The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities

Abstract

The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities is a richly developed, multidimensional analysis of the diverse identities or elite blocs of the Kurds of Turkey. Based on the author's doctoral dissertation at the renowned Sciences Po in Paris, the book aptly demonstrates that the Kurds—much less, the Turkish Kurds—do not constitute a monolithic bloc, as many researchers and interested observers imply or even claim when they discuss the issue. As Cicek puts it: “Although most actors commonly use the notion of the ‘Kurdish issue,’ in reality there is not a single Kurdish issue, but the various ‘Kurdish issues’ of different Kurdish groups, which have different social imaginaries, ideological and political orientations, interests and institutions” (246). Thus, “the main conclusion of the research is the fact that divisions due to national, religious and class-based dynamics have constituted grave obstacles for the Kurdish groups in their consensus-building processes for the establishment of a Kurdish political region in Turkey” (236).To develop his thesis, the author mainly relies on interviews with “35 cultural and intellectual elites, 31 economic elites, 40 political elites, and 26 religious elites” (7) as well as a much lesser review of recent election results. Cicek analyzes the data through the theory of constructivism, which argues that “the collective identities and/or groups are not ‘substantial things-in-the-world,’ but historical, political and relational constructs having dynamic borders. They are not discrete, concrete, tangible or bounded, but are rather relational, process-based, dynamic, eventful and disintegrated” (237). Thus, “collective identities like Kurdish, Sunni-Muslim, Alevi, and Zaza in the Kurdish region, are not ‘identities taken-for-granted’ …, but rather the constructs of the socio-political entrepreneurs” (74).To this insight, Cicek adds the sociology of collective action “that contentious interests constitute the core issue of collective action” (33); “there are basically four main constraints/resources which influence different Kurdish actors, in different ways, at ideas, interests, and institutions levels” (14), which he terms the “3-Is.” These four main constraints and/or resources are the central state, the geopolitical dynamic, Europeanization, and the globalization process. Cicek examines these concepts on numerous occasions throughout his work and maintains that “by simultaneously taking these ideas, interests and institutions into consideration, the ‘3-Is’ model can provide a more systematic and integrated frame with analytical elements to understand changes in polity, politics and policy levels” (35). At one point he also makes the important observation that “state intervention into the construction of the Alevi and Zaza identities can be understood as a political response aimed at undermining the leading Kurdish movements” (101) since expanding the construction of the Alevi and Zaza identities at the expense of the leading Kurdish movements would tend to weaken the latter.Cicek covers the relatively short period from 1999 to 2013. He starts with 1999 because he identifies it as the year when “the Kurdish issue was sharply and dramatically changed due to three interrelated significant events” (30–31): First, the capture of Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya on February 15, 1999; second, the significant success of pro-Kurdish politics in the local election held on April 18, 1999; and, third, the recognition of Turkey candidacy for EU accession in December 1999. Certainly, one can disagree with Cicek's periodization and dispute whether these events fully justify 1999 as a pivotal year. Although Öcalan's capture was surely important, earlier and subsequent elections make the one in April 1999 unremarkable and subsequent dates for the EU narrative might also have been chosen. The study covers the period up to 2013 simply because it was the year when the author finished his original research, although a short epilogue does consider developments from 2013 to 2015.However, the events of those years have already been overshadowed by more recent, more significant events that occurred since Cicek's manuscript was published, such as the attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016; Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's subsequent crackdown on virtually anyone who might pose a threat to his rule, and the decline of Turkish democracy into authoritarianism that it precipitated; the failed referendum held by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq on September 25, 2017 followed by the partial collapse of the KRG, which had once been the Kurds’ foremost candidate for an independent state; and what