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Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

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A preamble to the Kurdish question: the politics of Kurdish identity

M. Hakan Yavuz
a a

Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Science and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies , University of Utah , USA Published online: 20 Mar 2007.

To cite this article: M. Hakan Yavuz (1998) A preamble to the Kurdish question: the politics of Kurdish identity, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 18:1, 9-18, DOI: 10.1080/13602009808716390 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602009808716390

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Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1998

A Preamble to the Kurdish Question: The Politics of Kurdish Identity

M. HAKAN YAVUZ

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Introduction
One of the most challenging questions for contemporary societies has been the recognition of cultural differences and the governance over diversity.1 Cultural and political leaders of complex communities tend to essentialize cultural boundaries by dichotomizing and categorizing differences. This in turn promotes conflict and prevents effective management of cultural diversity. This has been the common experience of a number of contemporary nation states that not only categorize but also dichotomize and isolate minorities within their borders.2 A classic example of this, though much less known to the World at large, is the case of the Kurds. The Kurds are one of the main indigenous people of the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. The Kurdish population constitutes major enclaves in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Armenia. The main characteristic of the Kurdish population is its internal diversity in terms of tribal, religious, and linguistic affiliation. Even though Kurdish nationalism is a product of twentieth century development, apolitical Kurdish ethnicity was articulated as early as 1597, for example in Serafettin Bitlisi's Sharafname, written in classical Persian. Kurdish cultural heritage is thus much older than Kurdish nationalism. Although Kurdish people speak an Indo-European language, there are several dialects and sub-dialects. Kirmanji is the most dominant dialect, which is spoken in Turkey. Sorani is mostly spoken in Iraq. Sub-dialects of Sorani are Kirmanshahi, Gorani, and Leki. Zaza is also spoken in Central Anatolia by Alevi Kurds.3 According to David McDowall, a leading expert on the Kurds, the total Kurdish population was estimated at about 22.6 million in 1991.4 This population is spread primarily in four states. Turkey (7-10 million), Iraq (5-6 million), Iran (34 million) and Syria (2-3 million). Regional differences in language, religion and administrative units have generated internally diverse and competing loyalties. Turkey, which has the largest number of Kurds in the region and which is also a leading regional Muslim power in the Middle East and Central Asia, has been affected both internally and externally by the Kurdish insurgency. Turkey has also been a model country of secularist nation-state building in the Muslim world. Recent developments in Turkey demonstrate that the Turkish model faces difficulties in renewing itself in response to globalization and liberalization. The socio-political crisis of the secularist nation-state would have a far-reaching impact for other regional countries, which would follow the Turkish model of nation building. The recent military-led attempts to close political parties and destroy all spaces of critical thinking radicalized the Kurdish citizens. At the same time they also narrowed the state legitimacy by alienating its Muslim population. 1360-2004/98/010009-10 1998 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs

