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The Kurdish question in Turkish state discourse
... Behind this heavy losses of life and property comes the Kurdish issue, one of Turkey's ethnopolitical problems which is as old as the modern republic (Yeğen, 1999). Due to the perception of homogeneous identity in Turkish nationalization, the Kurdish language was banned along with many other minority languages throughout the 20th century, Kurds were subjected to forced migration within the country and their political representation was tried to be obstructed with practices such as electoral threshold (Yeğen, 2013). ...
... This problem, which mostly the Kurds are exposed to but concerns the whole society in Turkey, still remains on the agenda of the country with various denominations by different segments such as "the Kurdish Problem", "the Southeastern Problem", "the Terror Problem", "the Economic Underdevelopment Problem", "the Democracy Problem", "the Turkish Problem". On the other hand, Yeğen (1999Yeğen ( , 2013 showed that the Turkish state also defines the Kurdish issue with the technical and bureaucratic terms like "reactionism", "tribal resistance", "banditry", "foreign provocation" and "regional underdevelopment" that as if it does not require a social change by excluding ethnopolitical scope of the problem. This dominant discourse represented by the state denies the connection of the issue with Kurds or their cultural and political rights and also prevents a possible interaction between the Kurdish political movement and the Turkish society. ...
The Kurdish issue and the representation of the Kurds have generally remained a relatively neglected topic among Turkish psychologists. We have recently demonstrated that a common lack of interest is closely related to the political atmosphere of the country. Despite this general neglect, there are a few researchers who have been interested in the Kurdish question recently. In this article, we investigate the language and discourse of these studies – one way or another – related to the Kurds in order to reveal the knowledge-power production relations in Turkish psychology. To this aim, we subjected psychology theses on Kurds, written between 2000 and 2019 to thematic analysis and examined how psychology deals with and defines the Kurds. As a result of the preliminary analyses, we have found that the distribution of theses is quantitatively concentrated in the social change period called the ‘Peace Process’ in Turkey (i.e., 2009-2015) with a diversity of topics, methods, and content. Thus, we selected a total of 32 theses; three of which correspond to the period before the Peace Process, fifteen correspond to the period of the Peace Process and fourteen correspond to the period after the Peace Process for the thematic analysis. The results show that the Kurds are mainly discussed within the meta-themes of “Kurdish Issue” and “Defining Kurdishness”, respectively. The Kurdish Issue consists of State Oppression/Tyranny, Turkish-Kurdish Relations, the Kurdish question/problem, and Conflict & Violence themes, respectively. On the other hand, Defining Kurdishness consists of the Kurds, the Ignored, the Ethnocultural Minority and the Subordinate Group themes, respectively. In this paper, we delve into a more elaborate picture of the results with examples from emerging themes and the transformation of these themes during the changing political atmosphere. We also address the relationship between authority/state and knowledge/academia in light of the hegemonic discourse of Turkishness in the Turkish Republic.
... Indeed, in the Ottoman political regime, until the foundation of the Turkish nation-state, nation indicated a religious belonging instead of an ethnic community. Hence, there was a Muslim nation rather than a Turkish, Kurdish or Arab nation (Kirişçi &Winrow, 1997:90;Yeğen, 1999:557, Lewis, 1965). Yet, the discourses of westernization/modernization, centralization, secularism and nationalism through which the Turkish nation-state has been founded turned the leading elites of the state towards a formation of a new nation which is not based on religious affiliation. ...
... Yet, the discourses of westernization/modernization, centralization, secularism and nationalism through which the Turkish nation-state has been founded turned the leading elites of the state towards a formation of a new nation which is not based on religious affiliation. (Yeğen, 1999) Yet, the "traditional society" that had to be transformed was multi-ethnic; hence the dominant logic of the nation-building process could not be based on ethnicity. That is why Mustafa Kemal, borrowing from Ziya Gökalp's formulation of Turkish nationalism, suggested a definition of nation on the terms of territory, morality, language and education which he would support until the mid-1920s (Kirişçi & Winrow, 1997: 97). ...
