The process of the politicization of the Kurdish identity in Turkey: the Kurds and the Turkish Labor Party (1961–1971)

Abstract

This thesis examines a much-misunderstood period of mobilization and politicization of Kurds in Turkey, a period that has often been assumed to have been an era of revival for Kurdish nationalism. It rejects the idea of revival of Kurdish nationalism during the 1960s. It postulates that what happened during this period can be seen only as formative years for the next generation of Kurdish nationalist who inherited so much from the interaction between Kurdish ethnicity and socialist terminology of those years. It examines the role and impact of new generation of Kurdish intellectuals on the politicization of the Kurdish identity in the 1960s and the affiliation between the Turkish Labor Party and Kurdish political entrepreneurs between 1960 and 1971. One of the main points is to examine the relationship between Kurdish nationalism (or Kurdish ethnic awareness) and Turkish Socialism. In addition to the TLP’s documents and publications, several publications from the time and interviews with former Kurdish activists were used in the preparation of this thesis. Theoretically, it is based on the concept of an ethnoregional movement which is an amalgamation of ethnic and economic demands, and most of the time attracts relatively a young generation of intellectuals of ethnic minority groups who do not have the same resources as their counterparts and who strive to find new channels to obtain them. Finally, it asserts that the shift from the “Eastern Question,” which was regarded as an issue of economic backwardness and that would be swept away once socialism came to power, to the “Kurdish Question,” which drew attention mainly to ethnic reasons for the economic backwardness of the East and Southeast regions of Turkey, was a result of the closed doors of the Turkish political system and intra-TLP conflicts as well as intra-Kurdish elite conflicts.