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On Kurds, Turks and Others This special issue of the Journal brings together the contributions of eight scholars who offer their special insight into the Kurdish question and explore it from a number of anglescultural, religious, political and economic. By focusing on the politics of Kurdish identity, they facilitate better understanding of the emergence of Kurdish ethno-nationalism. They also help to identify the competing trans-ethnic (Islamic, national and religious) and sub-ethnic (dialect, tribe, city and sect) loyalties, and resulting tensions at the denial of freedom to express such loyalties. The special focus on Turkey was necessitated by the more aggravated situation of the Kurds, who are clustered in the largest number in Turkey and have lately become victims of the failing secularist nation state model of that country.5 The scholars of ethnicity seek to explain the emergence and politicization of the concept from primordialist, instrumentalist, or constructivist approaches. A full understanding of the Kurdish ethno-nationalism requires the utilization of all three conceptual approaches at the same time.6 For primordialists, ethnic identity is an objective entity with inherent features such as race, territory, language and kinship. This approach has been more common among the Kurdish intellectuals who seek to identify the historical roots of Kurdish nationalism. In recent decades, many scholars, under the influence of rational choice, have started to examine ethnicity and religious revivals as an instrument to gain material and political power. Thus, ethnicity and nationalism for these instrumentalists are created and propagated by the elite to carve economic or political power. The third approach, constructivism, treats ethnicity as a modern invention by the political and cultural elite. These elite are assumed to play a formative role in developing ethnic identity through the recognition and articulation of shared discriminatory experiences. Group identities, therefore, can be created and recreated as a result of a changing power structure. Being Kurdish is not a singular identity for the people of southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq. It is a product of the interaction between the local and the global, between politics and economics, and the struggle for justice and humane polity. The identity politics of the Middle East is punctuated by layers of conflicting and overlapping identities, foremost among them is the Islamic identity which functions as a depository of concepts and strategies to deal with new socio-political situations. By problematizing Kurdish nationalism, this issue also seeks to reexamine the concept of nation-state and its implications for social and political stability in the Fertile Cresent.7 The main theoretical questions to be addressed are: can the Muslim community have simultaneous consciousness of Islamic, ethnic, and national identities? What is the connection between the Kurdish and Islamic political consciousness? What are the roles of media and globalization in the politicization as well as deterritorialization of modern Kurdish identity? Is there any difference in the means and goals of Kurdish ethnonationalism? When and under what conditions is the layer of Kurdish identity stressed more than the Islamic or national identity? Could democratization and liberalization of economy resolve ethnic tensions and solve the ethnic conflict? In order to answer these series of questions, one must begin with a basic understanding of the subject of Kurdish identity and Kurdish political consciousness and treat them as contextual, relational, and situational phenomena. Following Hanna Y. Freij and Martin van Bruinessen's arguments one should stress the multiple layers in the meaning and substance of Kurdish identity. Freij, for example, demonstrates how local tribal identities, instrumentally used by the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the

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Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), during the 1970s and in the 1990s, have led to contest and confrontation over the control and definition of the Kurdish identity. The politics of the Kurdish question has become the Trojan horse for those international forces that prefer weaker regional states and the military forces of the regional countries to justify their role in politics. By placing the Kurdish case in a wider context of domestic and global forces, the causes and consequences of the politicization of the Kurdish identity have been contextualized. The politics of identity has also been shaped by the subordinate position of ethnic groups and utilization of these groups by regional states as a foreign policy tool. Hanna Freij examines the utilization of the Kurdish minority within Iraq by different superpowers for furthering their own regional and political objectives. The main focus, therefore, has been on the state and its changing capacities to define society. By examining the role of the changing state ideologies in the formation of Kurdish identity, one can identify the conditions under which the politicization of identity takes place and the way in which such identity is structured into daily life. The issue of Kurdish identity in Turkey, for example, indicates the state's role in politicizing and radicalizing issues of ethnicity and identity. The Turkish state's inability to generate a shared language of politics and solidarity with democratic institutions to replace Islamic solidarity and institutionswhich were wiped out by the Kemalist practicesappears to be the key reason for the politicization and radicalization of Kurdish nationalism. The Kurdish political consciousness is formed in the context of redefining a new boundary between the state and society in Turkey. Social and geographic mobility, expansion of education and communication networks, and political and economic liberalization have transformed Kurdish identity from primordial markers into a contested zone of power politics. The politicization of contemporary Kurdish identity, therefore, cannot be understood prior to nation-state formation as a primordial residue. In addition to the changing nature of the state and nationalism in the Middle East, the processes of globalization have also changed the theatre of identity politics.

The Political Context of Identity Formation

A popular expression in Erzurum, a major eastern Anatolian town, states that 'Muslims were forced to change their gibla (an Arabic term which literally means the direction in which a Muslim faces for prayer and which must stay constant) three times during the last century'. Citizens of Turkey, indeed, had to change their gibla three times within a generation. National identity in Turkey has been objectified, first by religion (Islam), then by language (Turkish), and more recently by territory (of the state). In the time of the Ottoman Empire between 1878 and 1923, Islamic identity brought people together. Sultan Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1908) created institutions to formalize the union of the Muslim nation (millet) and the state. This union of Islamic state and nation was done away with by a decree of the Republican state. With the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, language rather than religion became a unifying factor for constructing a Turkish nation-state. From the 1920s through the 1940s, the Republican state sought to destroy the potential opposition of traditional Sufi networks. This, in turn, transformed Islam into an oppositional identity and Kurdish ethnicity was contained within this oppositional Islamic identity.8 The Islamic opposition, therefore, has always had a powerful Kurdish ethnic dimension (Sakallioglu and Duran). The modern republic treated ethno-religious diversity as a threat to its project of nation

