Ethnic Incorporation Policies and Peripheral Reactions: How Turkey’s Kurds are Treated by the State and How They Perceive Their Treatment

Year 2012, Volume: 1 Issue: 2, 97 - 120, 01.12.2012

Huseyin Alptekin

Abstract

This paper examines the policies adopted by the consecutive Justice and Development Party governments toward the Kurdish population in Turkey since 2002. These policies are called ethnic incorporation policies in the paper and take inclusive or exclusive forms. The paper distinguishes between the ethnic incorporation policies adopted and implemented by the political center and their perception in the Kurdish periphery. The paper investigates these policies in four overlapping and intersecting, but conceptually distinct domains: security, socio-culture, economy, and politics. It concludes that while ethnic incorporation policies take increasingly inclusive forms in the socio-cultural and economic domains, the increasing exclusiveness in the security domain infringes the political domain and invalidates the moves toward further inclusion in this domain which have been gained as a result of a slow and painstaking process

Keywords

Ethnic conflict, ethnic incorporation, ethnic politics, Kurds, Turkey

References

• Ethnic incorporation is often used to refer the processes whereby ethnicity becomes increasingly central for group mobilization in anthropological studies (Handelman, ; Eriksen, 1993). This paper uses the concept in a different context as the set of policies adopted and implemented by the state toward an ethnic group residing in the country. For a similar use of the concept, see: Kopstein and Wittenberg, 2010.
• (interview with Adil Kurt on 14.2.2012). (The election data are calculated based on the election results at <http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/secim2011/default.html>, last access on 12.2.2012).
• (interview with Adil Kurt on 14.2.2012). (The election data are calculated based on the election results at <http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/secim2011/default.html>, last access on 12.2.2012).
• For an insightful discussion of the evolution of the state discourse on Kurds, see Yegen (2007).
• Cevdet Aşkın’s column in daily Radikal on December 14th, 2011 is an exception in the mainstream Turkish media in this respect (available at: <http://www.radikal.com. tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalYazar&ArticleID=1072404&Yazar=CEVDET%20
• A%DEKIN&Date=14.12.2011&CategoryID=98>, last access on 11.2.2012). 34 people from Roboski Village were confused with PKK militia and died in an airstrike on December 28th, 2011 when they were returning with smuggled products from across the Iraqi border. Smuggling products such as tea, tobacco, and fuel oil is a common source of income in the region, and is called ‘cross-border trade’ by many local residents.
• The Güngen family is one of the many examples. Heybet Güngen joined the PKK at the age of 13 and died at the age of 15 in a conflict with the state security forces in Heybet’s brother Salih was serving in the Turkish army when he heard of his sister’s death (source: <http://urfastar.com/Yasam-kizi-dagda,-oglu-askerde-1245. html> last access on 12.2.2012).
• Pierson (2000, p.252) defines path-dependency as a situation “in which preceding steps in a particular direction induce further movement in the same direction” with a particular reference to historical institutionalism.
• Author’s interview in Diyarbakır on 21.12.2011
• The respondent names are kept confidential in cases when it is asked for by the respondent. The respondent requested his name to be kept confidential. Given that the respondent has not made any statement that could be criminalized, even this request is an evidence of fears in peripheral Kurdish circles. Author’s interview in Ankara on 8.2.2012. Doing ‘politics on plains’ rather than going up to the (Kandil) Mountain was a phrase first used by Mehmet Ağar, former
• Minister of Interior Affairs and former leader of True Path Party. Alesina et.al. (2003) see religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups as the three principal sub-groups of ethnicity. This paper focuses on the first two categories. While the term ‘ethnic group’ as a separate category from the first two categories seems to be vague, some other factors such as race (in terms of morphological features), socio- economic class/caste are not primary indicators of ethnic identity in the region.
• Chandra (2006, p.398) defines ethnic identities as “a subset of identity categories in which eligibility for membership is determined by attributes associated with, or believed to be associated with, descent”, or simply as ‘descent-based attributes’. This definition seems to capture the idea of ethnicity better than purely objectivist or subjectivist definitions of the term.
• <http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/ShowNew.aspx?id=16264251> (last access on 11.2.2012).
• The term ‘Kurdish rebellion’ does not imply that the rebellion was welcomed by the entire Kurdish community in Turkey. In fact, none of the uprisings and rebellions could have collected the approval of the entire, and probably even the majority of, Kurdish community up to this day. Nevertheless, Sheikh Said rebellion was initiated and implemented with references to Kurdish nationalism. As Uçarlar (2009, p.113) notes, the leaders of the rebellion were accused of striving for the establishment of
• Kurdistan in the trials following the repression of the rebellion. While the Sheikh Said rebellion was not the first rebellion with an ethnic character during the republican period, it was the first full-scale uprising in terms of its spread and effect. Tan distinguishes ‘laicism’ as “a strict implementation of French Jacobinism” from secularism (author’s interview in Ankara on 7.2.2012).
• Author’s interview in Ankara on 7.2.2012.
• Affairs, Mehmet Görmez, rejected the claims that present ‘mele opening’ is a political and security project (for Görmez’s statement, see: <http://www.stargazete. com/politika/-mele-acilimi-bir-diyanet-projesi-haber-407067.htm>, accessed on 2.2012).
• Özal probably was the first reformist political leader in respect to the Kurdish question. He launched a new approach to the Kurdish question. As Brown (1995, p.120) lists, in the context of this new rapprochement, Özal “presented the language bill permitting Kurdish to be used in everyday conversation and folklore music recordings; met with representatives of the Iraqi Kurds; and granted an amnesty that applied to many Turkish Kurds, such as the former mayor of Diyarbakir, Mehdi Zana.”
• Source: <http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=98204>, last access on 2.2012.
• The examples include Kurdish language institutes and Kurdish language and literature departments that are opened or approved to be opened at universities such as Mardin Artuklu University, Muş Alparslan University, Bingöl University, and Tunceli University. Many other universities in the Eastern and Southeastern Turkey applied for permission to open departments respectively and are waiting for approval. Author’s interviews, respectively, in Diyarbakır on 21.12.2011 and in Ankara on 12.2012.
• Author’s interview in Diyarbakır on 19.12.2011.
• Author’s interview in Diyarbakır on 19.12.2011.
• Author’s interview in Diyarbakır on 20.12.2011.
• The full text of the constitution is available at (last access on 12.2.2012): <http:// www.anayasa.gov.tr/images/loaded/pdf_dosyalari/THE_CONSTITUTION_OF_
• THE_REPUBLIC_OF_TURKEY.pdf> Author’s interviews in Batman and Diyarbakir, respectively, on 15.12.2011 and 12.2011.
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• Author’s interview in Ankara on 9.2.2012.
• Author’s interview in Ankara on 7.2.2012.
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• Author’s interview in Diyarbakır on 16.12.2011.
• Author’s interview in Diyarbakır on 19.12.2011.
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