Negotiating the meaning of Kurdishness: the construction of a secular Kurdish identity perception by Kurdish political and intellectual elites in Turkey

Abstract

This article examines the process of the construction of a secular Kurdish perception of identity by Kurdish political elites since the 1960s. It argues that despite the variance in group-making tactics employed by different Kurdish political groups or figures, something has remained unchanged: the construction and promotion of a secular Kurdish identity perception, which dissociates Islam from the cultural content of Kurdish ethnic identity. Kurdish political and intellectual elites in Turkey, during and after the 1960s, took a radical stance against religion and started to construct and promote a Kurdish ethnic identity perception based only on certain myths, ruling out Islam from the cultural content of Kurdish ethnic identity. Although Kurdish political elites adopted a friendlier language towards religion after the 2000s, in response to certain political and practical challenges, they never gave up on this secular Kurdish identity perception.