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The Kurdish Case Against
Turkey
By: Sabah
Salih
March 22, 2007
There is no room for
confusion in the Kurdish case against Turkey: to be a Kurd in Turkey is to be
denied the right to be yourself. The case is as clear-cut as I am putting it.
Unlike imperialism or global
capitalism, whose primary interest is not a people’s ethnic particularity but
their labor, Turkish nationalist state aims specifically at undermining Kurdish
identity.
This is a goal the
nationalist state has been feverishly pursing from the start; its enormous
bureaucracy, legal and educational systems, as well as its cultural and media
outlets, have been persistent in articulating and reinforcing a vision of
national identity based on Turkishness alone. And it is a vision with
totalizing political and cultural power. Laws deal harshly with the slightest
criticism of it, and, at the cultural level, years of brainwashing can make many
a Turk feel perfectly justified in committing murder in its name.
This is one of those rare
cases in which nationalism has successfully been transformed into a kind of
national unconscious, or a deeply entrenched groupthink, whereby a Turk can be
quite open-minded and progressive about many issues but in the same breath be
downright racist about the Kurds without even being aware of his/her racism. At
all levels, much of what gets said and read and written about the Kurd in Turkey
is filtered through this unconscious.
A few years ago, at one of
the border crossings between Greece and Turkey, a Turkish border guard asked me,
in passable English, as I was handing him my passport, if I spoke any Turkish.
I said I was sorry I didn’t. In a voice, overbearingly confidant, and a gaze,
somewhat hostile, he said, “You must learn Turkish; it is the best language in
the world.” He was about to hand me back my passport when I said, politely,
“All languages are equal, Turkish, English, Kurdish: it all depends on how their
users feel about them.” The K-word instantly transformed the man. His facial
muscles tightened. His eyes grew fierce. His grip on my passport became more
pronounced. “Kurds are terrorists,” he shouted. I said nothing. “They are
dirty and uncivilized.” I said, “You seem to have swallowed a great deal of
falsehood.” He countered by repeating his words even more forcefully and more
loudly, and by ordering me to pull over and wait. For nearly two hours I was
practically his prisoner. I still remember the anger on his face following me
all the way to my car as I drove away.
The fact that an otherwise
genial face could so easily be turned gruesome by a single word shows that the
guard had simply no idea that his convictions were based on lies, and it is for
this reason cases like his are worth mentioning. There is nothing accidental or
incidental about them; they are products of a sustained cultural and political
indoctrination, part of a national mindset that views the Kurd as the Turk’s
other. In other words, in order for the Kurds to be regarded as civilized,
they have to willingly undergo a cultural makeover, shedding their Kurdishness
for Turkishness. That such mindset continues to be the norm rather than the
exception is reason to believe that Turkish nationalism is a long way from
starting a meaningful dialogue with itself, let alone with others.
Kurds are not
born-worshippers of everything Kurdish; they are not born-haters of everything
non-Kurdish, either. They are well aware that, because of geography and
culture, they have quite a bit in common with all those around them, including
the Turks. They are also well aware that, in order for true liberation to
occur, Kurdish nationalism must in the end mutate into something bigger and more
universal. For now, however, Kurds have no choice but to continue fighting for
recognition and to continue speaking out against a foe that has turned
oppressing and suppressing everything Kurdish, both at home and abroad, into a
national religion.
Dr.Sabah Salih is
professor of English at Bloomsburg University, PA, USA.
