Introduction
Throughout the twentieth century, sub-state ethnic groups—groups that do not have a state or formal political, cultural, or linguistic recognition—have played a significant role in national and international affairs. Following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East witnessed the emergence of dozens of new, often arbitrary state entities and the division of Kurds into four states: Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Kurds at this time began immediately mobilizing as a distinct ethnic group and started fighting their host states after being denied the right to linguistic, cultural, and political recognition. This study focuses on the Kurdish conflict with the Turkish state and how the struggle for identity recognition has shaped the Kurdish resistance movement, seeking to glean further insights about the Kurdish question by providing and examining evidence obtained from the stated demands of the major Kurdish revolts.
Over the past few years, there has been an increase in academic research on the Kurdish-Turkish ethnic conflict, with a particular focus on gaining an understanding of the factors that led to and exacerbated the conflict. A good many of these studies argue that particularly in the case of the earlier Kurdish revolts, the core causes revolved around religious and socio-economic issues resulting from inequality and underdevelopment, which led to the alienation of the Kurds and created conditions that are conducive to ‘separatism or reactionary movements’ (Sarigil, Citation2010; White, Citation1998).Footnote1 The basic idea behind this approach stems from Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation (Citation1970) and the argument put out by Donald Horowitz (Citation1985), who both observe that economically depressed regions are more likely to be the birthplace of separatist movements. Such analyses pay little attention to explaining how, since quite early on, the desire for identity recognition has played a significant role in mobilizing the Kurds along ethnic lines to fight the Turkish state. The analysis here will demonstrate that the Kurds in Turkey never accepted the imposition of a Turkic ethnic identity upon them and have on the contrary always sought the official recognition of their own separate identity. More significantly, the failure of Turkish society to fully comprehend the Kurdish-Turkish ethnic conflict and its origins has led to misunderstandings and an ongoing quest for a solution premised upon faulty assumptions (Somer, Citation2022). Therefore, the importance of the identity element in the Kurdish-Turkish ethnic conflict, as a force shaping the Kurdish movement’s resistance, as a reality to be understood by both domestic and international forces, and as a solution to be thought of, can no longer be avoided and denied. By examining major Kurdish rebellions, the demands made by Kurdish rebels since the 1920s, the environment in which the Kurdish language and identity are denied, and similar factors, we argue that no solution to the conflict can succeed if it downplays Kurdish grievances centred on identity recognition and the freedom to express their identity, language, and distinct culture. If identity recognition and group rights can be shown to play a central role in this conflict, such a finding would provide more evidence for general theories regarding the importance of identity recognition and similar conflicts elsewhere.
This study looks at the major Kurdish revolts in Turkey and the demands that Kurdish rebels made to demonstrate the centrality of identity claims in this conflict. We then rely upon the theory of protracted social conflicts (PSCs) of Edward Azar and a later modification of Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation (focusing on non-material issues) to explain why the primary cause of Kurdish-Turkish conflict is the desire and struggle of the Kurds for identity recognition. The theory of protracted social conflict (PSC) is particularly suited to analyzing the Kurdish-Turkish conflict because it pays attention to how factors causing a conflict evolve over time. Similarly to Azar, Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation and his later works (Why Minorities Rebel and Minorities at Risk) demonstrate how, in addition to basic security needs, identity recognition, group status, and cultural and linguistic rights form core issues that cannot be ignored in such conflicts. We believe the Kurdish-Turkish conflict may be resolved if the question of Kurdish identity and its recognition as the driving force behind the conflict is taken into consideration. In fact, the issue of identity recognition in this conflict remains more important than material issues such as the relative economic standing of different ethnic communities and political representation.
Methodology
This study adopts a comprehensive methodology to examine the underlying cause(s) and dynamics of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in Turkey. By combining a qualitative analysis of the revolts’ underlying demands and providing a theoretical framework on protracted social conflicts and ethnic conflicts, we aim to provide a nuanced understanding of the major driving force(s) behind the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.
Empirically, we conduct an extensive examination of the stated demands and grievances articulated by the major Kurdish revolts, specifically those occurring in 1925, 1927–1930, 1937, and 1978. This analysis involved a meticulous review of primary sources such as official documents, revolts’ manifestos, and historical archives. By delving into these sources, we sought to identify recurring themes and patterns that shed light on the motives and drivers behind these revolts. Secondary sources, including scholarly articles, books, and expert opinions, complement our primary data, enabling a comprehensive understanding of the revolts and their motives.
Theoretically, we delve into the existing literature on protracted social conflicts and ethnic conflicts that elucidate the significance of identity denial in initiating, perpetuating, and intensifying ethnic conflicts, particularly those rooted in cultural and ethnic divisions. This theoretical framework, centred on the role of identity denial in ethnic conflicts, forms the backbone of our study, allowing us to contextualize our empirical findings and comprehend the prominence of the struggle for identity recognition in all major Kurdish revolts in Turkey.
Crucially, our methodology enables us to establish a causal relationship between the revolts and the denial of Kurdish identity recognition by successive Turkish governments. The revolts consistently demanded the official recognition of Kurdish identity as one of their primary objectives. This convergence across multiple revolts strengthens the causal link between identity denial and ethnic conflicts, providing compelling evidence for our finding that identity denial has been the driving force behind the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows: Firstly, we present our theoretical framework drawn from studies on protracted social conflicts and ethnic conflicts, with a specific emphasis on the role of ethnic identity denial in ethnic conflicts. Subsequently, we provide a thorough historical analysis of the origin of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, presenting compelling evidence that underscores identity recognition as a unifying common element of all major Kurdish revolts since the 1920s. Finally, we present our proposed solution for resolving the conflict, incorporating the insights gleaned from our theoretical framework and historical analysis.
