ABSTRACT
While the Kurdish movement in the Middle East has already been conceptualized from the perspective of the theory of mobilizations (Romano 2006), pro-Kurdish protest in Europe has been rarely studied by scholars of social movements. And yet, since 1982, not a month has gone by without a pro-Kurdish demonstration in a European country, and the average number of these events annually could be several hundred.2 This makes the Kurds probably the most ‘demonstrative’ group in Europe, and undoubtedly the most ‘Europeanized’ group, if one understands by this term a mass group operating at the European level, making claims on the European authorities, and frequently demonstrating in European countries other than in the country of residence. To explain this, one has to consider that the Kurdish mobilizations in Europe have to be related primarily to the situation of the Kurdish people in Turkey (the country of origin for the overwhelming majority) and to the developments of the pro-Kurdish struggle in the Middle East: these pro-Kurdish mobilizations in Europe are the transnationalized component of similar mobilizations in Turkey.3
