ABSTRACT
Is Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Turkish Republic, to blame for his country’s troubled relationship with its Kurdish-speaking citizens? In his foreword to Jonathan Rugman’s fair-minded account of the problem, John Simpson, foreign affairs editor of the BBC, wrote:
In terms of ethnicity and culture, Turkey is varied, complex and intermixed. Yet the myth which Atatürk bequeathed to his fellow-countrymen insists that there is a single ethnic group, the Turks. Nowadays the effects of this myth can be brutal; it can never, in the long run, be successful. While Turkey gives no legal recognition to its large Kurdish minority, the problem that dissident Kurds pose for the Turkish state cannot be solved. 1
The seriousness of the problem is undeniable. According to figures given at the end of June 1998 by the head of the anti-terrorist department of the Turkish police, the radical Kurdish nationalist organization PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan – Kurdistan Workers Party), had by that time launched nearly 19,000 attacks since the beginning of its armed campaign in 1984. These caused the deaths of 5,121 members of the security forces and of 4,049 civilians, while 17,248 persons described as terrorists were killed. 2 In spite of repeated assurances by the security forces that the back of the insurrection has been broken and that the PKK now numbers only 5,000 armed militants, the death toll continues to mount. As Şükrü Elekdağ, the former Turkish Ambassador in Washington, has recently pointed out, ‘the problem of the south-east’ (that is, the Kurdish problem) is acquiring a growing international dimension and constitutes the main and most urgent threat facing Turkey. 3 In the circumstances, an elucidation of the genesis of the problem is a matter of current political, as well as of historical, importance. And since the actions and statements of Atatürk remain a source of inspiration of Turkish government policy, and tend to be used to legitimize it, it is as well to be clear about Atatürk’s attitude towards the Kurds.