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building, and it used every means at its disposal to eliminate the causes and consequences of differences. In the case of Turkey, Kemalism has become a regime of truth to define real history, society, politics, and identity. By systematizing and centralizing the power of naming for other ethnic groups as 'Turks', the Turkish nationalists destroyed the Ottoman civil tradition of accommodation and tolerance. According to Kemalism, modernity meant outright rejection of Islamic thinking and practices. The Kemalist understanding of modernity did not stress emancipation but rather fetishized the nation-state. It sought to mimic a European model without having the same socio-economic base. It did not tolerate difference but rather stressed homogeneity. Since Kemalist modernity denned itself against Islam, it turned Islam into its 'significant other'. The Kurdish voices usually positioned themselves within this oppositional Islamic movement to critique the nationalization of politics. The Kemalist form of secularization 'seemed to threaten everything, especially meaning'. In consequence, there was cultural reaction, involving the reassertion of origins and tradition.9 Kemalism sought to institutionalize rationalism and progress as two pillars of its 'civilizing' mission. However, this project has been arid and without any socio-cultural roots. It also lacked dynamism and ability to create a synthesis between local and European ideas. This imitative and derivative project has alienated its population and at the same time impoverished Turkish culture.10 Rebellions against the nationalizing center indicate that political formations were taking place at the bottom of society. The periphery was segmented but not weak or unmobilized. Over a dozen rebellions had occurred between 1924 and 1938. u Only with the availability of limited communication networks during the multi-party system in the 1950s, could social groups publicly articulate their concerns vis-a-vis the center. The complex realities of these oppressive practices have shaped the contemporary Kurdish and Islamic movements in Turkey.12

Islamic Identity as an Oppositional Identity and Kurdish Ethno-nationalism

The communications' explosion along with economic liberalization in Turkey shattered state-built homogeneity and brought 'diversity' as an issue to the forefront, with media coverage and the airing of suppressed collective memory and history. The oppressive policies of the nationalistic Republic and the destruction of the shared Islamic language of morality and community created a void between diverse ethnic communities in Turkey. This destruction of Islamic identity has been the major cause of the search for ethnic identity in respective communities. The Kurds are just imitating the processes of Turkish and Iraqi state formation on the basis of particularism rather than stressing the common identity of the region. Indeed, the policies of the Turkish state are responsible for the politicization of the Kurdish identity and it is difficult today to solve the ethnic problem in the region on the basis of shared Islamic identity. However, the Islamic layer of identity could be useful in terms of containing ethnic tensions and finding a peaceful solution. Therefore, the shared Islamic identity has a role to play if different sides have good faith. Burhanettin Duran points out though that now even the Islamic movements have fully internalized the nation-state model and therefore are not in a better position to address the ethnic conflict within the Muslim community. Umit Cizre Sakallioglu's analysis of the ongoing debates among Islamist writers in Turkey reveals complex themes and interpretations of Kurdish nationalism. Although all Islamist writers contend that the Republican emulation of the Western nation-state