might be called “Syria 201,” namely the dangerous evolution of the Syrian war into potential conflict among Russia, the United States, Iran, Turkey, and Israel, as well as the Turkish offensive into the Kurdish Syrian canton of Afrin on January 20, 2018.The book is divided into seven chapters, a conclusion, and the aforementioned epilogue. The first chapter presents the work's main theoretical framework, which has been outlined above, and the subsequent six chapters contain its core content. In the second chapter, Cicek dissects the three Kurdish identities or blocs mentioned in the title of the book—national, religious, and economic—and puts them into historical perspective. Here the author is particularly enlightening in portraying “the diverse ideas, interests, [and] institutions of the three blocs, as well as their interrelated construction processes, and the historical conflicts between them” (38). He devotes particular attention to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its umbrella network, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK)—which he broadens to include the BDP-DTK— referring to all of these groups throughout his text as simply, “the leading Kurdish movement.”1 It almost seems as if he is fearful of calling the movement by its actual name, the PKK. More problematic is that the author frequently lists “three other pro-Kurdish parties (KADEP, HAK-PAR, and the OSP), as well as several secular political groups, such as the TDSK” (41) within the Kurdish national bloc as if they were somehow equally as important as the PKK. Although Cicek's analysis of these other national blocs is interesting, they are marginal groups, and their influence is grossly exaggerated by treating them in this way.Nevertheless, Cicek does correctly acknowledge that this leading Kurdish movement (the PKK) represents “a massive socio-political and socio-cultural mobilization in the Kurdish scene since the 1980s” (38–39) and “is a complex transnational and multi-dimensional social movement” (49). He also points out that the leading Kurdish movement “is organized not only in Turkey, but also in Iran, Iraq and Syria, [and] has multiple social, economic and political networks in almost all European countries [and] … given its 35-year lifetime and constant renewal … constitutes a very good example of the ‘learning organization’” (230). In addition to its transnational organizational structure, the PKK is characterized by a distinct political culture that is unique to the region: “The KCK Contract, the fundamental document of the movement … advocates a new regime based on ‘radical democracy,’ highlighting communal economy, gender emancipation and equality, ecology, and a multilevel confederal organization of different social, cultural, economic, political, and religious groups at the levels of district, city, region and nation” (81).As for the other facets of the leading Kurdish movement and its constituent groups, Cicek accurately relates that “although there is not an organic hierarchical relationship between them, it can be argued that they function as legal and illegal fronts of the same social movement. Indeed, Kurdish politicians often state, the PKK-KCK and the BDP-DTK share the same societal base” (50). So if the PKK-KCK and BDP-DTK share the same constituents, what differentiates them? According to Cicek, “the PKK-KCK and its supremo A Ocalan determine the main ideological and political identity, main strategy and goals of the movement, while the BDP-DTK principally socialises and mobilises people…. Finally, the BDP-DTK is more pluralistic than the PKK-KCK’ (51). Possessing legal and illegal fronts would maximize the movement's ability to operate in a variety of fora.The Kurdish religious bloc is the second Turkish-Kurdish identity that Cicek analyzes in chapter 2. The author's nuanced presentation of six principal groups that make up the bloc is quite useful. They include (1)the traditional Kurdish pro-Islamists or the Kurdish tariqats; (2) followers of earlier pro-Islamist political parties such as the National View Movement (MGH) of Necemettin Erbakan, who largely became supporters of Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP); (3) the Gulen community (GC) of Fethullah Gülen—whose origins lie in the Nur community of Said Nursi, a.k.a. Saidi Kurdi or Kurdish Said (Bediuzzaman or “wonder of the age”)—whom, as is well known, was blamed by Erdoğan for the failed coup of July 15, 2016; (4) Kurdish pro-Islamists who promote Kurdish national rights and support cultural plurality and equality between ethnic groups; (5) Mustazaflar Hareketi (Movement of Oppressed People), the successor of the Kurdish Hizballah (KH), a fundamentalist version of Kurdish pro-Islamism; and (6) several small Salafist groups.Also discussed under the rubric of “autonomisation