Causes of The Kurdish-Turkish Conflict
The Kurdish-Turkish conflict and its causes have been studied by many scholars and academics. Some believe that the conflict is basically an issue of self-determination or autonomy (Gunter, Citation2016). This way of looking at the conflict is based on the supposition that the Kurds’ desire and ambition for the establishment of their own independent Kurdish state is at the root of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. In addition, this approach puts an emphasis on the idea that the Kurdish issue will be resolved when the Kurds establish a nation-state of their own. Furthermore, this approach emphases that the Kurdish issue in Turkey is one of political expression and political in nature (Ekmekci, Citation2011). Moreover, others look at the Kurdish question from the perspective that it is an issue of socio-economic inequality, underdevelopment, and unemployment, all of which have contributed to the outbreak of rebellions and resistance (Collier & Hoeffler, Citation2000; Volkan, Citation1996). Such approaches look at the conflict as a resource-based conflict and emphasize the economic roots of the conflict, arguing that Kurdish nationalism emerged after materially-motivated uprisings and not before.
Both of these approaches do not pay sufficient attention to the issue of identity recognition in the conflict. To us, the Kurdish nationalist movement’s struggle for recognition of their identity appears central, even at a time when Kurdish nationalism was in its infancy. The pursuit of recognition is a crucial aspect of human politics. According to Francis Fukuyama (Citation2011), human beings are naturally inclined to seek not only material resources but also recognition of their value and dignity, which is widely considered a form of status. Such struggles for recognition or status are often distinct from conflicts over resources since status is a ‘positional good,’ according to economist Robert Frank (Citation1985). As Fukuyama observes, violence throughout history has been committed not only by those pursuing material wealth but also by those seeking recognition (p. 442). However, as Jay Rothman points out, ‘Identity conflicts are often hard to identify since they are usually misrepresented as disputes over tangible resources’ (Citation1997, p. 6). The Kurdish question has in fact been portrayed by successive Turkish governments as an issue of underdevelopment and economic misery rather than as an issue of identity. We believe that the socio-economic argument has been used as a mask to cover up the struggle of the Kurds for identity recognition and to avoid the kind of political changes that would be necessary to truly address the source of conflict.
A plethora of mostly more recent studies on the Kurdish issue do pay attention to Kurdish identity and its denial by the Turkish state, of course. Some, such as Cizre (Citation2001) and Gunes (Citation2012), closely examine the nature of Kurdish identity, its symbols and how these were deployed by Kurdish nationalists to mobilize Kurdish supporters. Others (including Ergil, Citation2000; Gunter, Citation2018; Gurses, Citation2018; Manafy, Citation2005; McDowall, Citation1992; Ozcelik, Citation2006; Romano, Citation2006; Yavuz, Citation2001), hypothesize about how the abandonment of the Ottoman Empire’s multiculturalism and the mono-nationalism of the new Turkish state sparked Kurdish disaffection and then revolt (Somer, Citation2022), or how the exclusion of Kurdish identity by the Turkish state today causes resistance, but do not explicitly offer evidence common to all the revolts of the twentieth century to back up the claim.
Naturally, there are always multiple factors behind significant movements and uprisings (Gurses, Citation2018, pp. 116–127, offers us a good summary of these, specifically related to the Kurdish issue in Turkey). The predicament of the Kurds in the late nineteenth century, as well as the challenges they faced during the period in which the Turkish Republic was founded, nonetheless makes it abundantly clear that the denial of their identity was a primary cause of the Kurds’ frustration and grievances, which led them to resort to violent action and numerous rebellions against the Turkish state. ‘When people’s essential identities, expressed and maintained by their primary group affiliations, are threatened or frustrated, intransigent conflict almost inevitably follows’ (Rothman, Citation1997, p. 5). Crucially, threatened ethnic identities can spark unrest even before a nationalist movement has crystalized and matured, as we will demonstrate here via reference to some of the theoretical work on identity denial, what evidence we have from the twentieth century uprisings in Turkey and as compelling an explanation as we can provide within a very limited space.
The Kurdish-Turkish conflict as an identity-driven conflict has its origins in the articulation of the collective need that the Kurds (like anyone else) have for identity recognition, dignity, safety, and cultural expression, as well as the threats or frustrations that these needs face. Correspondingly, we argue that the Kurdish-Turkish conflict originates from Turkey’s unwillingness to recognize the Kurdish identity. Since its establishment, the Turkish state has made one of its primary goals the eradication of the Kurdish identity and the full integration of the Kurds into the Turkish society. As a result, they have used several tools, including banning the Kurdish language and cultural activities and carrying out mass deportations and massacres against the Kurds.