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model has undermined Islamic unity (ummaH) and brotherhood and thus created Kurdish nationalism, their own discourse and solutions are shaped by the logic and institutional frames of the territorial-nation-state identity of the Republic. The writers of Turkish origin, insist on the 'official' (Turkish) language and the integrity of the state. They seek to Islamicize the Turkish identity and bring the Kurds under Islamic identity. Those writers who come from Kurdish background ask for clear and open recognition of Kurdish identity and its political implications of autonomy. The Turkish Islamic writers emphasize the Islamic identity as a way of containing and softening Kurdish nationalism. They treat the emergence of Kurdish identity as an opportunity to deconstruct secular-Turkish nationalism and replace it with Islamicly shaped territorial- Turkiyeli-identixy. This analysis indicates that rather than Islamicization of ethnic identity it is the ethnicization of Islamic identity that has been the general trend in Turkey. Although the Welfare Party garnered the support of the Kurds by stressing the concept of justice and criticizing the secularist policies, its goal to strengthen the state prevents it from taking any concrete steps.13 This could be explained in terms of the dominant state-centric Turkish culture. The WP had contradictory goals of transforming and strengthening the state. The first goal motivates the Kurds to support the WP while the second goal, in the name of stability, undermines the first. Yet, the WP offered breathing space for the Kurds who seek de-ethnicization of the Turkish state. By treating the Kurdish issue as an extension of Kemalist secularism and seeking to cure it in terms of Islamic solidarity, the Welfare Party in government failed to address the question. When the WP came to power in 1995, it treated the Kurdish question as an expression of economic disparity. This economic reductionism, which is dominant among the social democrat parties of Turkey, ignores the role of historical memories and the need to preserve cultural identity. The politicization of the Kurdish identity is a constellation of several additional factors that are exacerbated by the penetration of new economic and communication networks and competitive electoral politics, and the changing state ideology. Duran, like Sakallioglu, observes that Islam has a role in containing and bringing sides together but it faces secularist opposition.

New Communications Networks as the Spaces of Language-centered Identity Formation

Martin van Bruinessen and Amir Hassanpour demonstrate the significance of the formation of a free public space in defining and framing the identity issue which, in the case of the Kurds, is accomplished through the London-based Med-TV. According to a prominent journalist, Sahin Alpay, writing in the Turkish daily Milliyet, Med-TV has been the most popular television channel in southern Turkey. Indeed, one of the main differences between contemporary ethno-nationalism and the ethno-nationalism of nineteenth century has been the revolution that is taking place in information and communications technology. This revolution has far reaching consequences not only for the deconstruction of nation-state identities and sovereignty but also for the way in which it brings the 'hidden other' into the public space. The communication revolution will surpass the industrial revolution in its ability to bring marginal identities into the forefront. New communication networks not only empower marginalized ethnic and religious groups to redefine themselves but also enables the cross-fertilization of local and global identities and further facilitates the formation and preservation of identities independent of territoriality.

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A major reason for the military takeover in Turkey in 1980 was to end the leftist use of Alevi culture to penetrate Turkish society, and a second reason was the desire to curb Kurdish ethno-nationalism in Turkey. The 1980 coup leaders justified their actions by engaging in a fight against the divisive and destructive forces that threatened the existence of the state. They published a small booklet to identify these forces and distributed it to high-ranking officials stamped 'Secret and not open to public consumption'. The first 'divisive and destructive force' they identified was the Kurds, who are defined as those 'who live in the mountains of eastern Turkey where there is too much snow. Those who walk on this snow create a different noise, and this noise is known as Kurd." 4 The military coup introduced several harsh measures, including a total ban on printing in Kurdish or its use in public spaces. Instead of curbing Kurdish nationalism, these measures further politicized Kurdish identity and helped promote its crystallization around language. A repressive language law, Law 2932, was imposed by the military regime on 22 October 1983 (Resmi Gazette 1983: 28-29). It gave the authorities the right to curb Kurdish cultural activities, even in the private sphere. Specifically, the Law 2932 prohibits the 'utilization of any language in the dissemination, printing, and expression of ideas, which is not in the official language recognized by the Turkish state' (Article 2). It declares Turkish as the 'mother tongue' of all Turkish citizens and prohibits the use and dissemination of other languages as a mother tongue (Article 3). Ironically, this law helped turn the Kurdish language into a symbol of Kurdish nationhood. It also contributed to the promotion of the Kurmanji dialect as the 'official' Kurdish language and served as a rallying point for Kurdish ethnonationalism. The main grievance of Kurds shifted from underdevelopment of the Kurdish populated provinces to the issue of language and cultural rights. When Turkish state officials argued that there was no standardized Kurdish language to be recognized, Kurdish intellectuals mobilized to make the Kurmanji dialect a standardized Kurdish language. Most of the activity took place among the Kurd settlers in Europe with Sweden and Germany becoming the main centers of action focusing on standardization of the language and publication in Kurdish. The Turkish Prime Minister, Turgut Ozal (1983-1991), adopted a new set of domestic and international strategies toward the Kurdish question. He allowed the Kurds greater cultural freedom and, for the first time, recognized them as a distinct ethnic group within Turkey. Ozal's support of the West during Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf was motivated partly by his goal of making Turkey a regional power, in concert with Western strategic interests.15 To achieve this goal, he introduced a set of bills including one designed to remove restrictions on the Kurdish language. In 1991 he met with the leaders of two Iraqi Kurdish factions, Mustafa Barzani and Jalal Talabani and granted amnesty to many Kurds, initiatives that were welcomed by the Kurds. He repealed the draconian language law. Law 2932, in 1991, in response to European Community conditions for closer European-Turkish relations. Kurds were now free to sing songs in Kurdish and to publish in Kurdish, but not to use their language in public. Unfortunately, Ozal's repeal of the law was meaningless, since military measures continued against the Kurds. Moreover, Article 89 of the 1982 Constitution remained in force. This Article states that 'no political party may concern itself with the defense, development, or diffusion of any non-Turkish language or culture; nor may seek to create minorities within our frontiers or to destroy our national unity'. From the moment Law 2932 was enacted it, brought the language issue to the center of debate. Kurdish intellectuals soon mobilized to standardize the Kurdish language.

