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Mehmed S. Kaya received his Dr. polit. degree in sociology and social anthropology from the Norwegian University of Scientific and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. He is professor at Lillehammer University College. He founded the Norwegian Journal ofMigration Research and was its editor-in-chief during the period 2000-5. Kay a has published Muslim Immigrants' Adaptations to Norwegian Society (Dr. polit. dissertation) and a series of articles in scientific journals. The Zaza Kurds of Turkey A Middle Eastern Minority in a Globalised Society Mehmed S. Kaya LONDON· NEW YORK Published in 20 I I by I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd. 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 RfthAvenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 RfthAvenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright© 20 I I Mehmed S. Kaya The right of Mehmed S. Kaya to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Library of Modern Middle East Studies 71 ISBN 978 I 8451 I 875 4 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Ubrary A full CIP record for this book is available from the UbraryofCongress Library of Congress catalog card: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham Camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author Contents Illustrations vii Important episodes in the history of the Zaza ix Preface xi 1 Introduction 1 2 Kinship 12 3 A tribal society 29 4 A patriarchal society 42 5 A society with its own authorities 54 6 Reciprocity among the Zaza population 81 7 The economic system of the Zaza society 96 8 Turkey, a nationalist state in conflict 111 9 Culture and identity 146 10 Gender relations, family and division of labour 171 11 Religion, collectivism and individualism 190 vi The Zaza Kurds of Turkey Notes 208 References 212 Index 216 Illustrations Figures 1.1 Areas where Zaza-speaking Kurds live 5 1.2 The Sherevdin landscape, with a flock of sheep in the middle 6 3.1 The origin of the tribe, lineage structure and the partition into levels 33 3.2 The relation between tribal units and unit leaders at different levels 33 5.1 Important centres of propagation of the Nakshibendi Order 60 5.2 Types of authorities or institutions in Zaza society 75 7.1 Summer camp of white and black tents in the Sherevdin landscape 98 7.2 A hardworking farmer in Meneshkut 99 8.1 A mountain top vis-a-vis the Kurdish city of Hakkari 121 10.1 A woman ready to milk the sheep 185 10.2 A woman preparing milk products 186 11.1 Ulu Cami in Bingol 193 Table 2.1 An overview of various rights, obligations and opportunities connected with kinship categories 22 Important episodes 1n the history of the Zaza c.600-700 BC Zaza Kurds converted to Zoroastrianism. 641 Kurdistan was occupied by the Arabs. Kurds were forcibly converted to Islam. The Kurds resisted until the turn of the millennium. Until the 1200s, Kurds were called 'infidels' by Arabic authors. Towards the end of the 1600s, the majority of the Kurds con­ verted to Islam. 1920 The victorious powers of the First World War com­ mit themselves to the establishment of a Kurdish state in parts of South-East Turkey and North Iraq with the Sevres Treaty. 1923 The Sevres Treaty was rejected by Kemal Atatlirk's Turkey and was replaced by the Lausanne Treaty, which denied national rights to the Kurds. The vic­ tors betray the Kurds and Atatlirk annexes Kurdistan to Turkey. 1925 Kurds staged a large rebellion against the newly proclaimed Turkish republic. The rebellion was led by the legendary Sheikh Said who was a Zaza and was from Xinus to the north-east of Solhan. The rebellion started in February and spread to several cities in the Kurdish area. The rebels seized several large cities including Bingol, Xarput (Elazig), large portions of Diyarbekir and a series of smaller cities. Their liberation was short lived. The rebellion was brutally suppressed by the Turkish army after some months by direct orders from Atatlirk. Sheikh Said and 48 of his close collaborators were hanged on 28 June of the same year in Diyarbekir. x The Zaza Kurds of Turkey 1930 The Kurds started yet another rebellion around Mount Ararat. The rebellion was led by General Ihsan Nuri who had deserted from the Turkish army. This rebellion lasted for two years before it was suppressed and the leaders fled to Iran and were granted political asylum there. 1937 Another rebellion took place in the Zaza-domi­ nated province of Dersim to the north-west of Dersim. Also at this time there was full popular par­ ticipation but the rebellion was suppressed brutally after nearly two years. The leadership, along with the colourful personality Seyid Riza, was executed and more than half of the population of Dersim was deported to West Turkey. 1984 The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) started an armed struggle against the central government in Ankara. The PKK demanded independence from Turkey. Turkey arrested PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan with American help in Nairobi in February 1999. The PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire in September of the same year, but Turkey answered with military operations and in 2004 the PKK can­ celled the unilateral ceasefire. Turkey is not capable of suppressing a Kurdish rebellion for the first time in recent history. Preface This book is an ethnographic study ofZaza-speaking Kurds in Turkey, a people almost completely unknown to the international community. In the 1980s, while I was working on my master's degree, which dealt with the Kurds' adaptation to Norway, I discovered that the Zaza minority was virtually invisible in the world literature. Since then I have followed this unknown people closely. However, because of the unstable political situation in Turkey, it would be some years after I learned of this minority before I could start the present work. When I finally started this project in 2001, I searched through the common catalogue system of the Norwegian libraries (BIBSYS) for literature on the Zaza people. To my great disappointment, I did not find any titles on Zaza Kurds, with the exception of a few linguistic works and even now in 2006, neither Norwegian nor international literature on this subject exists. In the Kurdish literature, the Zaza are treated as a subtopic. This study is therefore concerned with a people who have been almost entirely neglected in the academic literature. The task of documenting and revealing little-known societies and preserving their memories usually falls to anthropologists. After all, mapping the cultural variation in the world has been a clear goal for social anthropology. But it seems as if the anthropologists them­ selves have been hiding from this little-known people. There are still blank areas on the map of Western Asia. There are large areas hardly visited by researchers and these areas have been investigated system­ atically to an even lesser degree. I felt that something should be done about this situation. This said, it must also be added for fairness that since the 1920s the Turkish authorities have effectively prevented research projects concerning the Kurds. The Kurdish question in Turkey is an extremely sensitive one that is still met with discrimina­ tion in Turkish society. During my third field work in 2003, I xii The Zaza Kurds of Turkey witnessed four researchers, two from Hungary, one from France and one from Belgium, being expelled from the Solhan region, a Zaza area in Eastern Turkey. They wanted to make zoological investiga­ tions around Solhan, but were refused by the local Turkish authori­ ties, who expressed the opinion that they could make the same investigations elsewhere in Western Turkey, an area in which the researchers were not interested. This book is an original work incorporating important empirical data on a little-studied people. The book is topical in several respects: with relation to the current focus on the Middle East question, eth­ nicity, minorities, the multicultural society and both European and global political development. The subject is a part of the larger minority research that is taking place the world over. It is important to make clear that societies in the Middle East also include large number of minorities within their boundaries. In this book I compare the Zaza minority's situation in the wider context of similar minor­ ity groups in the world. Since the Zaza society has not been the subject of previous research, I had to make certain decisions with respect to which top­ ics should be emphasized. With a holistic perspective (to understand the totality rather than the individual parts in a society) as a starting point I decided to focus on certain central topics, for instance, the Zaza people's own traditional institutions such as patriarchy, sheikhdom, tribal relations, religion, kinship, reciprocity, culture and identity, the relation between the genders, marriage and the eco­ nomic system, and their relation to the national state and its policies. In other words, the book consists of a series of insights into the Zaza society. Yet this does not mean that the parts are underestimated. They derive their significance from the totality that they constitute in the same way as, for example, when a Zaza patriarchal practice acquires its meaning through a feudal and sheikhal tradition.

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