Theoretically, there are several prominent explanations for the factors leading to ethnic conflicts. Among these, identity denial often plays a very important role. The following passages illustrates how the struggle for identity recognition, which results from a strong sense of group identity, the denial of this identity, and deep-seated ethnic group grievances, provided a highly combustible fuel for the Kurds to mobilize in the face of discrimination and assimilation policies by the Turkish state. Azar’s theory of Protracted Social Conflict (PSC) and Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation (focusing on non-material issues) and his later works on minority and ethnic rebellions offer us explanations as to why the Kurdish-Turkish conflict is identity-based.Footnote2
Azar categorized four clusters of variables as ‘communal content, needs, governance and the role of the state, and international lineage’ as preconditions for protracted social conflicts (PSCs). The first precondition in Azar’s PSC model is the ‘communal content,’ which revolves around the question of group identity within an artificial state dominated by a single ethnic identity group (Azar, Citation1990, pp. 2–7). Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the newly established Republic of Turkey attempted to fill the vacuum. The state machinery in the new republic came under the control of those who newly identified as Turks (a new national identity based on the Turkish language and culture, given that under the Ottomans, ‘Turk’ tended to refer to just rural people and was often a derogatory term). This new national identity based on the ethnic markers of Turkish speakers left no room for the needs and recognition of the Kurds as an ethnic group, causing the social glue tying disparate groups together within the body politic to be strained, quickly leading to the outbreak of several Kurdish revolts. The newly formed Republic did not recognize the Kurds as an ethnic group and denied Kurdish identity (whether national, racial, or ethnic) (Nykänen, Citation2013, p. 1). The Turkish state attempted to eradicate Kurdish identity by imposing Turkish identity and Turkish culture on the Kurds in a variety of ways; applying and implementing a heavy-handed assimilation policy; replacing the names of Kurdish people and villages; banning the Kurdish language and attempting to leave no trace of Kurdish identity and culture.
Gurr’s findings shed light on two causes of ethnic and minority protests and rebellions, which can be combined into the struggle for identity recognition category. They are grievances and a strong sense of group identity that stems from the state’s refusal to recognize ethnic minorities’ identities (Gurr, Citation1970). According to Gurr, group grievances and a strong sense of group identity are generated when group identities are threatened and denied (Gurr, Citation1970, Citation1993a). According to Gurr’s work, various types of collective violence emerge as a reaction to frustrations and deprivations caused by unfulfilled aspirations and needs, such as the need for identity recognition, political, economic, and social needs of a group, but especially ethnic groups (Gurr, Citation1993b). This leads him to the conclusion that communal identities that are granted ‘institutional form and substantial resources tend to endure; identities denied lead to political mobilization; identities ignored usually weaken but can be activated by new leaders responding to threats to group identity and status’ (Gurr, Citation1993b, p. 4). More importantly, the second precondition of Azar’s identified characteristics in PSCs is the deprivation of ‘human needs’. He concludes that identity recognition and acceptance are important developmental needs. Collective identities include cultural values and symbols, norms, language, religious history, and racial history (Azar, Citation1990, p. 9). A further crucial point is that the human needs theory better sheds light on how protracted social conflicts arise due to deprivation and frustration resulting from the unmet needs of individuals and social groups. This theory argues that the issues of identity and recognition are critical in many intractable conflicts (Rothman, Citation1997). The main claim of this theory is that protracted or intractable conflict is caused by people’s unyielding drive to fulfil individual, collective, and societal needs (Northrup, Citation1989). These needs go beyond just individual and communal physical survival and the basic items of food, water, and shelter. Other needs exist for freedom from fear and anxiety, the need to be accepted and recognized by others, the need for identity recognition, and cultural security (the need to recognize one’s language, traditions, religion, cultural values, and ideas) (Burton, Citation1990). Overall, all these theories emphasize that the failure of governments and entities in meeting individual and group needs, most importantly the need for identity recognition, would lead to political violence and protected social conflicts.
The Turkish state’s policies towards and denial of the Kurds have produced deep-seated grievances and a strong sense of group identity among the Kurds. The Turkish government’s ban on the use of the Kurdish language contravenes the very basic need of every human being (Baser, Citation2015, p. 63) and deprives Kurds of a sense of belonging. It should come as no surprise that policies demanding that the Kurds reject and forget their mother tongue, identity, culture, and heritage provoked resistance. ‘Turkey’s Kurdish language policy has therefore been referred to as ‘linguicide’ or ‘linguistic genocide’, the deliberate extermination of a language’ (Hassanpour, Citation1992). Any references to the Kurdish identity were not permitted, and even the terms ‘Kurd’ and ‘Kurdistan’ in the new Turkish republic were phased out of the media, government documents, and school textbooks. The Kurds were declared ‘Mountain Turks’ by the Turkish government (Ozcelik, Citation2006, p. 4).
Our focus centres on the non-material aspect of societal or environmental insecurity. According to Alam Saleh (Citation2013, p. 12), ‘social insecurity occurs when people within a certain geographically defined state assume that their identity is threatened.’ This perceived threat could be triggered and bolstered by a collective feeling of societal and non-material insecurity, be it language, culture, identity, or belonging. For example, being prevented from speaking in Kurdish ‘causes considerable feelings of insecurity and alienation towards the state’ (Icduygu et al., Citation1999, p. 8). This suggests that the Turkish government’s failure and unwillingness to meet the demands and security of the Kurds, including most importantly the need for identity recognition and the oppression of Kurdish identity, triggered the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.
As Azar points out, protracted social conflicts can be linked to the state’s position as the ultimate authority to rule and, if necessary, employ force against those who oppose the state’s authority (Azar, Citation1990, p. 10). According to the author, societies with protracted social conflicts tend to have inefficient, parochial, weak, and authoritarian governments unable to provide basic human needs, and political power is monopolized by a hegemonic identity group or a coalition of hegemonic groups that exploit the state to further their interests at the cost of others (Azar, Citation1990, p. 10). The monopoly of political control by one or more ethnic groups impedes state governance and eventually leads to protracted social conflicts because the dominant group uses the governmental machinery to deny other identity groups access to social institutions (Azar, Citation1990, pp. 10–11). Moreover, Gurr’s findings also suggest that identity-based conflict happens when people perceive their identity to be under attack or when they regard the oppressive state as a barrier to their recognition and needs. In short, both Azar and Gurr stress that ethnic mobilization and conflict can be caused by a repressive or authoritarian government using state power to try to make a nation out of all the ethnic groups, forcing them to have the same national identity, culture, language, or religion.