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The first Kurdish Institute was opened in Paris in 1983, a second in London in 1984, another in Brussels in 1989, and a subsequent one in Berlin in 1993. These four cities remain central to the formation of a Kurdish-language standard. Kurdish intellectuals in Europe have developed a standardized Kurdish language based on the Kurmanji dialect, and in many European cities, Kurdish-language courses have been introduced. Given advances in technology in terms of printing and distributing, the Kurdish language had its revival in diaspora and filtered into the Kurdish community through new communication mediums such as cassettes, videos, television and the movies.

Footprints in the Air

The language issue took on trans-national dimensions, as Amir Hassanpour explains, when a group of Kurds in Europe established MED-TV and began to broadcast to Turkey via satellite. MED-TV programming suggests that it seeks to fulfill three interrelated goals: entertainment (articulating a distinct national culture and addressing a collective memory), education (teaching Kurmanji Kurdish and promulgating the antiquity of Kurdish nationhood), and information (providing news and political debates to promote ethno-linguistic political consciousness). The effectiveness of MED-TV has led a Turkish official to claim that 'MED-TV threatens the security of this nation more than the guerrilla attacks of the PKK [Kurdistan Worker's Party]'. By means of audio and videocassettes, the Internet, and MED-TV, Kurdish activists have overcome state censorship and control. The introduction of new media technology challenges the state's attempt to promote the Turkish language and to control news about ongoing conflicts in the region. With the help of new communications networks and the proliferation of Kurmanji as the standardized version of Kurdish in Sweden, Germany, and France, a new, fully-fledged Kurdish 'nation' is in the making. With MED-TV, one can argue that the Kurds are the first satellite nation: they do not have a seat in the United Nations, but they do have an air frequency in the sky. New communications networks have simultaneously reinforced the consciousness of a shared identity and increased an awareness of difference. MED-TV, for instance, is a powerful agent for the standardization of Kurmanji dialect among the Sunni Kurds of Turkey, yet it is also a force in the formation of a competing sub-national Kurdish consciousness among Zaza-speaking Alevis and Sorani-speaking Iraqi Kurds. Since the language of MED-TV is overwhelmingly Kurmanji and Turkish, not the Zaza dialect spoken by most Alevi Kurds living in Turkey. Kurmanji, the main Kurdish dialect among Turkish Kurds, is not intelligible to Zaza-speakers. Zaza speakers, mostly Alevis, refer to themselves as Zaza more than Kurd, suggesting the emergence of an as yet new language-based identity among the Kurds. Amir Hassanpour's paper aptly uses the post-structuralist approaches to explain a borderless world in which the state is weakening, not necessarily withering away, and non-state entities are becoming major players. The processes of economic and communication globalization have also challenged the ties between the concept of state sovereignty and territory. New communication networks and diffusion of sovereignty along different layers of the state demonstrates the openings of the nation-state. The Kurdish MED-TV, which is licensed in London and was launched in Britain by private Kurdish businesses, has empowered the Kurdish minorities in the Fertile Crescent by transcending state-borders and enhancing Kurdish consciousness among these diverse minorities in different states. New communication technology does not only erode the Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 02:10 25 January 2014