of Kurdish pro-Islamism” are small groups such as the Zehra Community (ZH), and Azadi. On the other hand, “the Alevi religious community including Turkish, Kurdish, and Arab ethnic groups constitutes the principal religious minority in Turkey” (64) and represents a profound division in the Kurdish religious identity and goals. “The historical discrimination and otherisation of the Alevi community by the Sunni-Muslim rulers made opposition to Sunni-Muslim Islamism the predominant element of the Alevi collective identity” (66). In addition, “the Zaza-identity-based cultural and political mobilisations … of Zazaki-speaking Kurds who claim that the Zazas are not Kurds, but a distinctive national group” (68) must be noted.Finally, chapter 2 also analyzes the Kurdish economic bloc, or the economic elites, as the third Kurdish identity within Turkey. Although “the term ‘the tender economy’ characterized the weak and centre-dependent qualities of the Kurdish economic elite … [they] have tried to become involved in the political struggle for the last decade” (73). Regarding this economic bloc, Cicek would want to consult Veli Yadirgi's recent excellent study based on his doctoral dissertation that has been published since the release of Cicek's manuscript, as Yadirgi's study adds a wealth of new date and interpretations regarding the Kurdish economy.2In examining the conflicts among the three Kurdish blocs at the idea level, the third chapter argues that “the left-wing political and ideological orientation of the PKK-KCK embraces a highly modernist secularism that limits the capacity of the movement to cooperate with Kurdish religious groups” (45). Indeed, the leading Kurdish movement (the PKK) is hostile to religion, often seeing it as “as an archaic, reactionary phenomenon that limits social emancipation and will be eliminated during the socio-economic development and modernisation process” (77–78). In addition, the PKK also sees religion as being hostile to it, casting religion as a tool of foreign intervention used by the Turkish government in order to subvert its political aspirations: “religion, according to this political perspective, is one of the principal instruments used by the Turkish state to undermine the Kurdish national liberation struggle” (78).On the other hand, the staunch secularism of the PKK often puts it at odds with “most pro-Islamist groups,” who “see the national groups as ‘the outsiders’ to the Kurds and the Kurdish region” (171). Indeed, Islamist Kurdish groups see some of the PKK's secularizing reforms, such as its promulgation of gender equality, as a threat to their Islamist ideology. As Cicek puts it, “the leading Kurdish movement's efforts regarding the gender issue constitute the most important and visible aspect of its ‘anti-Islamist’ quality, according to most of the pro-Islamist Kurds” (89–90). Indeed, he goes on further to say: “pro-Islamist Kurdish groups understand the gender-based discourse and mobilisation that the Kurdish movement encourages as a modernist project that de-Islamises Muslim Kurdish society” (90). However, there is not full consensus amongst the religious-based identities. Some religious minorities invite the establishment of the secular state that the PKK proposes, anticipating that it will offer greater protections than an Islamist state. For instance, the non-Kurdish Alevis: “The Alevis refer to the Ottoman period as an epoch of massacres against the Alevi communities by the Sunni-Islamist rule, and for that reason support the new secular republic” (188). They “consider laicism as a political guarantee to protect them against the Sunni-Islamist hegemony” (93).Chapter 4 deals with the conflict of interest between the Kurdish national bloc and economic elite and how it “constitutes a remarkable obstacle to building a Kurdish consensus in Turkey” (104). “While most of the national groups … see the Kurdish economic elites as weak, unreliable and state-dependent actors” (116), “the economic elite argues that this model [of the PKK as a cooperative basis of production and consumption] is not compatible with the reality of the world, which is based on the market economy, and constitutes a very real danger for their economic interest” (126).Chapter 5 concentrates “on the debates around the institutional form of a prospective Kurdish political region” (128). Cicek concludes that these options are limited to local decentralization, federation, and regionalization, otherwise called regional autonomy. Noteworthy is Cicek's conclusion to this chapter, where he states that the PKK “explicitly declares that it does not advocate a Kurdish nation state, but rather democracy based on a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nationhood” (152). This proposed form of governance, which is termed “democratic autonomy,” was