Successive Turkish governments’ persistent attempts to deny recognition of the Kurds and their language can be traced back to the authoritarian nature of the Turkish state shaped by the political legacy of Ataturk, the Republic’s founding father. The political heritage of Ataturk can be characterized by two elements: an ‘ethnic nationalist ideology’ and an ‘authoritarian state’ (Jongerden, Citation2001, p. 3). According to the ethnic nationalist ideology, all citizens of Turkey are Turks (Jongerden, Citation2001, p. 3). In addition, this can be seen in his famous quote of Ataturk himself, who said, ‘How happy is the one who says I am a Turk.’ There exists in Turkish grammar an option for designating membership in Turkey’s civic identity but not Turkish ethnicity: The term would be ‘Turkiyeli’ instead of ‘Turk,’ akin to ‘Amerikalı’ for ‘American’ or ‘İsviçreli’ for ‘Swiss’. This term was not adopted even when Turkey engaged in all manner of modernizations of the Turkish language in the 1920s and 30s, however, although many Kurds from Turkey do use the term nonetheless, to indicate that they are Turkish citizens but not Turks—a grammatical innovation that is not accepted in Turkey and opens them up to charges of sedition. As a result of this ethnic nationalist ideology, all ‘ethnic, linguistic, and religious distinctions have been deemphasized and excluded from state politics since the foundation of the republic’ (Mousseau, Citation2012, p. 51)
The second characteristic of the political heritage of Ataturk is an authoritarian state. This is closely related to the politics of ethnicity enforced on the citizens of Turkey. The construction of a single ethnic nation-state in a multi-ethnic society creates the need for a strong central authority that can force a single ethnic identity on the citizens of the country (Jongerden, Citation2001, p. 3). More importantly, Turkey’s legal and administrative systems have evolved in a rather authoritarian fashion. Preoccupied with security (defined narrowly as the defense of the territorial integrity of Turkey), rather than problem-solving and reconciling differences between different ethnic groups, the central Turkish government has sanctioned official excesses, neglecting the human and consensual dimensions of politics. Basic freedoms such as social justice, pluralism, and accountability were all sacrificed in the name of security (Ergil, Citation2000, p. 5). These Kemalist values have dominated the official Turkish state discourse since its inception.
The Historical Origins of the Kurdish-Turkish Conflict
To understand the origins of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, it is essential to go back to the late nineteenth century Ottoman Empire and see what changes led to the deterioration of relations between the ethnic groups of the empire. For centuries, most Kurds lived under the rule of the Ottoman Empire until its dissolution after the First World War. During the time of the Ottoman Empire, a variety of ethnic and religious communities were officially recognized, and each major religious group was referred to as a millet (nation). The millets, or nations, that lived in various sections of the Empire were each given the autonomy to self-regulate and choose their own leaders, who were tasked with the responsibility of governing their own communities. Muslims of various ethnicities (such as the Kurds, most of whom are Sunni Muslim) all belonged to the Muslim millet but likewise enjoyed the freedom to express and practice their linguistic and cultural identities as they wished. Because of this millet system and non-ethnic basis of politics, people of various religions and ethnicities were able to coexist peacefully without their identity, their way of their life, customs, cultural and traditional practices being denied, eradicated or made illegal by any other ethnic group or community.
Under Ottoman rule, ethnicity was not a determining factor in defining a person’s nationality; rather, religion was the defining factor (Ergil, Citation2000, p. 3). All people, regardless of their ethnic origin and background, ‘were seen in the eyes of the state not on the basis of ethnicity or language, but religion’ (Öztürk, Citation2014, p. 2). More crucially, ‘the millet system actively promoted both intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic peace and security’ (Öztürk, Citation2014, p. 2). There was no major discrimination against other ethnic groups. What is more essential is the fact that the millet system enabled other nations to keep their own traditions and identities (Armstrong, Citation2002, p. 132). Furthermore, the Ottoman Empire ‘offered different ethnic and religious groups a haven of relative peace, security, and tolerance ‘(Tas, Citation2014, p. 10), at least until its decline in the nineteenth century. That is to say that religion, in its position as a source of identity, and religious community, in its role as a type of political framework, played an incredibly crucial role in the Ottoman Empire in terms of uniting different ethnic and religious identity groups and providing them with recognition, security, and peace. The Kurds were one of the largest ethnic groups in this diverse Ottoman Empire, and ‘ … the pluralistic Ottoman and its flexible legal system helped the Kurds to maintain their separate identity’ (Tas, Citation2014, p. 15).
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, however, the Ottoman Empire like others was affected by the ‘homogenizing principles and nationalistic ideologies associated with the construction of nation-states’ (Tas, Citation2014, p. 16). As a result of introducing uniform regulations and laws, ‘the ethnically and religiously heterogeneous millets were increasingly disturbed’ (Tas, Citation2014, p. 16). More importantly, ‘a single Turkish ethnic identity was introduced for the reshaping of the Empire’ (Tas, Citation2014, p. 16). That is to say that the introduction of uniform regulations and laws as well as the reshaping of the Empire with a single Turkish ethnic identity as an ideology to assimilate all ethnic groups into Turkishness, most notably the Kurdish ethnic group, caused disruption within the empire and planted the seeds for subsequent revolts and uprisings by Kurds.
