations producing bonding social capital).

Organization in Concern Type Issues ADD (The Association for Kemalist Thinking) Kemalist Secular Kemalism, secularism, and nationalism CKD (The Association of Women of the Republic) Gender, Kemalism, and secularism IHD (Human Rights Association)   Non-Kemalist Secular Human rights, Kurdish Question Ak-Der (The Women’s Rights Association against Discrimination) Islamic Gender, education, and human rights Ozgur-Der (The Association for the Freedom of Thought and Educational Rights) Education, gender, and human rights Mazlum-Der (Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People) Human rights

General View: ADD As a problem created by western imperialism Imperialism allies itself with those who adopt terrorism (viz., PKK) as a method to divide the country (ADD: October 13, 2009). Foreign countries, especially the USA and Europe, are trying to help the PKK establish a regional Kurdish state, which they could easily manipulate to realize their economic and political interests. They are hoping to realize these goals by referring to such democratic principles as human rights (the president of ADD).

General View: CKD As an economic problem but also a problem of imperialism Once you go to the regions surrounding Ankara, you will see the same problems. What you see in a village of Diyarbakir might be the same as what you see in a village of Ankara. This problem exists because the state fails to be a social state and the state of law (the president of CKD). Once the economic conditions are combined with ethic differences, it is easier for imperialism to manipulate these regions (the president of CKD).

General View: Ak-Der Economic problem but also a consequence of state-imposed Turkish identity My family, for example, is from the Black Sea region. My parents’ village is poorer than theirs are (referring to Kurdish villages)….They think that their poverty derives from the region’s structure and that the state cannot do everything. But for the people in the southeast, this is not the case (the president of Ak- Der). Imposition of Turkish identity increases their frustration

General View: IHD IHD views the Kurdish question as a problem of democracy and human rights. Thus, this can all be resolved by establishing a stable democracy so that the supremacy of the law could be realized and human rights protected (IHD: July 17, 2008; IHD: November 2, 2008). Emphasizes pluralism and openness for the solution of the Kurdish Question.

General View: Ozgur-Der As a problem produced by Kemalism Kemalism wants to maintain its 85-year-position, which cannot be considered legitimate, by imposing the policy of Turkish nationalism on society with military power and the judicial bureaucracy. The painful results of all these attempts to put all people into the framework of Turkist, Kemalist, or secular-modern are very obvious. Among them are fired and evacuated villages, tortures, executions, states of emergency, JITEM, and Ergenekon (Ozgur-Der: August 7, 2009).

General View: Mazlum-Der As a problem of democracy For it, Turkey’s …system created the Kurdish question by not recognizing Kurds’ rights and freedoms of religion and expression (Mazlum- Der: December 6, 2007) because the bureaucracy’s definition of “nation” was based on delusions and subjective perceptions of a threat. These attitudes enabled the state to standardize and reject [differences] (Mazlum-Der: August 7, 2009).

Language: ADD The Kurdish channel opened by the state violates the laws whose change cannot even be proposed, for it is known that the language of the state is Turkish (ADD: January 14, 2009). Will damage the unity of the country.

Language: CKD When you go to Anatolia, everybody speaks Kurdish …. They have their cultural rights … because Anatolia has a cultural richness …. But education in the mother tongue is something different; it is a different demand…. It leads to separation and is something provoked by imperialism (President of CKD).

Language: IHD IHD invited TGNA to remove all language bans based on the principle of democratic pluralism and to act in line with human rights (IHD: February 25, 2009). Refers to international laws that Turkey signed such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights and European Declaration of Human Rights

Language: Mazlum-Der Using one’s mother tongue as the language of instruction is a basic right and freedom. This ban, according to it, constitutes an obstacle on the way to creating a free and equal social order and, in addition, is unacceptable in terms of the universal principles of law and human rights. It has also called for removing all language prohibitions on the freedom of expression, keeping the Kurdish names for places, restoring the original names of previously inhabited Kurdish places, preaching sermons in Kurdish in the region’s mosques, giving preference to hiring Kurdish- speaking people for regional appointments, staging Kurdish plays in state theatres; and opening institutions for the Kurdish language that would research Kurdish literature and language (Mazlum- Der: January 1, 2009).

Language: Ozgur-Der This organization drew public attention to a petition submitted to the state by a group demanding this right. Transforming a petition that involves the demands for Kurdish education into membership in a terrorist organization or support for this organization is a good indication of the official ideology’s intolerance of differences and the paranoia that dominates the state administration (Ozgur-Der: Not dated).

Kurdish Opening: ADD Those external and internal enemies who understood the impossibility of establishing a state through terror were attempting to do so by using political means (viz., the “Kurdish Opening” or the “Democratic Opening”) to accomplish the same goal (ADD: September 17, 2009). This strategy would lead to … separation and conflict (ADD: December 28, 2009).

Kurdish Opening: Mazlum-Der Mazlum-Der argued that the Kurdish Opening should be handled as a problem of democratization and expanded to all segments of society.

Kurdish Opening: Ozgur-Der Although the solutions proposed by the Kurdish Opening are very important, they will never be conclusive as long as the existing Kemalist and Turkist approach is maintained…As long as the Kemalist-Turkist identity is imposed on children as an unquestionable and untouchable ideological taboo through mandatory education and military ceremonies, a real solution can be no more than a dream (Ozgur-Der: August 7, 2009).

Provides a “kind of mutual identification that unites individuals dispersed by class, race, religion, ethnicity, or race” Membership in these groups often cuts across major social cleavages, and thereby promotes a sense of ‘horizontal connectedness’” among citizens Individuals acquire such cooperative virtues as “justice and fairness” and “broaden their moral horizons, and learn to consider the needs and interests of others”