The Odd Tango of the Islamic Right and Kurdish Left in Turkey: A Peripheral Alliance to Redesign the Centre?
2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 48; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00263206.2011.652780
ISSN1743-7881
Autores Tópico(s)Islamic Studies and History
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I would like to express my warmest thanks to Dr. Diane Singerman for her huge support and guidance through all stages of this study. I also would like to thank to Dr. Todd A. Eisenstadt and Sarah Fischer for their valuable comments. In July 2009 the AKP government announced that it was developing legislation to address the 30-year-old conflict between the Turkish and Kurdish armed forces. The details of the proposal – commonly referred to as the ‘Kurdish opening’ – are not entirely clear yet, but it is generally expected that they will include a constitutional amendment that will promote a more democratic approach to the Kurdish question (for more, see G. Bozkurt, ‘ Details of Kurdish Opening Get Clearer’, Hurriyet Daily News, 31 July 2009, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=details-of-kurdish-opening-gets-clear-2009-07-31). Since the AKP came to power in 2002 it has pursued a neo-liberal agenda which included the rapid sale of state enterprises, tax amnesties, and finally the removal of the so-called ‘where did you find this money’ to bring untaxed capital back home. These policies transferred significant revenues to the newly rising provincial bourgeoisie, an important constituency, and rolled back the borders of the state significantly. Islamist and Kurdish parties have changed their names several times, as they were periodically shut down by the Constitutional Court which found them unconstitutional. The Islamist party was shut down and reopened four times to establish National Order Party (MNP) in 1970, National Salvation Party (MSP) in 1972, Welfare Party (RP) in 1983, and Virtue Party (FP) in 1998. After the fourth time it was shut down by the Constitutional Court the party split among the conservatives and moderates in 2001. The conservatives took the name Felicity Party (SP) and remained committed to their original party ideology. The moderates established the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and defined themselves as Muslim Democrats, confirming their Muslim identity but distancing themselves from Islamism in favour of democracy. The Kurdish party was shut down periodically and reopened with new names including Peoples Labour Party (HEP) in 1991, Democracy Party (DEP) in 1994, People's Democracy Party (HADEP) in 1995, Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) in 1997, and Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2005. Most recently, when the DTP was shut down in December 2009 by the Constitutional Court, the party's members formed the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). In this paper I will focus mostly on the AKP and the DTP but I will also refer to the different names that Islamist and Kurdish parties assumed, depending on how the respondents referred to them or what name the party was using in a particular period. 54 interviews were conducted between 2005 and 2006 in urban and provincial headquarters of Islamist and Kurdish parties including Istanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakir, Urfa, and Mardin. See H. Yavuz, ‘Societal Search for a New Social Contract in Turkey: Fethullah Gulen, the Virtue Party and the Kurds’, SAIS Review (Winter–Spring 1999), pp.114–43; H. Barkey and G. Fuller, ‘Turkey's Kurdish Question: Critical Turning Points and Missed Opportunities’, Middle East Journal, Vol.51, No.1 (1997), pp.59–79. S. Mardin, ‘Center–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?’, Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol.102, No.1 (1973), pp.169–90. See N. Gole, Melez Desenler (Istanbul: Metis, 2000); T. Erman, ‘The Politics of Squatter (Gecekondu) Studies in Turkey: The Changing Representations of Rural Migrants in the Academic Discourse’, Urban Studies, Vol.38, No.7 (2001), pp.983–1002; M. Yegen, ‘The Turkish State Discourse and the Exclusion of Kurdish Identity’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.32, No.2 (1996), pp.216–29; and A. Icduygu, Y.Colak and N. Soyarik, ‘What is the Matter with Citizenship? A Turkish Debate’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.35, No.4 (1999), pp.187–208. For a centre–periphery approach to Kurdish movements during the Ottoman Empire, see N. Kutlay, Ittihat Terakki ve Kurtler (Istanbul: Firat-Dicle Yayinlari, 1991). S. Demiralp, ‘The Rise of Islamic Capital and the Decline of Islamic Radicalism in Turkey’, Comparative Politics, Vol.41, No.3 (2009), pp.315–35. The statistical data on the indicators of development are obtained from the Turkish Statistics Institute (http://www.tuik.gov). The data was not available for the post-2001 period. Clearly, ‘peripheralism’ is not a one-to-one function of a district's distance to Istanbul. Some of the Southeastern Anatolian provinces such as Antep or Elazig are more developed than some Middle Anatolian cities such as Bartin, Aksaray, or Yozgat. However, the numbers of these exceptions are limited and fail to challenge the domination of the Northwest. See ‘Turkiye Secim Sitesi’ for election maps illustrating the distribution of Islamic and Kurdish votes since 1983 : http://www.eharita.com.tr/secim/ According to the State Planning Institute (DPT) records, between 1965 and 2000 more than 21 million people migrated in Turkey, from