More importantly, after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I, its leaders were forced by the Allied Powers to sign the Treaty of Sevres, which divided their former empire along ethnic lines. This resulted in the dissolution of their empire. In spite of the fact that the Treaty of Sevres provided the Kurds with the opportunity to establish their own state and obtain self-rule, the vast majority of Kurdish tribes and notables aligned themselves with Kemal Ataturk’s revolt against the Treaty (Ergil, Citation2000, p. 4). The Kurds allied with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of the new Republic, in the War of Independence because the fight was portrayed to them as an effort to save the Ottoman Sultanate and Caliphate against infidels. Ataturk also promised the Kurds political and cultural rights in the new state they would establish (Çifçi, Citation2019, p. 58). Nevertheless, in 1923, the Treaty of Sevres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne, which legitimated the newly established Turkish Republic’s geographical integrity as well as its unitary character (Ergil, Citation2000, p. 4). Additionally, all promises by Ataturk were forgotten with the Lausanne Treaty (Çifçi, Citation2019, p. 58). The multicultural and pluralist Ottoman past was abandoned (Ergil, Citation2000, p. 4) in favour of a secular, Turkish nationalist state. The abolition of the Caliphate and the establishment of the new Republic meant ‘loosening the important religious ties between the Muslim communities who strongly rejected the new state system’ (Lahdili, Citation2018, p. 2). ‘Lausanne, therefore, provided the Turkish state with a strong political ground and also encouraged it to establish its Kurdish policy upon the denial of Kurdish ethnic identity’ (Çifçi, Citation2019, p. 59). To put it another way, ‘Atatürk merely toyed with the Kurds during the War of Liberation, and when he had built the Republic on solid foundations, he began to get rid of the Kurdish ethnic identity and their political claims’ (McDowall, Citation1992, p. 14).
The relationship between the Kurds and the newly established Turkish state started to deteriorate swiftly, mostly due to the Turkish state’s unwillingness to fulfil the pledges (political and cultural rights) promised to the Kurds before the War of Independence (Çifçi, Citation2019, p. 59). The Turkish state’s goal of creating a new nation-state based on Turkish national identity necessitated the removal of the Kurdish ethnic identity (Çifçi, Citation2019, p. 60). Aiming to erase Kurdish ethnic identity, the Republic of Turkey provided the Kurds with no alternative but to adopt a Turkish national identity–meaning they had to adopt Turkish language, culture, nationalist history, and other identity markers different from their own ethnic markers. Such a unitary national model was not unique to Turkey of course and was probably borrowed from France—a country of which Ataturk was an avid admirer. The new Turkish Republic introduced a French style mono-nationalist policy some one hundred and fifty years after France did, however, and the different time and circumstances had implications for the likely success of such efforts.
The Bosnians, Albanians, Georgians, Laz, and Circassians, along with other non-Turkish Muslims who lived in Turkey, eventually became assimilated and adopted Turkishness as their identity. On the other hand, ‘the Kurds, cut off from the rest of the country by their remote location in the mountainous southeastern regions, divided along tribal lines, and economically dependent on local landed elites, remained largely unaffected by the new regime’s policies of assimilation and modernization’ (Ergil, Citation2000, p. 5). Within the territorial bounds of the new Turkey and given the expulsion of Greeks, the loss of Arab lands, the massacre of Armenians and similar changes, the Kurds constituted the last remaining non-Turkish ethnic group of significant size and strength. This significance and size provided the Kurds with the means to contest their own erasure as a group.
The imposition of Turkish identity as the dominant and only state sanctioned ethnic identity was rejected by the Kurds. More specifically, ‘Kurds were skeptical of the Kemalist secularization that weakened their religious ties to the Turks’ (Arat & Pamuk, Citation2019, p. 164). This illustrates that the adoption of Turkish identity in place of Islam as a uniting identity alienated and frustrated the Kurds; it did so by denying them the freedom to live their own ethnic and cultural reality as part of the ‘majority’ within the state and compelled them to look for a Kurdish national identity to which they could belong and that could compete with the Turkish one.
The Evidence: An Overview of Various Kurdish Uprisings
The significant Kurdish revolts of the twentieth century all clearly and explicitly enunciated a desire for identity recognition and the refusal to be assimilated. During the 1920s when the Turkish state started to implement policies of assimilation and to outlaw the use of the Kurdish language, the Kurds’ worries and dissatisfaction with the new Turkish state increased accordingly. ‘The policy of forbidding the use of the Kurdish language in public would have upset anyone with a private or politized Kurdish identity’ (Romano, Citation2006, p. 119). Consequently, the Kurds reacted to the Turkish state’s deliberate policies of assimilation and suppression of the Kurdish identity through a number of rebellions. Most importantly, the rebellions of Sheikh Said Piran (1925), Ararat (Agri) (1927–1930), Dersim (1938), and the PKK (1984–present) were four which all explicitly called for Kurdish identity recognition. However, all these rebellions were crushed by the central government and ‘followed by deportation, forced re-settlement, and the massacring of a large number of Kurds’ (Zeydanlıoğlu, Citation2012, p. 8).
To see the core causal factors behind the Kurdish- Turkish Conflict, it is important to know what the major demands of the Kurdish revolts were. We should, in other words, consider taking the Kurdish rebels at their own words. What single demand was common to all the major revolts? The Sheikh Said Piran rebellion of 1925 was considered the first large-scale Kurdish rebellion in the newly proclaimed Turkish Republic (Lahdili, Citation2018, p. 1). Prior to the outbreak of the rebellion, Azadi officers (a group of former Kurdish Ottoman officers who played a fundamental role in the revolt) gave eleven political reasons for their increased preparations for armed revolt. Their reasons clearly state Kurdish identity-based grievances and demands at that time. They articulated their grievances as follows (Olson, Citation1989, pp. 43–45; also see Van Bruinessen, Citation1992, pp. 282–291):
- The Turkish government is deporting all the Kurdish population to Western Anatolia, replacing them with refugees and others of the Turkish race as a primary step in the gradual establishment of a Turkish majority.
