The Kurdish question

One principal factor that renders the Kurdish question unique in Turkey has been the distinct spatial/territorial nature of state oppression. The majority of the Kurds have lived in their homeland in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey until the late 1980s and the early 1990s, though an increasing number immigrated for economic reasons to the western parts of the country from the mid-1950s onwards. ¹ The latter group of Kurds by and large ‘agreed’ to the tacit deal they were forced to make, suppressing their distinct identity in exchange for integration and upward mobility. Those who refused or were unable to do so faced persecution. Scores of Kurdish activists, politicians and journalists were charged under anti-terrorism laws, Kurdish newspapers were banned, and a number of political parties established by the Kurds and/or advocating their rights were abolished. As far as the Kurdish homeland was concerned, however, there was an additional collective and spatial dimension to state oppression. In the name of combating the ‘PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Worker’s Party) terrorism,’ the state treated the civilian population in the Kurdish region as an internal threat, subjugating it to collective punishment through forced evictions in rural areas and grave human rights abuses in urban centers in the form of political assassinations, enforced disappearances, summary executions and torture.