This thesis explores the ways in which Kurdish women students in Istanbul have constructed their political subjectivities at the crossroads of education and politics. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, the study analyzes two crucial dimensions of Kurdish women students’ experiences. First is related with the oppressive mechanisms in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia which impede women’s access to education. This thesis analyzes the intersecting dynamics of ethnicity, gender, and class that limit Kurdish women’s educational opportunities in the region, and the distinctive strategies they use to struggle against them. Secondly, as university students, their experiences in the city do not only distinguish them from other Kurdish women in Istanbul, but also shape the ways in which they politicize in the city. Their political subjectivities are shaped at the intersections of ethnicity and gender. Their negative approach to traditional politics and the increasing criminalization of dissident politics in Turkey with respect to Kurdish identity demands lead them to articulate their political concerns and demands in new political forms. I argue that Kurdish women students find themselves in a condition of bargaining between education and political engagement, and instead of choosing one, they integrate them with each other in various forms. Experiences of Kurdish women students open up a space to rethink women’s education problem, the politics of ethnicity and gender, as well as the intricate relationship between education and politics in contemporary Turkey, and highlight the need to understand the complex ways in which Kurdish political subjectivities are formed.
... Indeed, in the Ottoman political regime, until the foundation of the Turkish nation-state, nation indicated a religious belonging instead of an ethnic community. Hence, there was a Muslim nation rather than a Turkish, Kurdish or Arab nation (Kirişçi &Winrow, 1997:90;Yeğen, 1999:557, Lewis, 1965). Yet, the discourses of westernization/modernization, centralization, secularism and nationalism through which the Turkish nation-state has been founded turned the leading elites of the state towards a formation of a new nation which is not based on religious affiliation. ...
... Yet, the discourses of westernization/modernization, centralization, secularism and nationalism through which the Turkish nation-state has been founded turned the leading elites of the state towards a formation of a new nation which is not based on religious affiliation. (Yeğen, 1999) Yet, the "traditional society" that had to be transformed was multi-ethnic; hence the dominant logic of the nation-building process could not be based on ethnicity. That is why Mustafa Kemal, borrowing from Ziya Gökalp's formulation of Turkish nationalism, suggested a definition of nation on the terms of territory, morality, language and education which he would support until the mid-1920s (Kirişçi & Winrow, 1997: 97). ...
This thesis explores the ways in which Kurdish women students in Istanbul have
constructed their political subjectivities at the crossroads of education and politics.
Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, the study analyzes two crucial dimensions of Kurdish women students’ experiences. First is related with the oppressive mechanisms in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia which impede women’s access to education. This thesis analyzes the intersecting dynamics of ethnicity, gender, and class that limit Kurdish women’s educational opportunities in the region, and the distinctive strategies they use to struggle against them. Secondly, as university students, their experiences in the city do not only distinguish them from other Kurdish women in Istanbul, but also shape the ways in which they politicize in the city. Their political subjectivities are shaped at the intersections of ethnicity and gender. Their negative approach to traditional politics and the increasing criminalization of dissident politics in Turkey with respect to Kurdish identity demands lead them to articulate their political concerns and demands in new political forms. I argue that Kurdish women students find themselves in a condition of bargaining between education and political engagement, and instead of choosing one, they integrate them with each other in various forms. Experiences of Kurdish women students open up a space to rethink women’s education problem, the politics of ethnicity and gender, as well as the intricate relationship between education and politics in contemporary Turkey, and highlight the need to understand the complex ways in which Kurdish political subjectivities are formed.
... Wilson and colleagues (2017) investigated the impacts of various social categories on leadership perceptions, finding that gay Black men were perceived as better leaders than being just gay or Black. However, different traits were Kurdish language was prohibited during the 20th century) (Unver, 2015;Yeğen, 1999). ...
People have overlapping identities that impact their experiences. It is, therefore, essential to examine relationships between social identities to understand stereotypes and their effects better. The primary objective of this study was to explore perceptions of sexual orientation, age, gender, ethnicity, and stereotypical attributes of warmth and competence in a Turkish organizational context. The secondary objective was to discern coworker and manager preferences based on the intersection of these categories. A sample of 451 university students rated hypothetical work profiles. Analysis showed that Turkishness was pivotal in shaping social perceptions and workplace relationship preferences. The integration of stigmatized group categories, such as Kurdish identity, with non-stigmatized categories showed adverse impacts on preferences. The research highlights the importance of studying the interplay among diverse identity categories when analyzing social dynamics. We propose practical and theoretical implications concerning workplace diversity and discrimination.
