Also, in the mixed decision-making bodies the military has the upper hand when it comes to the Kurdish issue. Even though power had been restored in Turkey to civil bodies and institutions in 1983 – after it had been rescinded in the 1980 coup d’état of General Kenan Evren – policy towards the Kurds continued to be determined by the army. This was imposed in seven provinces, out of Turkey’s seventy-six, which are in the southeast of the country and are largely Kurdish populated.
Any expression of Kurdish separatism outside Turkey was bound to stir up the millions of Kurds living within its borders – 12 million or more, out of a population of close to 65 million.Īs a result of guerrilla and terror campaigns launched since 1984 by the Kurdish Workers Party (the PKK) against the Turkish authorities and Turkish civilians, the government of then Prime Minister, Turgut Ozal, proclaimed (in 1987) a state of emergency. Still, above all else, Turkey opposes any form of ethnic expression reflecting Kurdish nationalism or inclinations towards autonomy, within Turkey or beyond its borders. These bans and the prohibition on Kurdish publications – actually in action since the mid-1920s – were slightly lifted in 1991. Kurdish families were asked to give Turkish names to their children. 2 Names of mountains and lakes have been changed into Turkish. The Turkish media mentions that some 8,000 villages and towns have been renamed in Turkish under Article 5542 of Turkish law. These people, like other non-Turkish elements, were encouraged to forget their own language and culture, and undergo “Turkification.” Their Kurdish heritage was to be rooted out. Up until the winter of 1991, there were no Kurds in Turkey, merely “Mountain Turks” – even in this definition an aspect of Turkishness was granted to the Kurds. Now, in its maturity, its branches tend to go their own way, seeking their own kind of light. In its early years it was pruned and trained to grow strictly in one direction: Turkish. Turkey is more like a tree, with roots in many different cultures and ethnicities.
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