The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From the PKK to the KCK Submitted by Seevan Saeed to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Middle East Politics in September 2014 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. ABSTRACT: This thesis examines the transformation of the Kurdish national struggle in Turkey from a political movement to a social movement. The Thesis will argue that the Kurdish national struggle during the Twentieth Century in Turkey was largely a failure, and that the emergence of the Unions of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) has been a direct and concrete response to this failure. The thesis will track how the KCK has transformed a one-dimensional political nationalist struggle into a multi- dimensional one, including politics, culture and society for the Kurds living in Turkey. The focus here will be on the period from March 2005, when the KCK was established, until July 2011 when the KCK announced its Democratic Autonomy project. In order to explain how and why the KCK has emerged, the Thesis takes an approach based on social movement theories to analyse the KCK as a social and cultural nationalist movement that deploys various approaches and techniques. The KCK is shown to take this new and more popular and successful tact through a comparison of the discourse surrounding the Kurdish national struggle before and after the establishment of the KCK. The ‘new discourse’ of multi-dimensional struggle is, in particular, compared with the old unadulterated discourse of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was a straight reaction to the Turkish state policy towards the Kurds and their struggle. The analysis of this process is accomplished through an examination of numerous contemporary resources such as the PKK and the KCK policies and literatures, government intelligence reports, books, journals, and through conducting tens of qualitative interviews alongside comprehensive observation during my fieldwork for this thesis. Ultimately, the Thesis will argue that the transformation of discourse for the KCK from the PKK is evident in its “Democratic Autonomy model”. The KCK proposes this model as an alternative to the nation state model in Turkey. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT: ............................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... 5 ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 9 What Kinds of Issues Need Further Examination? .................................................................................. 12 Contextualising Transformation in a Social Movement ........................................................................ 13 Methods and Chapter Breakdown ................................................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL OVERVIEW, KEY CONCEPTS AND METHODOLOGY ............ 18 General Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 19 Definitions of the Key Concepts ....................................................................................................................... 19 1. Nationalism and Nation ................................................................................................................................. 20 2. Kurdish Nationalism ........................................................................................................................................ 23 3. Social Movement and political Movement ............................................................................................. 26 4. The Struggle ......................................................................................................................................................... 28 A Summary of the Kurdish National Struggle in Turkey ....................................................................... 29 The Emergence of the KCK ............................................................................................................................... 31 Methodology .......................................................................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORIES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT ......... 43 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 44 Literature review ................................................................................................................................................. 44 More Recent Assessments of the Kurdish National Struggle................................................................ 53 Social Movements and the Kurdish National Struggle: Social Movements and the Analytical Lens ........................................................................................................................................................................... 57 Structural Factors and Organisational Change in Movements of the Kurdish National Struggle ................................................................................................................................................................... 63 Resource Mobilisation and Kurdish National Struggle Movements .................................................. 65 Political Opportunity Structures and the Kurdish National Struggle .............................................. 68 Cultural Framing and the Kurdish National Struggles .......................................................................... 71 The Kurdish National Struggle: A New Social Movement? ................................................................... 73 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................. 76 CHAPTER THREE: THE HISTORY OF KURDISH NATIONALISM .................................... 77 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 78 Who are the Kurds? The history of the Kurds: ........................................................................................... 79 The Kurds in Iraq (Southern Part of Kurdistan): .................................................................................... 84 The Kurds in Iran (Eastern Part of Kurdistan) ........................................................................................ 90 The Kurds in Syria (Western Part of Kurdistan): .................................................................................... 94 The Kurds in Turkey (Northern Part of Kurdistan) ............................................................................... 97 The PKK and the Kurdish National Struggle in Turkey ......................................................................... 99 The Turkish State and Kurdish Nation ..................................................................................................... 106 The Turkish State and Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey ...................................................................... 108 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................... 112 CHAPTER FOUR: DOWN TO TURKEY: OVERVIEW OF THE PKK AND THE KCK ........... 114 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 115 What is the PKK? ............................................................................................................................................... 115 The “Ideology of PKK”: .................................................................................................................................... 129 What is the KCK? ............................................................................................................................................... 137 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................... 158 3 CHAPTER FIVE: THE KCK: THE BEGINNINGS OF THE TRANSFORMATION ................. 159 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 160 Shifting the Discourse of the Movement after Ocalan’s Capture ....................................................