... In his equation of the consumption of kaçak tea with support for the PKK, Cerrah (like the pro-Kurdish politicians discussed earlier) draws an indexical connection between the former beverage and Kurdish identity, even as in this case any explicit mention of such an identity is erased and replaced with vague references to criminality, separatism, and terrorism-a well-described feature of Turkish state discourse (Yeğen 1999). ...
In Turkey, tea is a near-universally consumed beverage that also operates as a salient moral and political sign in social life. This article describes how tea functions as a “medium of value” in the country, circulating as both a physical commodity and a multivalent sign vehicle that is closely linked in popular imagination to modern modes of egalitarian sociability and the formation of Turkey’s postwar multiparty democracy. In describing the semiotic ideologies that inform tea’s uptake as a sign and its place in Turkey’s modern public culture, the article also traces the historical-material processes that have made tea into both a symbolic model of communal solidarity and a salient sign of national difference—a contested semiotic medium of representation that informs popular discourses on public virtue and democratic politics and that is prominently mobilized in divergent public making projects in contemporary Turkey and North (“Turkish”) Kurdistan.
... (Sözcü, March 1, 2015, Bahçeli) In this representation, the other two representations are denied and resisted. It reflects the Turkish state's denial of Kurdish identity and related demands, termed the Turkish State Discourse (Yeğen, 1999). It illustrates how political and discursive efforts are required to maintain the status quo of Turkish nationalism, statism, and the dominant conflict narrative. ...
In this article, we aim to describe the societal meaning-making process of peace processes. Peace processes as proposals for societal change toward peace are challenging because they require not only imagining a future but also reconstructing the conflict history and maintaining a sense of continuity in terms of identity. We look at how the diversity of social knowledge and dealing with this diversity in the meaning-making process can influence social change toward peace. In particular, we investigate how different ways of representing the peace process in Turkey define different forms of actions as appropriate or inappropriate. We conducted a critical discourse analysis of 34 articles from five ideologically different newspapers about the three most important events of the peace process. We identified the existence of three different social representations: (a) a political struggle for democratization, (b) a way to develop Turkey, and (c) a process of destruction and deception. The peace process is made familiar by drawing on various identity constructions, cultural resources, and argumentation strategies; political actors introduce new norms about political participation by using these features of the representations and attributing agency, rights, and duties to the people. We interpret how the way the peace process is represented functions to deal with representations of others and to claim support for or resistance to social change toward peace.
... Kürtlerin maruz kaldığı ve Türkiye toplumunun tamamını ilgilendiren bu sorun farklı kesimler tarafından "Kürt Sorunu", "Güneydoğu Sorunu", "Terör Sorunu", "Ekonomik Geri Kalmışlık Sorunu", "Demokrasi Sorunu", "Türk Sorunu" gibi adlandırmalarla hala gündemdedir. Diğer yandan, Yeğen (1999; devletin de Kürt meselesini etno-politik kapsamından farklı olarak "irtica", "aşiret direnci", "eşkıyalık", "ecnebi kışkırtması" ve "bölgesel geri kalmışlık" gibi sosyal değişim gerektirmeyen teknik ve bürokratik bir sorun olarak tanımladığını gösterdi. Devletin temsilcisi olduğu bu baskın söylem, meselenin ...
The Kurdish issue and the representation of the Kurds have generally remained a relatively neglected topic among Turkish psychologists. We have recently demonstrated that a common lack of interest is closely related to the political atmosphere of the country. Despite this general neglect, there are a few researchers who have been interested in the Kurdish question recently. In this article, we investigate the language and discourse of these studies – one way or another – related to the Kurds in order to reveal the knowledge-power production relations in Turkish psychology. To this aim, we subjected psychology theses on Kurds, written between 2000 and 2019 to thematic analysis and examined how psychology deals with and defines the Kurds. As a result of the preliminary analyses, we have found that the distribution of theses is quantitatively concentrated in the social change period called the ‘Peace Process’ in Turkey (i.e., 2009-2015) with a diversity of topics, methods, and content. Thus, we selected a total of 32 theses; three of which correspond to the period before the Peace Process, fifteen correspond to the period of the Peace Process and fourteen correspond to the period after the Peace Process for the thematic analysis. The results show that the Kurds are mainly discussed within the meta-themes of “Kurdish Issue” and “Defining Kurdishness”, respectively. The Kurdish Issue consists of State Oppression/Tyranny, Turkish-Kurdish Relations, the Kurdish question/problem, and Conflict & Violence themes, respectively. On the other hand, Defining Kurdishness consists of the Kurds, the Ignored, the Ethnocultural Minority and the Subordinate Group themes, respectively. In this paper, we delve into a more elaborate picture of the results with examples from emerging themes and the transformation of these themes during the changing political atmosphere. We also address the relationship between authority/state and knowledge/academia in light of the hegemonic discourse of Turkishness in the Turkish Republic.
