The Kurdish minority issue in Turkey. (c2008)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explain the confrontational strategy espoused by the Republic of Turkey vis-a-vis the PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan-Kurdistan Workers' Party) and the state's persistent denial of Kurdish minority socio-political rights, despite the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, its founder and leader in February 1999. It looks at reasons for this relentless approach with emphasis on systemic factors for the purpose of contextualizing the Kurdish minority-Turkish relation. The study explores whether or not ethnic concerns can be accommodated within a secularist paradigm and the effectiveness of confrontational strategies, which solely depend on militarism and oppression in dealing with minority issues. The analysis is conducted within the framework of the relation between ultra-nationalism, which is reinforced by the nationalization of culture that negates the cultural diversity of the society, and the rise of counter-hegemonic ideologies and ethnic movements that often opt for violence as exemplified by the PKK. Turkey's relationship with its Kurdish minority is seen in its broader historical context, which illuminates the former's hesitance concerning the adoption of a conciliatory approach rather than the current confrontational one, and provides the background for the incumbent government's preferences concerning minority socio-political rights. Therefore, the study assumes that the politicization of Kurdish ethno-nationalism has been essentially related to the idiosyncratic Kemalist nation-building process. The study problematizes the notion that the struggle is between the Turkish state and the Kurdish movement, who are considered neither homogeneous nor essentially rational actors, due to the various strands within each side. This analysis therefore aims to pinpoint contradictory trajectories espoused by both sides, which further protract the relevant dilemma. In the end Turkey may find it ever more difficult to ignore its Kurdish minority's sociopolitical rights, due to external factors such as the European Union's conditionality and the evolution of an autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq; and internal factors such as the imperative of an inevitable and irreversible democratization process, which allowed political Islam to crystallize into a mainstream modernizing entity.