Hakyemez-Dissertation-2016
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
LIVES AND TIMES OF MILITANCY TERRORISM TRIALS, STATE VIOLENCE AND KURDISH POLITICAL PRISONERS IN POST-1980 TURKEY by Serra M. Hakyemez A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland September, 2016 Dissertation Abstract Militant politics is at once a promise for revolutionary national movements and a threat to national security of states. As the discourse of terrorism re-gained prevalence in the 1980s, the Turkish state subsequently defined Kurdish militant politics as “terrorism” and resituated its war in northern Kurdistan as a “war on terror.” This dissertation examines how incrimination of the space of the political by the “war on terror” is critically refracted by Kurdish prisoners and their families within the courts of law. Focusing on trials prosecuting Kurds on a daily basis, it explores how courts conjure the threat of terrorism on the one hand and, on the other, how the promise of militant politics is retained despite and within the space of law. This inquiry proceeds from the argument that law expands its area of jurisdiction as it grounds accusations of terrorism on ordinary events unfolding in northern Kurdistan. It asks what are the ways in which anti-terrorism laws invest ordinary life with the capacity to exert extraordinary violence on state sovereignty? Based on three years of archival and ethnographic research in anti-terrorism courts in Diyarbakır, this dissertation explores documentary, surveillance, and counterinsurgency technologies through which the reach of law multiplies and the threat of terrorism becomes ubiquitous. Hence, it provides a unique picture of “war on terror” revealing not only the spectacular moments of state repression and torture, but also the ordinary processes of adjudication in which Kurdish prisoners submit their defense, organize collective protests, and forge moral injunctions. Focusing on discursive, performative, and ethical practices of Kurdish ii prisoners, this dissertation thus shows how boundaries of the political are continuously reconstituted during Turkey’s protracted “war on terror” in northern Kurdistan. The hegemonic images pertinent to terrorism identify the Middle East with a deluge of spectacular violence and garner public support for draconian anti-terrorism measures. The critiques of the “war on terror,” on the other hand, fail to recognize that the globalized discourse of terrorism is not merely a Western artifact deployed to demonize Muslim communities. This dissertation shows that its reach goes far beyond the criminalization of Islamist groups as democratic nation-states like Turkey deploy it strategically to silence political opposition. Additionally, this dissertation demonstrates the necessity of concentrating on more minuscule mechanisms of power such as surveillance technologies, courtroom proceedings, and political defense, to parse out the ways in which anti-terrorism laws not only gain currency but also shape how we understand the political. Dissertation Committee Veena Das (Advisor) Deborah Poole Naveeda Khan Jenifer Culbert Tobias Kelly iii To the beautiful children of the revolution iv Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to my interlocutors whose keen insights, vivid political visions, and incredible humor propelled me to write this dissertation. Through my conversations with former political prisoners and their families stretching over years, I came to understand that the limits of freedom are set not by the walls and bars of prison cells, but by the contours of our imagination. I am thankful to all of you for pushing the limits of my imagination and showing how life could be remade amid violence, death, and war. The names of the ones waging this struggle from different corners of Kurdistan have to remain unknown; yet, I want to acknowledge the proper names of those whose untimely death was a grave loss for many of us: Fadile Bayram, Seve Demir, and Hacı Birlik. I feel privileged to have known you. Your passion, courage, and good spirits made their way to the pages of this dissertation. During my field research, I had a difficult time describing to the defense lawyers why an anthropologist would be interested in law, spending years in and around the Diyarbakır courthouse. Regardless of our disciplinary differences, they patiently answered my never-ending questions, which might have sounded at times “rudimentary” and at others “irrelevant.” Aside from many defense lawyers whom I cannot name, I want to thank two senior lawyers, late Erdinç Uzunoğlu and Tahir Elçi, whose life stories speak to the risks involved in defending Kurdish revolutionaries both inside and outside the court. When home seems farthest away, it is through dear friends that the distance shortens and loneliness becomes bearable. Thank you, Şevin, Yekta, Murat, and Jehat, for v reaching out to me each time I felt lost in the United States. To my dear colleagues with whom I had long discussions on diasporic academic life, Hişyar Özsoy, Fouad Halbouni, Dilan Okçuoğlu, Haydar Darıcı, Filiz Kahraman, Can Açıksöz, Zeynep Korkman, Mitra Ebrahimi, Arash Abazari, Elmira Alihosseini and Bürge Abiral, thank you for your delightful company, incessant support, and intellectual critique. I shall thank three women separately. Özlem Yasak, Nisa Göksel, and Ruken Şengül offered thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this dissertation, gave me the motivation to focus and write, and colored my life with coffee breaks over Skype. Special thanks to you for being there with me, giving strength and inspiration, and offering help before I even realized that I needed it. After a long detour across different departments and academic institutions, I was fortunately adopted by the Department of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. Being a part of this intellectually stimulating and caring community was both a rewarding and challenging experience. Thank you, Aaron Goodfellow, Clara Han, Jane Guyer, and Niloofar Haeri for your support at different stages of my graduate study. Thank you, Vaibhav Saria, Hester Betlem, Megha Sehdev, Maya Ratnam, Bican Polat, Ghazal Asif Farrukhi, Andrew Brandel, and Aditi Saraf for your warmhearted friendship. The last two years of my graduate study were the hardest times of my life not only because of the intense workload but also because of the load of grim news I received. I could not have stayed and written this dissertation, if Amy Krauss, Swayam Bagaria, and Mariam Banahi had not had kept their doors open for me day and night. Amy, Swayam, and Mariam, thank you for not only providing extensive comments on several chapters of vi my dissertation but (perhaps more importantly) holding my hands and subtly sharing in my mourning. Since my proseminar course with her, Naveeda Khan has delicately propelled me to question my “common sense” through her thought-provoking comments. Naveeda, I am grateful to you not only for your critical engagement with my work but also for being such an exceptional and generous listener. Deborah Poole was a great mentor who never stopped believing in me even when I was ready to give up on myself. Debbie, I am greatly indebted to you for your inexhaustible intellectual support, sharp political interventions, and genuine friendship. As my main advisor, Veena Das helped me imagine different paths my scholarship could take as she read and commented on every single draft I wrote over the last seven years. I am grateful to you for teaching me the promise of patience in thinking and living that made this dissertation possible. I also want to thank Jennifer Culbert and Tobias Kelly, the external readers of my dissertation, for their insightful comments and suggestions. Finally, Mother and Father, you may not agree with one single word written in this dissertation. Yet, familial love and care is perhaps not predicated upon our agreements on words. Despite our separate worldviews, I believe that something we share in this family carried me here. I am grateful for that thing that still holds us together. My very precious sister, Dilara, I do not think that I can describe how much I am indebted to you for your thoughtful, caring, and persistent presence in my life. Let me say one thing: if you had not called me every morning for three-hundred-sixty-five days in a row, I would have still been writing this dissertation. vii This dissertation was supported by generous grants from several institutions. The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, 2013), the National Science Foundation (Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, Cultural Anthropology and Law and Society, 2013), the Mellon Foundation (Summer Language Grant, 2011), the Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (Summer Research Fellowship, 2010) at Johns Hopkins University, and the Program for Global Studies (Summer Research Grant 2010) at Johns Hopkins University supported my dissertation fieldwork. The American Council for Learned Societies (Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2015) granted me a fellowship to complete my dissertation writing. I want to thank these institutions for their generous support of my dissertation. viii Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 The Quest for National Recognition ................................................................................... 4 Sovereignty, the War