... İkinci bir soykırım tehlikesinden korkan 65.000 Iraklı mülteci Türkiye'ye sığınmıştır (Bruinessen, 2013: 74). Türkiye ilk başlarda gelenlere karşı çekimser olsa da daha sonra kapılarını gelen Iraklı mültecilere açmıştır (Foto 1-2 (Belge, 2011: 101;Yeğen, 1999). ...
... Another important peripheral political group is the Kurdish population, demanding equal representation and recognition of their ethnic rights (Demiralp, 2012;Yeğen, 1999). The Kurdish question is a political problem based on the lack of fair representation of the Kurds in the Turkish political context. ...
The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) came to power in 2002, and since then has never received <34% of nationwide voter support in Turkish general elections. Recent research focuses on the Economic Voting Theorem (EVT), specifically the varieties of pocketbook or sociotropic voting, as the primary explanation for the AKP’s successive electoral victories. However, this approach fails to adequately explain the ongoing electoral support for the AKP at both national and local levels, even under poor economic performance. It also fails to consider the impact of the spatial components of peripheral sociologies. This study employs the comparative method with EVT and Center–Periphery (C–P) phenomena in order to understand the dominant characteristics of voting behavior from a spatial perspective. Although EVT and C–P explanations take part in the literature, a limited number of studies measure and visualize the impact of those from a spatial perspective. In order to distinguish between the effects of EVT and C–P the study utilizes an original data set that measures different socio-economic factors such as per capita growth, unemployment, inflation, education, age, religious conservatism, ethnicity, and space both at the national and local levels. The results, contrary to expectations, show that the main drivers of voting behavior for the AKP consist of a mix of both C–P and EVT while C–P factors have a greater impact. In comparison to the EVT, C–P features such as religious conservatism and ethnicity perform better as predictors of the AKP’s electoral performance than the national and local economic conditions. Also, spatial results imply that support for the AKP has different spatial regimes based on ethnic identity and there are no spatial spillovers between spatial regimes in terms of voting behavior.
... While Making the ever-burning Kurdish question a topic of academic research has always been a challenge for scholars in Turkey. For example, İsmail Beşikçi empirically showed that Kurds are an ethnic group with its own language, in opposition to the official state ideology calling Kurds "mountain Turks who have forgotten their mother tongue" (Aslan, 2011;Yeğen, 1999). was sentenced overall to two centuries for his commitment to social justice and the rights of Kurds over the last four decades. ...
... (Bravo sesleri) Cumhuriyetin getirdiği bütün iyiliklerden yurdun diğer evlatları gibi oradakiler de tam anlamı ile yararlanacaklardır. 7 These labels on Dersim were in parallel with what Yeğen underlines in his analysis of the Turkish state discourse on the Kurdish issue (Yeğen 1999). 8 Personal translation from Sılan (2010). ...
This special-issue introduction highlights the burgeoning movement toward decolonizing Kurdish studies, outlining its challenges and opportunities within the academic landscape. Central to the authors’ discussion is the concept of the coloniality of power, which offers a framework for understanding the enduring oppression faced by Kurds within the context of ongoing colonial domination in the Middle East. The introduction delves into themes of historical erasure and academic marginalization, shedding light on the struggle for recognition within not only national and regional variants of area studies such as Turkish, Arab, Iranian, and Middle East studies but also the Euro-American academy more broadly. Furthermore, the introduction underlines the potential of decolonial methodologies in reshaping the study of Kurds and Kurdistan, emphasizing the significance of amplifying voices from the ground, including those of Kurdish intellectuals, activists, and politicians. Through critical reflexivity and engagement with diverse perspectives, the editors of this special issue call for a reimagining of Kurdish studies that prioritizes epistemic decolonization, centering the experiences and agency of Kurdish communities.
