The Kurdish question is one of the most serious internal problem in Turkey’s history, even constituted a big hurdle in the way of Turkey’s integration to Europe. In order to understand the theoretical roots of the question and solution options, travel from Ottoman Empire to Turkey and the bases the term “nation” has been defined on throughout this history will be useful.
Kurdish question can be explained by referring to the transformation of Turkey from a traditional society where the identities were religiously determined at communal level, to a modern society where the aim was to define an individual’s identity at the state level and the driving force behind this nationalism was Turkish nationalism.[1]
The nation has been defined on the bases of three different concepts throughout Turkish history which was “God” under the Ottoman Empire. In Ottoman society the nationality was on the bases of religion which means that a person’s membership to a religious community was the determining element of nationality. In this sense, many Turks had little or no self awareness. The Ottoman Empire as an authoritarian monarchy with a religious foundation derived from Sultan’s claim that he was also caliph of the world, the spiritual head of the all Muslims of the world so it recognized minorities by defining them in religious terms and gave them extensive self-rule.[2] Both the logic of emperorship and that of Islam exceeded the logic of the nation in Ottoman.
Alongside the newborn nation states, the real inheritor of the Ottoman Empire has become a nation state that is Turkey and under huge efforts for nation building in Turkey, religion gave its place to ‘nation’ where secularism got the upper hand over God.
In fact the transformation from Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic can be described as a transfer from “Ottoman patriotism” to “Turkish nationalism”. As the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating, the need to build a new order came to agenda. The population of Turkey would need a new identity which would replace the one based on religion and from 1923 onwards Turkish nationalism came to agenda. This meant a break with the monarchy of the past, with the Islamic character of the state. The founders of the Turkish Republic had the aim of transforming Ottoman Empire to a modern and secular republic and in line with this aim from 1923 an increasing emphasis was given to developing a sense of nationhood based on the Turkish language in contrast to Ottoman Empire where ethnic identities among the Muslim population had no much significance beyond the cultural and the linguistic.[3]
This notion of nationality continued until the the beginning of 2000s where greater commitment to EU membership opened the way for some political reforms and increased the hopes for some solution to the Kurdish problem. For countries like Turkey where the real changes can not come from the bottom which is not conscious and enlightened enough to question and bring the change, a catalyser is needed to make people come around a common idea. In Turkish case, The EU acted as a crucial catalyst for some reforms to be brought into life as a civilian power which used carrots as against to sticks. Not the EU itself but the “idea of EU membership” has been the motivator for Turkey’s democratization or the so-called Europeanization process which includes reforms on human rights, plural democracy and minority issue. At the base of these reforms lies the idea to define “human” as the defining element of identity in Turkey which unfortunately was stuck today due to both internal and external dynamics as well as lack of real commitment of governments to the solution of the problem due to their short-visioned electoral concerns.
Shortly, much rests on how successful the governments are in implementing social/ political reforms and opinion makers are in shaping the society’s perception of the issue. Otherwise Turkish hardliners and Kurdish nationalists will come to the scene which means return to the very beginning. In this sense, Turkey by playing the game according to rules of 21st century, being conscious diplomatic player in international arena instead of taking the role of East’s emotional and courageous rescuer should be very cautious and strong inside. Now is the time for promoting the idea of Turkey’s patriotism where “individual” is valuable just because of his/her existence, neither of religious nor ethnic origins.
Diğdem TÜMTÜRK
[1] K. Kirişçi and Gareth M. Winrow, The Kurdish Question and Turkey: An Example of a Trans-state Ethnic Conflict ( London: FRANK CASS, 1997) P.89.
[2] Svante E. Cornell , ‘The Kurdish Question in Turkish Politics’, Orbis, 45, 1 (Winter 2001), p.32.
[3] Kirişçi, op.cit., p.280.