Political Geography: Kurdistan / Journal: Insight Turkey

Author:: Michael M. Gunter
Publication Date:: 04-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Most of the recently published books on the Kurdish problem in Turkey focus on the armed struggle and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Watts, however, offers a much-appreciated alternative approach. "Pro-Kurdish political parties" (p. xvii), or what she also calls "challenger parties" (p. 16), "have made themselves matter and... have impressed their ideas and agendas on reluctant and often repressive states" (p. x). "The central argument of this book is that... pro-Kurdish elected officials and party administrators engaged [as]... 'loudspeaker systems' for the transmission of highly contentious information politics that challenged the narratives of security, identity, and representation promoted by Turkish state institutions.... They [also] tried to construct a competing 'governmentality' and new collective Kurdish 'subject' in cities and towns in the southeast" (p. 13).
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: Turkey and Kurdistan

Author:: Shwan Zulal
Publication Date:: 08-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The Kurds were late to the idea of nationalism in the 20th century, and when the borders were drawn in the region they became the largest stateless nation in the world, divided mainly between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. In an unlikely period when hope was fading, a Kurdistan regional government in Iraq was born as the former Iraqi regime was weakened after the first Gulf War and the subsequent no-fly zone. Two decades on, the region has become more assertive and been making many new friends, largely because of its newfound wealth, its influence in post-Saddam Iraq, and its stability when compared with the rest of Iraq. Oil has been a curse for the Kurds and Iraq as a whole, but now the Kurds appear to have found a way to use its resources for economic development, ensuring that the Kurdistan region remains stable and can establish itself as a self-governing and influential entity.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Kurdistan

Author:: Tayfun Atay
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This article aims to explore multifaceted interactions among three segments of the 'Turkish-speaking' immigrant community in London, composed of the Turks and the Kurds from Turkey and Turkish Cypriots. Drawing on findings of an extensive anthropological fieldwork, this paper not only documents that these sub-groups co-exist and cooperate with each other creating a sense of collective belonging to Turkish-speaking communities versus the others but also shows frictions and conflicts often occurring about ethnic, political, and ideological issues. As a result, an uneasy symbiosis exists between these sub-groups in London where they find themselves in an awkward position of existing together while not belonging to a unified group which can be described by the notion of 'ethnicity within ethnicity'.
Political Geography:: Turkey, London, and Kurdistan

Author:: Ümit Cizre
Publication Date:: 10-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The AK Party's chronic 'political insecurity' may have passed a threshold as the ruling party resurfaces as an actor taking advantage of its pro-European Union sentiments to begin a 'grand negotiation' with Turkey's thus-far publicly shunned Kurdish leaders after decades of bloodshed. This new window of opportunity could not have emerged without the explosion of the Ergenekon incident, which has offered a persuasive critique of the closed, dark, intolerant and secret communities friendly with the military bureaucracy and state officials but insidiously devoted to destroying the government. In the post-Ergenekon era, the new democratic opening represents a significant departure from a military solution to the Kurdish issue which has blocked civilian imaginations by declaring the Kurdish identity demands as a security threat to the officially proscribed Turkish identity. The real issue at stake now for the AK Party government is a redefinition of the locus and space where the phenomenon of real political power takes place in Turkey.
Topic:: Government and Politics
Political Geography:: Turkey and Kurdistan

Author:: Cemalettin Haşimi
Publication Date:: 10-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The Kurdish initiative announced by the governing Justice and Development Party has increased the discussions on the proper ways and forms of dealing with the Kurdish question in Turkey. The announcement acted as an opening of Pandora's box through which all different images of the problem began to be manifested simultaneously. Assuming that the public perception would have a direct impact on the trajectory of the implementation of the initiative, this essay examines different aspects of the public perception of the issue by relying on the findings of a joint survey conducted by SETA and Pollmark. It is contended that effective settlement of the Kurdish question requires encountering and resolving certain tensions in the public perceptions, which can be done by achieving a language in which the grammar of politics and the values that maintain social integration is more transitional and interdependent.
Topic:: Development
Political Geography:: Turkey and Kurdistan

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