- The decision by the Turkish government to get rid of the Caliphate broke one of the last remaining ties between the Turks and Kurds.
- The elimination of religious institutions as the only surviving source of education for the Kurdish people, as well as the ban on the use of the Kurdish language in legal proceedings and educational institutions in favour of the Turkish language.
- The elimination of the word ‘Kurdistan’ from educational materials and documents, as well as the substitution of Kurdish names with Turkish ones.
- The senior government officials in Turkish Kurdistan are, almost without exception, Turks. This is because the Turks are exceedingly cautious about whom they hire and exclude Kurdish nationalists.
- The payment of taxes does not result in any benefit to the individual from the government. There is no other way to get justice in the courts other than through paying bribes.
- Government intervenes in elections of representatives to the Turkish National Assembly from the Kurdish Vilayets.
- The Turkish government’s strategy of pitting Kurdish tribes against one another on purpose to prevent ethnic unity.
- Military raids on Kurdish villages.
- The mistreatment and harsh treatment of Kurdish soldiers in the army, as well as the practice of assigning them tasks that are difficult and unpleasant.
- Attempts by the Turkish government, with the assistance of the German capital, to exploit the natural riches of the Kurdish people.
For various observers and scholars to persist in describing such a revolt as a ‘religious reactionary revolt,’ despite the grievances put forth by the revolt’s leaders (which are overwhelmingly related to Kurdish identity issues), seems to betray an intent to downplay the role of Kurdish national identity in Turkey. While it may be true that the revolt failed to unify all Kurds at the time under its banner (Natali, Citation2005, pp. 72–77), surely the central stated demands of the rebels themselves matter? Kurds who did not for various reasons join the rebels in 1925 may very well have still agreed with their demands, as evidenced by the outbreak of subsequent Kurdish revolts by different groups of Kurds that likewise put forth demands related to Kurdish group identity.
After Sheikh Said’s revolt was put down brutally, another revolt quickly broke out in the region of Agri (far eastern Turkey) in 1927. The rebellion is also known as the Agri Rebellion (1927–1930) and was led by Ihsan Nuri, a prominent Kurdish leader at that time. Many of the leaders of this revolt, if not the public behind it, were surviving Kurdish officers from Piran’s revolt. As a result, they did not come up with a new list of demands but instead maintained the same demands that had been stated earlier. As the rebels gained momentum, the Turkish authorities changed their tactics and sought conciliation to persuade them to lay down their guns, halting all deportations and promising amnesty. However, ‘they failed to convince the Kurdish leaders of their sincerity, partly because they were unwilling to concede the use of Kurdish as a sop to the nationalist sentiment ‘(McDowall, Citation1992, p. 204). Moreover, Nuri’s main demand was the ‘Turkish evacuation of Kurdistan’ (McDowall, Citation1992, p. 204) and an end to the policy of assimilation and deportation.
While the brutal suppression of the Agri revolt was still fresh in people’s minds, Turkish forces launched an aggressive assault of Turkification on Kurds in the Dersim region. In the past, Dersim could keep its independence, even when it was under Ottoman rule, and the Ottomans referred to it as Kurdistan. Tribal and religious divisions had earlier prevented the Kurds of Dersim from joining the 1925 and 1927–1930 revolts (Kurds from Dersim are largely Alevi, while the leaders of the prior revolts were mostly (Sunni). From 1936 to 1938, a broad sense of resentment and discontent could be seen among the Kurdish people of the Dersim region as a result of the deployment of substantial Turkish military forces, the establishment of oppressive institutions, and the brutal enforcement of a blockade of the area (Beşikçi, Citation1977, pp. 132–146). It seemed to many that these policies were adopted with the goal of eliminating the core features and building blocks of Kurdish identity in the Dersim region of central-eastern Turkey (Bayrak, Citation2009, p. 83). To put an end to these measures, a local Dersimi Kurdish leader, Said Rez, dispatched his son with a letter of complaint and demands to the district governor, urging him to put a halt to these measures against the Kurds and to recognize the rights of the Kurds as Kurds. However, the son was arrested and killed. As a result, the Kurdish people in the Dersim area began their revolt against the Turkish state in 1936.
Although the Dersimi Kurds never issued an explicit list of written demands, it appears clear that they were reacting to the Turkish State’s attempt to erase their identity. This Turkish state policy was encapsulated in the Law of Resettlement of 1934. Soner Cagaptay (Citation2002) describes the 1934 law and policies that immediately preceded and precipitated the revolt:‘The first article of this law stated that ‘the Ministry of Interior is assigned the powers to correct … the distribution and locale of the population in Turkey in accordance with the membership of Turkish culture (p. 7) … The resettlement law addressed the Kurds’. The Kemalists thought that they could assimilate the Kurds by mixing them with Turks since the two shared a common cultural and religious identity. Article 9 of the resettlement law stated: ‘The Ministry of Interior is entitled to … resettle nomads who do not share the Turkish culture, by spreading them around to Turkish towns and villages.’ In addition, an executive act issued in 1939 dictated the settlement of immigrant Turks in specific strategic areas in the east from where Kurds would be banished. This would create corridors of Turkishness into the Kurdish heartland. If, however, these policies failed, and when the Kurds (or others) proved troublesome, the Ministry of Interior was empowered to ‘deport nomads who do not share the Turkish culture outside the national boundaries (p. 8) … The law then designated three zones in Turkey where this policy was to be actualized. These were: Zone 1, set aside for ‘populations who share the Turkish culture; Zone 2, for the ‘relocation and resettlement of populations which are to adopt the Turkish culture’; and Zone 3, which was closed to resettlement and habitation for ‘sanitary, economic, cultural, political, military and security reasons’ (p. 7). Dersim was in Zone 3. While the 1936–1938 Dersimi revolt appears to be the most difficult to find clear evidence of the ‘identity recognition’ factor’s role within it due to the absence of explicit demands by the rebels (other than putting an end to the state’s Turkification policies in the area) and other issues such as forced resettlement by the state, it does seem reasonable to conclude that it played a key role here as well.
