This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ THE STRUGGLE OF THE KURDS IN TURKEY FROM NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS TO SOCIAL MOVEMENT Sen, Elsa Tulin Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 03. Oct. 2021 THE STRUGGLE OF THE KURDS IN TURKEY: FROM NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS TO SOCIAL MOVEMENT ELSA TULIN SEN Institute of Middle Eastern Studies King's College London For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) April 2016 1 To my father... 2 Abstract This research examines the historical evolution of the Kurdish people's movement for achieving cultural rights and political representation in Turkey. The main focus is on the period between 2000 and 2015. It draws upon nationalism and social movement theories to analyze how these dynamics feed each other directly. While the Kurdish nationalist movement has been the basis for the Kurdish social movement, the social movement has served to perpetuate the national cause. The Kurds constitute the largest ethnic minority in Turkey. However, their political and cultural identity has not been constitutionally recognized. For the last three decades, the Kurds deemed as their only option the creation of an independent Kurdish state that would break away from Turkey. From 2000 onwards, there has been a gradual shift in their objectives. Kurdish identity claims began to evolve towards a willingness to work within the existing political system, albeit calling for significant change including a re-evaluation of the Turkish constitution and decentralization of power across Turkey. Based on empirical evidence collected through fieldwork, including in-depth interviews with activists, ordinary citizens, members of civil society organizations and political parties as well as participant observation in legal gatherings and general strikes, this research demonstrates how Kurdish activists – as organized political actors with resources and a collective identity – ascribed to mainstream social movement practices, particularly in the period post-2000. It advances the novel argument that they capitalized on the shifting political opportunities deriving from Turkey's EU candidacy in 1999, the curtailment of military power in 2007, and the inspirational impact of the regional upheavals in 2011. To further explore these dynamics within Turkish society as a whole, this study reveals the emergence of a total social movement between 2013 and 2015. Formulated by Alain Touraine, a total social movement is a historic project where social actors determine the general orientation of their society, which in this study consisted of the combination of civil society activity, a democracy-advocating movement and the expression of Kurdish identity. 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my primary supervisor, Dr. Stacey Gutkowski. She has always had faith in my work and been there for me when I needed her. Without her patience, discipline and precious feedback this thesis simply would not have been possible. I would like to thank my secondary supervisor, Dr. Carool Kersten, not only for the valuable insight he provided to my thesis but to my overall vision of the world. I cannot thank him enough for supporting me at every stage of this difficult journey. This is also an opportunity for me to thank my mother, Nuray Şen, to whom I can never totally express my love and gratitude in words. She guides me both spiritually and intellectually. My best friend, and life partner Attila Balikci, whose last four years were unfairly filled with my chapters, fieldwork, conferences and deadlines, has always been on my side, no matter how unbearable it must have become. Tomris Özlem Yılmaz, Eisser Sleiman, Dilar Toprak, Amal Hamdan, Mariya Vaynshteyn and Olivia Midha: you have been the shining stars in my life throughout this journey and beyond. Sometimes from a thousand kilometers away, you have read my work in the midst of your own crazy schedules and shared your wisdom with me. You have always believed in me, fixed my mistakes, opened up your homes and hearts to me, showed me affection and had sleepless nights because of me trying to explain where I was going with my arguments. This page is too short for me to fill it with your friendship, but please know that the meaning of my life is also the thought of how I can be a better friend to you. I am also grateful for the support of my dear friends Verena Lombardi, Daniele Bolazzi, Raphaële Cohen, Aniseh Bassiri, Bahar Karimi, Hardy Mahmood, Shady Alkhayer, Aslıhan Ağaoğlu and Roger Higginson at various stages of my PhD, and of my families in London, who have made the financial and emotional life of a student more bearable. Finally, I am indebted to all my interviewees in Istanbul and Diyarbakır for their confidence and courage, for sharing their views and experiences with me without any reservation, to those who opened the doors of their associations, showed great interest in my work and made me feel they were always happy to provide me with anything so that I accomplish my doctorate. Without their voices and help, this thesis would have been soulless. I present my special thanks to Abdullah and Canan Azizoğlu and Remzi Yıldırım, who have hosted me as one of their own, taken care of me and accompanied me during fieldwork. 4 Table of Contents Introduction 7 Developing the argument 18 Methodologies employed 23 Thesis plan 32 Chapter One The relationship between nationalism and social movements 39 The background of nationalism studies 41 A review of the social movement theory 52 Bridging nationalism and social movements 65 Refining the link between nationalism and social movements 76 Chapter Two The emergence of Kurdish nationalism 89 Kurdish communities in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran 91 Kurdish national consciousness 96 Transient recognition of the Kurds: the first stage of Kemalism 106 Final recognition of the Turkish state: the second stage of Kemalism 111 The last traditional Kurdish revolt: the third stage of Kemalism 124 Chapter Three A proto-social movement through the Kurdish case 129 The background to the Eastern meetings (1967) 131 The Kurdish struggle from the 1970s through to the 1990s 139 Kurdish civil society as a precursor to the formation of a social movement 147 5 Chapter Four The Kurdish movement in Turkey functions as a social movement 153 (2000 and 2013) The political environment surrounding the Kurdish movement: 156 a political process approach The resource mobilization approach in the Kurdish case 170 Mobilization of a collective identity 183 Chapter Five A Kurdish total social movement from 2013-2015 192 The original example of the total social movement theory: 195 the Polish 'Solidarity' movement Applying Touraine's total social movement theory to the Kurdish case 200 The peace process that was: the civil society activism element 204 The democracy-advocating aspects 215 The national aspects 230 The limits of the Kurdish case as a total social movement 236 Conclusion 241 Bibliography 249 6 Introduction 'Independence or recognition as a national entity have both eluded the Kurds.'1 Almost forty years have passed since Georges Harris, a Near East history scholar at the Middle East Institute, uttered these words. Harris had argued that both the political “inability” of the Kurds to create a State of their own and the unwillingness of the regional and international community to allow such a State to be formed were the causes of the absence of a Kurdish nation-state. Harris's twofold political diagnosis remains up-to-date and has been interestingly reflected in a speech delivered by İsmail Beşikçi,2 prominent Turkish sociologist and critic of Kemalism,3 at the House of Commons in London.4 Beşikçi's speech on the Kurdish national question revealed how historically the Kurds had been prevented from establishing a political status for themselves within nations where they have important populations, whether that be in the form of self-determination, autonomy or independence. Indeed, Beşikçi argued, the international political order of the 1920s followed by the creation of the United Nations after World War II, did not award the Kurds political or national status as a people. The Public International Law dictionary [Le Dictionnaire de Droit International Public] defines self-determination as a 'principle of political democratic inspiration designating the vocation of peoples to administer themselves freely. This principle has nevertheless been transformed into positive law: it created numerous provisions of unquestionably legal character, erga omnes.'5 To make this claim, it took the international community to actually 1 Harris, Georges. “Ethnic Conflict and the Kurds.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 433 Ethnic Conflict in the World Today (1977): 112-124.