The recent uprising is more a response by the population to the Turkish state's repression than the product of the agitation of any specific political current. A 17 May 7, 1990 • #184 International Viewpoint
TURKEY national "counter-identity" has been created amongst the Kurds.
Kurdistan is one of the poorest and most backward parts of the country. At Siirt and Mardin there are only five enterprises employing more than ten people. The unemployment rate is triple the Turkish average. Some 40% of the population is illiterate. It is also, historically, the region where Kurdish national identity has been strongest. The resistance to the Turkish language has been most stubborn, while the population reacted strongly to the death of Barzani.!
For the past year there have been Kurdish nationalist demonstrations in this region as well as in Istanbul 2. But this is the first time that the situation has become really explosive, even if the tension is not the same throughout Kurdistan. For example, in Diyarbakir, the most developed town in Kurdistan, the protest demonstrations and the shopkeepers' strike were not as large or as widely followed. Even so some 50,000 shops closed.
The development of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey has been different from the other parts of Kurdistan?. In fact, if the national dimension is taken away, the Kurdish intelligentsia, has the same characteristics - and defects — as the Turkish intelligentsia, with which it has been intimately associated from the start. Ideology has taken priority over serious study of the concrete social, economic and political problems of Kurdistan. In fact the only serious studies of this question are by a Turk, Ismail Besikçi, who has been totally dedicated to this cause and has spent ten years in jail for his writings. He has recently been arrested twice for his last two books.
Birth of independent Kurdish organizations
In the 1960s, Kurdish intellectuals joined the first legal socialist party of the period, the Workers Party of Turkey (TIP). They succeeded in imposing a sort of autonomy for their group, called the "orientals", on the party. There was even an unspoken quota arrangement for them on the leadership. Towards the end of that the first independent organizations were created among the youth, notably the Revolutionary Assembly of the Culture of the East (DDKO). The young Kurdish intelligentsia had although usually considering themselves socialists. In general socialist ideas have been well received in Kurdistan, basically as a result of the inherent radicalism of the population's democratic aspirations.
Starting in the 1970s a new generation of radical militants arrived at the head of the Kurdish national movement, based on their own independent organizations, not under the tutelage of the Turkish organidevelop their ideas in prison after the mili International Viewpoint #184 • May 7, 1990 tary coup in 1971. The defeat of Barzani's movement in Iraq had an impact on them. Despite political splits in line with those in the Turkish left (pro-Moscow, ProBeijing and so on), the Kurdish left succeeded in reinforcing national consciousness even in the most backward sections of the population. This went to such a point that the traditional bourgeois parties had to make concessions to local feelings to maintain any influence in the region. In the 1980s the Kurdish national question became one of the mainstays of Turkish
After the 1980 coup, while the crushing of the left in general and the workers movement seems to have had long-lasting effects, things have been different in Kurdistan. The repression, which has intensified since the launching of the guerilla struggle by the PKK in 1984 has not cowed the population - quite the oppo-
Government repression unites Kurds
The policies of the military dictatorship and its civilian continuation, the Özal government, have made daily life unbearable for the Kurds. As a result, the whole population, including those who perhaps were not even initially sympathetic to the PKK, have found themselves on the same side of the barricades. Many of the women and children who have risked their lives by coming into the streets to protest against the repression are certainly unable either to read or write and have probably no idea of the programme or slogans of the PKK. But they know that the soldiers with the rifles are their enemies. It has become impossible to remain neutral between the state and the PKK.
This political change is not only due to the actions of the PKK. For three decades Kurdish national consciousness has been awakening in a way that has not been seen since the start of the century. Furthermore, insofar as all repression against the Kurds also implies the application of anti-democratic measures itself, this has caused a reaction within Turkish public opinion, at least as far as respect for the elementary rights of the Kurdish people are concerned.
With the passing of time even sections of the Turkish bourgeois parties have come to realise that any liberalization of the regime, not to speak of a more thoroughgoing democratization, is impossible without taking the Kurdish question into account. But none of them has worked out a concrete project capable of reconciling intransigent defence of the integrity of the Turkish state with recognition national identity of the Kurds.