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concept of sovereignty but also offers a new space for marginalized groups to overcome their arbitrary divisions by the nation-states.

Political and Economic Liberalization

Despite 40 years of democracy, Turkey is still stuck between 'anti-democratic secularism and anti-Western democracy'.16 The Kurds, in the meanwhile, have become a litmus test for democracy and human rights in Turkey. By denning democracy as 'realization of basic human rights for the exercise of effective political citizenship', Ayla Kilic asserts that the Kurdish problem is not only an issue of ethnicity but also a problem of democratization. She assumes that democracy will cure the Kurdish problem. Since the boundaries of the Turkish democracy are determined by preceding military coups, she identifies the lack of democracy as the cause of this ethnic problem. However, the Kurdish problem would help to restructure the state and society relations in Turkey. Kilic sees the problem as being between the state-centric Turkish political culture and weak civil society. This, however, does not explain the causes of Kurdish ethno-nationalism. Moreover, many scholars of ethnicity identify political participation as a cause of ethnic tension. Indeed, the democratization of Turkish polity may help to manage the conflict but it cannot resolve it. Unlike Kilic, Paul J. White, identifies the uneven economic development as the cause of politicization and radicalization of the Kurdish ethno-nationalism. White argues that economic liberalization does not address the question of uneven economic development of various regions in Turkey. Without proper state-led economic programs to address the economic concerns of the southeastern Anatolia, it will be difficult to overcome the sense of isolation and exclusion. This has been the main argument of Bulent Ecevit, a Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, who sees the conflict in terms of economic disparity between different regions of the country. However, this approach does not explain why the emphasis is on ethnic rather than class solidarity in the Kurdish movement. Moreover, the economic situation of this part of the country is not worse than that in Central and Eastern Anatolia. White's findings demonstrate that economic liberalization would escalate regional disparities, and this in turn, would radicalize the Kurdish ethno-nationalism.

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Conclusion
The collection of papers in this issue indicates that there are no solutions to ethnic conflicts leading to its eradication, but that it requires proper management. The struggle for recognition among the Kurds is a dream that has not died. In fact, it has been revived by the new socio-political processes and superpower games to control the energy resources in the region.17 The difficulty of resolving the Kurdish ethno-nationalism reflects the complex nature of the multiple identities of the Kurds with regard to language, regionalism, and tribal ties. The struggle to territorialize Kurdish identity with a distinct political roof of its own has lead to deterritorialization of the Kurdish identity in the Middle East. The common identities such as Islam and citizenship within a democratic environment can help to manage ethnic conflicts in multi-ethnic states. New Turkey, if it wants to become a regional power, has to accommodate multiple identities, which conform to its reality. Henri J. Barkey aptly demonstrates that exclusion of the Kurds from political processes has already created more problems than it has solved.18 In the last national