Through scrutiny of academic research in the context of ethnic conflict, the present article advances the agenda of critical policy studies. To that end, it conducts a case study of representations of the Kurds in Turkish scholarship and aims to highlight a nexus between nationalism, state policy, and scholarship. Two arguments are advanced herein. First, Turkish scholars who adhere to the dominant nationalist ideology in Turkey represent the Kurds in accordance with the dictates of this ideology and justify sovereign power in the maintenance of relations of ethnic domination and subordination. Second, while Turkey no longer denies the physical existence of the Kurds, the state and Turkish scholars persist in withholding recognition of Kurdish identity. The scholars in question do so under pretenses of scientific objectivity, political universalism, and a commitment to peace. However, the lingering of the policy of denial and the justification of it constitute a fundamental hurdle to a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish issue. A critical approach to state policy and scholarship not only makes it possible to debunk pretenses of scientific objectivity and political universalism, but may also be more conducive to scholarly autonomy and commitment to peace in societies marked by ethnic conflict.
In the early 2000s, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rose to power by contesting the electoral dominance of pro-Kurdish parties in the Kurdish-majority provinces of Turkey. The existing literature has accounted for the AKP's popularity among the Kurdish population by providing three distinct perspectives: economic performance, the use of ‘Islam as cement,’ and pledges to safeguard the ethnic rights of the Kurds as a ruling party. This article introduces a more encompassing perspective in understanding the AKP’s popularity among the Kurdish population. It argues that these three issues were encapsulated in the AKP’s outsider identity based on its stance against the injustices committed by the Turkish state. In doing so, the article offers a two-dimensional definition of outsider parties, one dimension based on exclusion from state ideology, the other based on the party’s own discourse. The broader implication of this study is that outsider parties, as part of their power-seeking strategy, can mobilize groups with different political goals by creating a bonding effect among them against a repressive state ideology.
Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit Subjektivierung und rassistischen Ein- und Ausschlüssen in Schulen und deren Verwobenheit mit neoliberaler Gouvernementalität. In den Blick genommen wird das Verhältnis von Schule, Nationalstaat und Rassismus im Kontext Türkei, das mit Blick auf die Marginalisierungen kurdisch positionierter Subjekte im türkischen Schulsystem zugespitzt wird. Der empirische Beitrag analysiert schulbildungsbiographische Selbstauskünfte auf jene Machtwirkungen hin, die rassistische und ökonomistische Diskurse auf marginalisierte Subjekte am Ort Schule entfalten ebenso wie Prozesse, in denen sich marginalisierte Subjekte diese Ordnungen aneignen, sich ihnen widersetzen und sich darüber als Subjekte konstituieren.
Studies on intrastate peace processes mainly focus on providing prescribed recipes for a successful outcome by adopting a close-polity approach, with a tendency to hold domestic actors responsible for failing to follow these recipes. This study on the failed Turkish-Kurdish peace process of 2009-2015 calls this approach into question, suggesting instead that the dynamics leading to failure or success are complex and process-determined. The study uses process-tracing methodology to follow the circumstances and events leading up to the failed negotiations between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In particular, the civil war in neighboring Syria created circumstances for the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an affiliate of the PKK, to gain military power and international support to establish autonomy. This development complicated the interactions of the primary actors between each other and other regional and international actors, and shifted the preferences and priorities of the negotiating parties. Finally, the shift in the balance of power between the actors that occurred during the Syrian Civil War significantly contributed to the failure of the peace process, which was neither predetermined nor dependent on preconceived variables.