Furthermore, at a time when, on the international stage, Turkey puts itself forward as the defender of oppressed Turkminorities in Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, and even the Caucasus and Central Asia, arguing that they comprise a distinct national entity, the traditional claim that the Kurds are not a distinct national entity is becoming more and more untenable and ridiculous. In fact, both the regime and the opposition have given up describing the Kurds as "mountain Turks" and the Kurdish language as a Turkish dialect. But if the state representatives recognize the right of people to speak the language they wish as long as Turkish stays the official language, the Kurdish language is still officially forbidden and the statement that the Kurds even exist is still a crime carrying a prison sentence.
The situation in the "Turkish" part of Kurdistan is more complicated than in the other Kurdish areas. Firstly, the region is on the main route that connects Turkey and the Islamic East. Furthermore, not only is the birth rate much higher amongst the Kurds than the Turks, but Kurdish villages and even whole towns are emigrating westwards towards the country's big cities. Thus the Kurdish question has an impact beyond the limits of Kurdistan itself. This creates favourable conditions for those who want to make a link between the national and social questions.
For the moment the Turkish left is completely out of the picture, bogged down in endless discussions and redefinitions. No movement of solidarity, capable of changing the relationship of forces seems to be appearing on the Turkish side — with the exception of some leaflets and limited "vanguard" actions by some small groups. On the other hand, the programmatic projects of the Kurdish groups, in the first place, the PKK, have a certain influence.
The PKK is a nationalist movement with a particularly sectarian Stalinist origin. Before the 1980 coup it was very isolated, owing to its authoritarian methods and its recourse to physical violence as a way of dealing with political differences both within the Kurdish national movement and the Turkish left. The violence was also directed at its own militants and sectors of the population that opposed it. The only excuse that can be made is that it was not the only group to behave in this way! But whatever the content of its political actions, the PKK has succeeded in winning total hegemony over the Kurdish movement and has become a political alternative. Its actions have also had the effect of forcing the regime to speed up its
The main proponent of the line of self-reform is Inönü's Social Democratic People's Party. Inönü has recently come up 1. Mustafa Barzani was the principal leader of the Kurdish revolt in Iraq in the 1960s and 70s. 2. Notably at Newroz, the Kurdish new year and on the anniversary of the Halepce massacre 3. The Kurdish people are divided between five states: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the USSR. 4. Büllent Ecevit, ex-prime minister and president of the fourth largest opposition party, the Left Democrat-
Assad regime increasingly isolated
ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS in the last few months, hundreds of Syrian women, the mothers of leftist political detainees, have demonstrated in the streets of Damascus.
These protests, which have received no coverage abroad, bear witness to the growing crisis of the
Syrian regime.
SAMIR LADKANI with a proposal for a solution based on regional autonomy on Spanish lines. Even so, the same Inönü did not hesitate to expel seven Kurdish deputies from his party. They had commited the "crime" of attending — against the leader's advice — a conference in Paris in mid-October 1989, under the auspices of the Kurdish Institute in Paris and Mme Mitterrand's France-Libertés association.
### Recognition of Kurdish national Identity
Demirel's centre-right Party of the Just Way, even if it does not talk about "Spanish" or "Irish" solutions, has abandoned its traditional position of denying the existence of the Kurds. For Demirel the main reason for the events in the region is its backwardness and the neglect of its economic and social development over the
Nonetheless, these two parties have given their support to the government to "meet arms with arms and win the affection of the people". The ANAP govemment knows no other solution than that of military repression.
The government is much weakened by quarreling between "nationalconservative" "conservativenationalist" factions and over the status of Özal, who became president in controversial circumstances. Furthermore, the govemment's weakness poses problems for its control of the civilian and military bureaucracies. Confronted by the guerillas and the mass movement, the state has chosen to beef up its forces, despite the increased cost of a military solution,