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election in December 1995, the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) received only 4.2% of the national vote cast and failed to win any seat. Most Kurds did not vote for HADEP, which openly campaigned on a Kurdish platform, because other forms of loyalties, e.g. Sufi, regional, linguistic, and ideological, compete with an ambiguous ethnic loyalty. The Kurds have developed multiple loyalties and 'Kurdishness' has not been the only identity that shapes their conduct. The present Kurdish demands center around recognition of their language and equitable distribution of economic resources. If Turkey fails to meet these demands within a mutually agreed timetable, the situation is likely to radicalize the Kurdish youth even further. The Turkish government should provide the necessary cultural and political space for the preservation and development of the Kurdish culture within a democratic state. If the Kurds are denied the opportunity to develop and perpetuate their culture, the 'exit' strategy of self-determination becomes an inevitable outcome. The Turkish state has to overcome its rigid Kemalist ideology to accommodate differences. The Kurdish intellectuals have formed several political parties but they were all disbanded or are excluded by force. By isolating and excluding Turkey's large Kurdish population from the nation's body politics, and by forcing the Kurds to be counted and inventoried as 'Turks' only promotes the formation of a radical PKK-type Kurdish nationalism. Turkey's Kurdish problem can be addressed only if Turkey creates a civil society that functions as a repository of multiple identities and builds necessary political institutions to negotiate and navigate the interactions among these identities. Citizenship with communal rights can help to create a shared political (state) and territorial space. The shared source of common identity and strategies of everyday life of Turks and Kurds are derived from Islam. New debates on citizenship should take this shared Islamic and Ottoman legacy into account. The state can strengthen and expand its social basis by reactivating this Islamic and Ottoman legacy. It should be recognized that despite the oppressive policies of the Turkish state and the terror tactics of the PKK, the conflict did not cause a separation of the Kurdish and Turkish communities due primarily to the softening and bridging role of Islamic identity.

NOTES
1. Crawford Young, The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. 2. Abdul Aziz Said, 'Beyond Geopolitics: Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict Elimination in the Middle East and North Africa', in The Middle East Challenge After the Cold War, eds Phoebe Marr and William Lewis, Boulder: Westview Press, 1993, pp. 163-186. 3. On the Kurdish Alevis, see Martin van Bruinessen, 'The Debate on the Ethnic Identity of the Kurdish Alevis', Working Paper, Centre for the Study of Asia and the Middle East, Deakin University, 1996; Paul White, 'Ethnic Differentiation among the Kurds: Kirmanci, Kizilbas and Zaza', Journal of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1995, pp. 1-24. 4. David McDowall, The Kurds, London: Minority Rights Report, 1991, p. 9. 5. Kevin Robins, 'Interrupting Identities: Turkey/Europe', in The Questions of Cultural Identity, ed, Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, London: Sage, 1996, pp. 61-76. 6. Virginia Tilley, "The Terms of the Debate: Untangling Language about Ethnicity and Ethnic Movements', Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1997, pp. 497-522. 7. See, the first and the most comprehensive study on the Kurds, Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structure of Kurdistan, London: Zed Books, 1992. 8. Nur Yalman, 'Some Observations on Secularism in Islam: The Cultural Revolution in Turkey', Daedalus, Vol. 102, No. 1, 1973, pp. 139-167. 9. Kevin Robins, 'Interrupting Identities', op. cit., p. 63.

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10. Serif Mardin, 'Religion in Modern Turkey', International Social Science Journal, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1977, p. 279. 11. Robert Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism 1880-1925, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. 12. J. Nagel, "The Conditions of Ethnic Separatism: The Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Iraq', Ethnicity, Vol. 7, No. 3, 1980, pp. 279-297; and Omer Laciner, Henuz vakit Varken: Kurt Sorunu Uzerine Yazilar, Istanbul: Birikim, 1991. 13. M. Hakan Yavuz, 'Political Islam and the Welfare (Reffah) Party in Turkey', Comparative Politics, Vol. 30, No. 1, October 1997, pp. 63-84. 14. Kara Kuwetleri Komutanligi, Turkiye de Bolucu ve Yikici Akimlar, Ankara: Kara Kuwetleri Komutanligi Basimevi, 1982, p. 43. 15. James Brown, "The Turkish Imbroglio: Its Kurds', Annals, No. 541, September 1991, pp. 116129. 16. Samuel Huntington, 'After Twenty Years: The Future of the Third Wave', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 8, No. 4, October 1997, p. 9. 17. George S. Harris, 'Ethnic Conflict and the Kurds', Annals, No. 433, September 1977, pp. 112 124. 18. Henri J. Barkey, 'Turkey, Islamic Politics, and the Kurdish Question', World Policy Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, Spring, 1996, pp. 43-52.