Özet
Kimlik kurgusu, toplumsal ve bireysel anlam dünyalarının inşasında belirleyici referanslardan biridir. Çünkü kimlikler hem toplumsal hem de bireysel olarak inşa edilmektedir. Kimlikler aynı zamanda, siyasal sınırların çizilmesiyle ötekinin ötekiliği içselleştirilerek tasarlanır ve somut pratikleri olan teorik çerçeveyle biçimlendirilir. Bunun yanında daima siyasallaşmış bir toplumu da gerektirir. Türk toplumunda da kimlik inşa süreçleri, daima siyasal değişim dinamiği olarak işlev görmüştür. Kimlikler siyaseti çerçevesinde şekillenen politikalar, esasında Osmanlı’dan günümüze siyasal yapıyı etkileyen ve genel olarak da toplumsal yapı üzerinde belirleyici olan bir faktör olagelmiştir. Toplumların tarihsel süreç içerisinde yaşadıkları temel kırılma dönemleri, kimlik konusunda da değişikliklere yol açmıştır. Batılılaşma tercihi ve 1980 sonrası neo liberal süreçte meydana gelen gelişmeler, Türk toplumu açısından kimlik kurgusu konusunda farklılaşmaları ifade etmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Osmanlı Türkiye’sinden Cumhuriyet Türkiye’sine kimlikler siyaseti ve sosyolojisi, temel kimlik önerileri ekseninde tartışılacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Kimlik, Siyaset, Osmanlıcılık, İslamcılık, Türkçülük, Kürtçülük, Alevilik
Abstract
Identity construction is one of the determinant factors in constructing a valid individual and social world, for identities are constructed both individually and socially. Identities through the demarcation of political boundaries, the internalization of the essential dissimilarity of the other are created, and the theoretical underpinning of actual practices is formulated. In addition, it always requires a politicized society. The construction processes of identity in Turkish society have always functioned as a dynamic of political change. Policy, formed around identity politics has always been an essential determining factor in political and, generally social structure from Ottoman to modern times. At turning points in the history of societies, changes in the issue of identity also occur. The developments that took place under the partiality for Westernization and in the post-1980 neo-liberal process exhibit variations in the identity construction of the Turkish community. In this study, the politics and sociology of identity will be discussed in relation to the formulations of identity from the time of Ottoman Turkey to the modern Turkish Republic.
Keywords: Identity, Politics, Ottomanism, Islamism, Turkism, Kurdism, Alevism
The Cambridge History of the Kurds is an authoritative and comprehensive volume exploring the social, political and economic features, forces and evolution amongst the Kurds, and in the region known as Kurdistan, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Written in a clear and accessible style by leading scholars in the field, the chapters survey key issues and themes vital to any understanding of the Kurds and Kurdistan including Kurdish language; Kurdish art, culture and literature; Kurdistan in the age of empires; political, social and religious movements in Kurdistan; and domestic political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Other chapters on gender, diaspora, political economy, tribes, cinema and folklore offer fresh perspectives on the Kurds and Kurdistan as well as neatly meeting an exigent need in Middle Eastern studies. Situating contemporary developments taking place in Kurdish-majority regions within broader histories of the region, it forms a definitive survey of the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan.
У статті проаналізовано основні тренди та тенденції, представлені в англомовному науковому дискурсі 2000-х – 2020-х рр. щодо т. зв. курдського питання в сучасній Туреччині та політики турецького уряду, спрямованої на його врегулювання. Здійснено спробу систематизації величезного масиву англомовних досліджень, присвячених курдському питанню, що були оприлюднені з кінця 1990-х до 2021 р., за декількома проблемно-тематичними напрямами. Обґрунтовано, що в сучасному англомовному науковому дискурсі щодо курдського питання в Туреччині домінують чотири яскраво виражені тренди: 1) підготовка узагальнювальних праць, які стосуються історії населення південно-східних провінцій Туреччини, генезису курдського питання та його геополітичного виміру; 2) вивчення суспільно-політичних процесів у південно-східних провінціях Туреччини, насамперед відносин між урядом та населенням регіону; 3) дослідження соціально-антропологічного, етнічного, гендерного, гуманітарного аспектів життя населення південно-східних провінцій Туреччини; 4) дослідження “турецько-курдського мирного процесу” (“The Turkish-Kurdish Peace Process”) 2010-х рр., пов’язаного з повномасштабними змінами характеру відносин між урядом та жителями південно-східних провінцій у напрямку мирного врегулювання курдського питання, зокрема в контексті виконання Копенгагенських критеріїв, пов’язаних з євроінтеграційними устремліннями Туреччини.