A period of relative quiet followed the brutal suppression of the Dersim Kurdish uprising in 1938. During this time, the Turkish state’s denial of Kurdish identity and assimilation policies continued apace. By the 1970s, growing numbers of Kurds in Turkey again began advocating for the recognition of their ethnic, linguistic, and political identity (Gunter, Citation2016, p. 32). However, the Turkish government ruthlessly suppressed these demands, leading to the PKK’s establishment in 1978 (Gunter, Citation2016, p. 32). The 1978 PKK manifesto clearly declares that the Kurds had never fully surrendered to the predatory regimes or the feudal Ottoman Turkish authorities (p. 16). It states that ‘as soon as an opportunity arose, they [Kurds] raised the banner of rebellion’ (p. 16). In this manifesto, the PKK describes itself as a Kurdish revolutionary movement that has two aspects: ‘national and democratic’ goals. The national ‘tasks as its target the domination of colonialism in the political, military, economic, and cultural spheres’ (p. 35). Second, the aim of the democratic revolution is ‘to clear away the contradictions in society.’ The manifesto states that the PKK struggles:
- To end the domination of Kurdistan by Turkish colonialism and imperialism:
- To stop all sorts of minority, national, and religious repression.
- To replace colonial education with national education.
- To recognize one of the Kurdish dialects as a national language.
- To establish a worker-peasant government.
- To build an independent economic structure.
- To support the unity of Kurdistan.
- To use ‘proletarian internationalism’ in relations with neighbouring peoples and states. (pp. 35–40)
Later, in September of 2000, the PKK Presidential Council issued a new manifesto, known as the Manifesto for National Peace and National Unity, in which they stated that keeping an army is legitimate and necessary for the defense and development of Kurdish national interests so long as the dominant state continues its policy of annihilation and denial of the Kurds. Furthermore, the manifesto outlined the following as the goals of the PKK:
- To strive to achieve national peace for the Kurds and reject and stop the state policy of annihilation and denial of Kurds.
- To create and develop Kurdish national democracy through creating conditions for freedom of opinion and expression.
- To arrange Kurdish relations with ruling societies and dominant states based on tackling the Kurdish question.
- To achieve the reorganization and development of inter-nation relations predicated on finding a solution to the Kurdish question.
- To develop national unity by overcoming all positions based on the division of Kurdistan.
- The PKK established a civil society organization known as the Koma Civakên Kurdistanê (KCK) in 2007. The KCK demanded the following of the Turkish state (Bayir, Citation2014, pp. 36–37):
- Recognition and constitutional protection of Kurdish identity.
- Removing all restrictions on the Kurdish language and identity, recognizing education in the mother tongue, and declaring Kurdish a second official language.
- Recognition of the rights to freedom of association and expression.
- Ending gender discrimination and socioeconomic inequality.
- Releasing of all political prisoners, including Abdullah Öcalan (the PKK’s founder and leader, imprisoned in Turkey since 1999).
- Eliminating village guards.
- Granting more power to local governments.
Overall, looking at all the demands of the major Kurdish revolts in Turkey, it becomes clear that the recognition of Kurds, the end of ‘Turkish colonial repression of the Kurds,’ the removal of state restrictions on the Kurdish language, and the recognition of Kurds’ rights to freely express themselves and associate, appear as common and consistent themes. This implies that the ‘Kurdish nationalists and elites launched these revolts against the Turkish state’s repressive and assimilatory policies against the Kurds in order to maintain the existence of a distinct Kurdish nationalist consciousness and Kurdish ethnic self-identification going back centuries’ (Hassanpour, Citation1992, p. 148; cited in Ozerdem & Whiting, Citation2019, p. 235). Kurdish nationalists and elites made the demands for the recognition of Kurds either because these were important to them, or because such demands appealed to their followers, or more likely, both. It may be quite true that various intra-Kurdish rivalries prevented all these revolts from uniting all Kurds under their banner, but this does not even mean that the denial of Kurdish identity was not also central to Kurds who did not join a particular revolt at a particular time. We seem to see this in the 1925, 1927–1930, and the 1936–1938 revolts. For instance, the Dersimi Kurds who revolted in 1936 were largely Alevi and of different tribal affiliations as well and refused to join the earlier revolts led by first a Sunni sheikh and then other tribes and Kurdish urban intellectuals. Yet, they revolted on their own just a few years later for what looks like very similar reasons.
Why did the Kurds need to have their identity recognized? The struggle for identity recognition appears as a crucial motivator that played a key part in the breakout of all of these rebellions. If we examine the context and atmosphere of the occurrence of these rebellions. We can conclude that all of them were a reaction at least in part to the assimilatory policy of the Turkish state and the denial of the Kurdish identity.