introduced to the PKK through the writings of Abdullah Ocalan during his incarceration after being captured in 1999, and Cicek goes on to discuss it. He also notes that democratic autonomy is criticized by other national groups who argue that it will damage “the integrity of the Kurdish region by dividing it when it is already part of a country that has been divided among four states (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria)” (144).Chapter 6 differs from previous books that analyzed the conflicts among different Kurdish identities and instead focuses on the negotiations between them. Cicek argues that “the Kurdish groups have made noteworthy efforts to negotiate and build consensus on Kurdish issue(s) for the last decade…. However, there had been only limited progress” (155) given a strong path dependency, a concept he employs frequently, and which he defines as “the influence of the past over the present” (183). Rather quixotically, he declares that “although it ultimately failed, TEV-KURD was remarkable in its goal to unite different Kurdish groups under a single organization” (159), and adds that “like TEV-KURD, the DTK failed” (159). He concludes that, despite its failure, the attempt “can be noted as a learning process for both sides” (175–76), and later concludes that “today, there is a general consensus that the Kurdish groups must recognize each other and completely eliminate political violence against each other in the Kurdish region” (255), so maybe in that sense these attempts at negotiations were “remarkable” (255).In chapter 7 the author discusses historical, state-based, geopolitical, European, and global dynamics that have diverse effects on the ideas, interests, and institutions (the 3-Is) of the three major Turkish Kurdish identities that Cicek's book focuses on (specifically, the national, religious, and economic identities). This enables him to examine the influences on Turkish Kurds of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) since 2003 and the de facto Kurdish region in Syria since 2011. Cicek also contrasts the various Kurdish versions of their history and identity with Erdoğan's AKP Party's interpretation of the history of the Kurds in Turkey, which provides “only a partial recognition of the Kurdish identity as ‘a local folkloric diversity in Turkey’” (194).Although most Kurds initially supported the Europeanization process of Turkey's possible accession to the European Union (EU) as a backdoor way to achieve Kurdish rights, the project has since “lost its credibility in the eyes of the Kurds” (219) after it did not sufficiently address their concerns. One problem was that “the EU principally adopted an Ankara-centric approach and just proposed liberal individual cultural rights for the settlement of the Kurdish issue” (220). Another was that the Kurds were not consulted in the course of the accession process: “The EU mainly cooperated with the central state and did not sufficiently include the Kurdish groups and take their expectations into account” (233). But even if the process of EU accession had included terms that were more favorable to the Kurds, it would not have made much of a difference in advancing the goals of the Kurds’ collective ambitions in Turkey, because President Erdoğan gave up on the process once he won significant power in Turkey. Indeed, even developments internal to the Kurdish politics eventually marginalized the EU accession process: “after the establishment of the IKR [Iraqi Kurdistan Region], which provided a new cognitive and normative frame with its politico-administrative model, as well as immense economic and political resources to the Kurdish groups, the Europeanization process became an irrelevant dynamic for the national groups” (220). What would Cicek say about all of this following the virtual collapse of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, after its failed advisory referendum on independence on September 25, 2017?A chapter entitled “Conclusion” then analyzes “how the three main types of Kurdish groups … cooperate to establish a consensus on a certain concept: a Kurdish political region in Turkey” (234). “The main conclusion of the research is the fact that divisions due to national, religious and class-based dynamics have constituted grave obstacles for the Kurdish groups in the consensus-building processes for the establishment of a Kurdish political region in Turkey” (236). Again, “in reality there is not a single Kurdish issue, but the various ‘Kurdish issues’ of different Kurdish groups” (246). Nevertheless, the different Kurdish groups have found seven shared interests on which they agree: There must be (1) a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue; (2) the constitutional recognition of the Kurds; (3) the reproduction of the Kurdish identity; (4) the