Abstract
In the early twentieth century Great Britain among western powers played a crucial role in Kurdistan, and showed keener interest than other powers, particularly, in the part of under the Ottoman Empire. There were also some political circumstances to be undertaken, such as rivalries among European powers to stable their powers in the area, and weakening the Ottoman Empire. However, this research potentially focuses on what was the British role in appearing the Kurdish question in that period. Most likely the real Kurdish issue came to international discourse directly after the First World War. The British role could be highlighted by mentioning the British attempts in Kurdistan some before the Great War, which possibly brought the Kurdish issue to existence. The most important British attempts were: firstly, creating a geographical map of Kurdistan. Secondly, opening a discussion about Kurdistan and published in the British royal geographical journal. Thirdly, increasing in the number of British scholars and Orientalists in Kurdistan, and finally paying a real attention to the Kurdish ethnic groups and Kurdish tribes. Those British attempts are discussed to reach a possible conclusion for Britain’s role. In addition, the most potential outcome of this research is that, although Great Britain was following its interests and empowering her authority in the area, it was also pushing the Kurdish question to be rising. As a result, it was important for the Kurdish policy to go with British interests in Kurdistan.
This article explores the reopening of certain shrines in Istanbul in 1950 as a result of the amendment to Law 677, which in 1925 had closed all shrines in the country and banned visits to them. Drawing on previously untapped archival evidence and combining an analysis at both the macro‐level (nation‐state in a global world) and micro‐level (Istanbul as local and shrines as sites), I discuss changes in cultural policies, historiography and Turkish foreign policy and make use of the contributions of ethno‐symbolic and social constructionist approaches of nationalism theories. I contend that during the transition to the multi‐party system, ‘chosen’ shrines were used as tools to reattach Ottoman roots to Turkish national identity as ‘Turks’ and ‘Muslims’ and reposition Turkey as a strong nation‐state in the new global order. Furthermore, I demonstrate how the former multi‐ethnic and multi‐religious capital, Istanbul, became a part of the national territory as a legitimate Turkish and Muslim city.
This article focuses on the forced transformation of the mass media as an institution in new authoritarian states. It aims to understand the methods used by theses states to control and manipulate the flux of news through the mass media. Turkey’s media system has been chosen as a case study because the recent political developments in the country offer worrisome und devastating examples. This article aims to answer to the following question: How can we classify methods and strategies used by the AKP government to capture the media in Turkey? Why and how do the methods used by the AKP government differ from those applied by previous governments? To answer to these questions, the article draws on media capture as a framework of analysis. It argues that the AKP captured the media by using new strategies which can be divided into three overlapping and interconnected categories: capture by creating its own private media, capture through financial sanctions, and capture by intimidating and criminalizing journalists.
Alevism emerged as a political problem during the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and was handled within the scope of modernisation, nationalism, and nation-building in the 19th and 20th centuries. Land losses of the Ottoman Empire and the loss of superiority against Europe pushed the state elites to make reforms and build a homogeneous structure from the population in the remaining lands. This situation gained different aspects and continued in the period of reforms and under the rule of the Committee of Union and Progress. During these periods, Alevis were seen as an internal threat while trying to be kept as a part of the whole. The new republican regime, which were built after the collapse of Ottoman Empire continued these policies that aimed at the Islamization and nationalisation of Alevis and their inclusion into the national community. Alevism became the target of different political movements, from Islamism to Turkism, of several governments during this period. This study identifies the approaches to Alevism during this period within the context of John Breuilly’s understanding of nationalism. In this regard, the late Ottoman and early Republican period nationalism policies and their attitudes toward Alevis will be the focal point of this study. The study will claim that different power centers during the late Ottoman and early Republican periods defined Alevis as within the national body but perceived them as a domestic threat. The study contributes to the literature as it applies Breuilly’s views on nationalism to the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. The study also claims to contribute to the literature on Alevism, as it discusses Alevism within the context that Breuilly draws.
This chapter considers modernisation in Turkey against the backdrop of the development of mass media. It focuses on the transition from the multicultural Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey in order to explain differences in citizenship practices and how they were reflected in the media system until the beginning of the 1980s, when the transition to a liberal market economy started to take place and Turkey’s integration with world markets accelerated. It considers the media systems’s articulation with the neo-liberal economy, the impact of globalization, de-regulation, and the emergence of new technologies. The chapter covers the basic tenets of the media system in Turkey until the end of the 1990s.
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