Implications for Conflict Resolution in Turkey
If identity recognition (or rather, lack thereof) has served as a prime motor of violent conflict in Turkey since the inception of the Turkish Republic, then solutions to the conflict must begin by recognizing this fact. The way forward seems clear: Both the Turkish state and Turkish society must recognize the Kurds, publicly, formally, symbolically, and completely. With significant Greek, Armenian, Arab, and other national identity groups having disappeared from the territory that became Turkey in 1923, only two remain: The Turks and the Kurds. Recognition of Turkey’s binational character, akin to Belgium, Canada, or Switzerland (with three main nations in the latter case) would remove the main stumbling block to ending this conflict. One might describe such recognition as a necessary, but perhaps not sufficient, step in ending the conflict.
Since the 1920s, Turkish elites and society have refused such recognition, suspecting that it would exacerbate a secessionist drive amongst the Kurds (Somer, Citation2022, pp. 7–8). Such a position seems analogous to the Turkish approach to secularism that held sway until only recently: the hijab in schools or other public institutions, beards on male civil servants, and other public manifestations of Muslim religiosity must be forbidden, so the thinking went, lest Islamists use these freedoms to push Turkey towards further Islamization culminating in Sharia law. The current ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002, rejected such logic, insisting that the right to express religiosity in public constituted a basic human right necessary for a free society. So too, with Kurdish identity, language, and culture. The very suppression of these things under the justification of a secessionist bogeyman led to decades of violent conflict in Turkey and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. In any case, the principal Kurdish movements in Turkey (the PKK and various civil society groups sympathetic to it as well as the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party/HDP) reject secession of the majority Kurdish parts of the country. The PKK has not advanced such a goal since the mid-1990s.
A more open Turkish political system and society (one that allowed the use of such terms as ‘Turkiyeli,’ for instance) could nonetheless maintain a red line of territorial unity, much as democratic countries such as Spain do. In such a system, Kurds could campaign and negotiate as Kurds for whatever they wish short of secession—greater decentralization, holidays to recognize symbols and dates important to them, increased public investments in their regions, increased bilingualism, and so forth. With most of the current taboos regarding Kurds and their mention in Turkish politics and society removed, there would remain much less justification for taking up arms instead of playing politics within the system. Moreover, ethnic Kurds in Turkey could come to feel that they really are a part of the country, able to contribute to its development without relinquishing their identity or mother tongue.
Turkish society is not ready for such a change, unfortunately. It, therefore, falls to the country’s political and social leaders to prepare them for such a new perspective step by step. Although there were signs that the AKP under Prime Minister and then President Erdogan might proceed in such a direction, particularly before 2015, a political alliance between the AKP and the far-Right People’s National Party (MHP) in 2015 returned Turkey to the old status quo vis-à-vis the Kurds.
Conclusion
The analysis presented here began with an overview of identity-based ethnic conflict and protracted civil conflict theories, summarizing many crucial observations from the existing literature regarding the effects of identity denial. The works of Azar and Gurr, in particular, encourage us not to downplay the importance of identity in civil and protracted conflicts. Armed with such a theoretical justification for the centrality of identity recognition, the analysis then turned to how the newly-emerged Turkish state at the start of the twentieth century turned Ottoman pluralism on its head and sought to impose a single Turkish ethnic identity upon all the inhabitants of the new state. From the logic of Azar’s basic needs theory and Gurr’s and others’ theoretical observations regarding ethnic conflict, we know that this choice by the new Turkish state elites was likely to spark a violent reaction.
Next, we looked at the stated demands of Kurdish rebels in the revolts of 1925, 1927–1930, 1936–1938, and 1978 and onwards. We collated their demands from primary sources whenever possible, and secondary source analyses as well. The logic here was that to see the core causal factors behind the Kurdish- Turkish Conflict, it is important to know what the major demands of the Kurdish revolts were. We should, in other words, consider taking the Kurdish rebels at their own words. The demands common to all the revolts were for identity recognition and an end to forced ‘Turkification’ policies. This dovetails precisely with the theoretical literature on the topic examined at the outset, and we believe that a similar dynamic can be discerned in many civil conflicts around the world.
In Turkey’s Kurdish case, identity denial seems to have fostered greater cohesion, grievances, and mobilization within the Kurdish community as a victimized communal group. When material inequalities, such as the much greater levels of poverty and underdevelopment in Turkey’s Kurdish regions, are added to the mix, Kurds naturally conclude that the same authorities who deny and denigrate their identity also discriminate against them in material terms.
This dynamic promotes collective violence and protracted the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. The perpetuation of conflict between the Kurds and the Turkish state can be ascribed more to conflict over the recognition and security of the communal identity of Kurds than to material inequalities, since the latter becomes politically volatile when it gets interpreted through an ethnic lens (a lens created in the first place by the policies of denial and repression of one ethnic group and not another).
We concluded with some observations about a way out of the conflict in light of our analysis. Solutions to end the conflict need to begin first and foremost with identity recognition and acceptance of the Kurds as Kurds. The rest, from economic inequality and underdevelopment of Kurdish regions to decentralization and greater political participation of Kurds in public policy making, constitutes second-order issues to be negotiated and addressed. These other issues can take time to negotiate, are likely to continually evolve, and form part of everyday politics and public policymaking. They cannot be successfully addressed, however, until the identity recognition issue is adequately resolved. In a status quo wherein one cannot even discuss Kurdish group rights publicly in Turkey without facing charges of treason, it should come as no surprise that many Kurds opt for insurrection against such a system instead.
Our findings may have relevance to other protracted civil conflicts where identity denial plays an important role (and the theoretical literature we summarized here suggests that such denial often does play an important role). Thankfully, symbolic and official identity recognition can be relatively inexpensive. Such recognition can then open up the political system for various actors to pursue their other goals (resources for their community, additional rights, or others) within the institutionalized political realm, rather than via armed insurgency. The savings in lives and money from such a change should not be underestimated.