east to west and from south to north (http://www.dpt.gov.tr). The number of electoral districts varies between 31 and 72 depending on the election. In 2004, the Kurdish DEHAP did not enter the election as an independent party but joined in a coalition with SHP. The correlation between support for AKP and the SHP–DEHAP coalition, namely the Democratic Power Union (DGB) is only +0.02. This exceptional outcome might be the result of the fact that the supporters of DGB were not the typical electoral base of DEHAP but rather social democrats from different class/geographic backgrounds who would not have a common socio-economic background with the majority of Islamist voters. As Heper and Keyman argue, patronage was the only form of responding to the needs of the lower classes in return for their votes. Yet, patronage took place through patron-client relations that only strengthened the paternalistic relations between the rulers and the ruled, instead of empowering the latter. See M. Heper and F. Keyman, ‘Double-Faced State: Political Patronage and the Consolidation of Democracy in Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.34 (1998), pp.259–77. M. Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity, 1999). R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies 7: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982). T. Nairn, ‘The Maladies of Development’, in J. Hutchinson and A.D. Smith (eds.), Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp.70–75. Ibid., p.75. D. Singerman, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). C. Tilly, Social Movements, 1768–2004 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2004); A. Morris, ‘Black Southern Student Sit-In Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organization’, American Sociological Review, Vol.46, No.6 (December 1981), pp.744–67; D.A. Snow, L.A. Zurcher Jr., and S. Ekland-Olson, ‘Social Networks and Social Movements: A Microstructural Approach to Differential Recruitment’, American Sociological Review, Vol.45, No.5 (Oct. 1980), pp.787–801; C.L. Schneider, Shantytown Protest in Pinochet's Chile (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995); R.V. Gould, ‘Multiple Networks and Mobilization in the Paris Commune, 1871’, American Sociological Review, Vol.56, No.6 (Dec. 1991), pp.716–29. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies 7: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Personal interview, Diyarbakir 2005. Personal interview, Havza 2005. P. Bourdieu, Distinction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). T. Akbas, ‘Turkiye'nin Zencileri’, Tempo Magazine, 29 March 2006, Nairn, ‘The Maladies of Development’. Ibid., pp.70–75. H. Yavuz, ‘Opportunity Spaces, Identity, and Islamic Meaning in Turkey’, in Q. Wiktorowicz (ed.), Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp.270–88. The former Military Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok admits the military's mistake in looking down upon the customs and manners of provincial or lower class groups while populist parties embraced them to win their hearts (see F. Bila, ‘Firtinali Gunlerin Komutani Konustu’ (Interview with Hilmi Ozkok), Milliyet Newspaper, 2 Oct. 2007, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2007/10/02/yazar/bila.html/). Gole, Melez Desenler. D. Singerman, ‘The Networked World of Islamist Social Movements’, in Wiktorowicz (ed.), Islamic Activism. We know that Islamist parties have typically promoted economic liberalism and religious conservatism. In addition they defended territorial unity under Islam (umma society). On the other hand, Kurdish parties typically defended a socialist ideology and advocated decentralization (while radicals defend total separation of predominantly Kurdish populated territories, moderates may accept confederation or other solutions from within a unitary system). Personal interview, Viransehir 2005. Personal interview, Mardin 2005. Natali finds a similar result in her analysis of three different Kurdish movements in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, where political opportunities, and not intrinsic, essential cultural demands or ideologies that determine the path of Kurdish dissident groups such as whether they are ethnicized or Islamized, compromising or violent, allied with left or right. For more, see D. Natali, The Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005). Personal interview with Aziz Baran, Mardin 2005. Personal interview with Adil Kurt, Diyarbakir 2005. White's study of Islamist mobilization in Istanbul's shantytowns also highlights the importance of public services provided by Islamist parties as a major factor in these parties' electoral support. See J.White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003). Personal interview, Viransehir 2005. Heper and Keyman, ‘Double-faced State: Political Patronage and the Consolidation of Democracy in Turkey’. Personal interview, Viransehir 2005. Personal interview with Deniz Besenk, Mardin 2005. Personal interview, Havza 2005. For more on provincial interest groups and their support for Islamist and Kurdish parties see Demiralp, ‘The Rise of Islamic Capital and the Decline of Islamic Radicalism in Turkey’. Personal interview, Viransehir 2005. Personal interview, Havza 2005. Personal interview, Diyarbakir 2005. Personal interview, Diyarbakir 2005. Personal interview with Kani Xulam, Washington DC, 2005. M. Somer, ‘Turkey's Kurdish Conflict: Changing Context, and Domestic and Regional Implications’, Middle East Journal, Vol.58, No.2 (2004), pp.235–53.
Referência(s)