Kurds’ right to self-government; (5) the socioeconomic development of the Kurdish region; (7) Turkey's good relations with the KRG and Rojava (Western Kurdistan, or the Kurdish region of Syria); and (7) Turkey's adhesion to the EU.Finally, as already noted, an epilogue brings up new matters from 2013 to 2015. Here Cicek waxes over “the glorious success of the HDP in taking 13.12 per cent of the votes” in the June 7, 2015, election. However, in almost the same breath, he ponders why the Turkish-PKK peace process (2013–15) failed. He provides six reasons: (1) the trust problem; (2) the withdrawal and disarmament of the PKK fighters; (3) the political status of Rojava in Syria; (4) the structures, mechanisms, and actors of the negotiation processes; (5) the agenda of the peace process; and (6) the internal struggle in the state establishment and the rising fears of the AKP regarding the maintenance of its power. Here he rather one-sidedly speaks of “the open, sincere, reassuring and stable role of the HDP in the ongoing peace process [and how it] increased the party's credibility throughout society. Conversely, the AKP, President Erdoğan in particular, adopted a narrow, insecure and unstable position during the peace process” (276). Thus he finds that “the rise of Demirtas [the HDP co-chair] as a young, sincere, honest, intellectual and populist political leader opposing President Erdoğan must be particularly underlined” (277). However, Cicek's intuition that Demirtas would remain a significant figure has not been borne out by events subsequent to the completion of Cicek's manuscript, as Demirtas has been imprisoned since November 2016. Nevertheless, it is true that Demirtas managed to win more than 8 percent of the vote for president of Turkey in the elections held on June 24, 2018.As for further minor criticisms, the author's jargonistic style may limit its audience mostly to scholars steeped in advanced theoretical frameworks. That would be a pity, because there is much useful data here for policymakers and the intelligent lay public to ponder. Fortunately, the author's frequent repetitions, which otherwise might be a fault, come to the reader's aid by finally bringing to attention important points possibly not fully comprehended on the first reading.I found Cicek's use of only a first initial instead of a full first name followed by surnames to be rather disconcerting, especially given his clear intention to deliver detailed precision throughout his entire book. Furthermore, despite a rather full bibliography, much of Cicek's actual documentation refers only to personal interviews, and not to the scholarly literature. Whether this is truly a fault or not is up to the reader. Indeed, this reviewer finds Cicek's documentation not only justified usage of primary sources, but testimony is skillfully developed in the actual text.In addition, there are also several minor factual inaccuracies worth noting. “The first Kurdish National Congress held in Erbil in July 2013” (175) actually never occurred due to weighty pan-Kurdish disagreements, an outcome only subsequently revealed in an endnote buried among a sea of references to personal interviews. A reference to “the centuries-long political domination [of the Kurds] by the four states” (243) is, of course, erroneous since it was only a mere century ago that two of these states (Iraq and Syria) were even created. The repeated reference to the BDP as being an integral part of the leading Kurdish movement is somewhat misleading since the HDP took its place in 2014. Possibly Cicek might have solved this problem by listing these two pro-Kurdish political parties as the “BDP/HDP.” The reference to the BDP ruling the Diyarbakir Sur Municipality of Diyarbakir “since 1999” (109), is, of course, is a minor date-related error, given that the BDP was not created until 2009. Similarly, the mention of “the last general election held on June 11, 2011” (116) is most likely a simple failure to update his original doctoral dissertation, as the discussion of subsequent elections in the epilogue testifies. Finally, Cicek fails even to list in his bibliography two recent and germane studies by Anna Grabolle-Celiker and by Aysegul Aydin and Cem Emrence, among others.3 However, none of these minor problems affect the book's main—and important—analysis of the different Kurdish identities in Turkey.The book contains a relatively large bibliography, a useful list of abbreviations, a modest index, eight figures (seven of which are maps showing the location of items of interest in Turkey's political regions), and five tables. In conclusion, Cicek's entire manuscript attests to his deep knowledge of the substantive and theoretical literature. It demands and rewards close scrutiny, and it will be a very valuable addition to the existing literature.