Kurds demonstrate in Strasbourg calling for Ocalan's release, February 2015. Demotix/ Jonathan Rae. All rights reserved.Turkey and the Kurds share the aim of
ending their long-standing conflict. So what of the so-called peace process
between the Turkish state and the PKK, especially their imprisoned leader
Abdullah Ocalan? And what is the potential role of Kurdish diaspora groups in
‘peace-making’, ‘peacebuilding’ and ‘reconciliation’ processes with Turkey?
I have been exploring the experiences
of Kurdish individuals and families in the diaspora, specifically looking at
involvement in homeland politics, conflict and peace between April 2014 and May
2015 for my research, facilitating five focus groups and securing interviews with
those from different parts of Kurdistan now living in the UK and Germany. In
total, my research involved 60 Kurdish adults, of whom 29 were women, and 31
were men, building on work on the Kurdish diaspora in the UK and Germany since
2008.
Middle East conflict
and peace process
I want to start by
arguing that there is not actually any real peace process in Turkey. The
outcome of this research shows that the aim of negotiations – for both AKP and
the Kurdish parties, especially the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) – is actually to monopolise power and violence.
This ‘game’ is likely
to further deepen divisions between Turks and Kurds, and may even open the door
for further escalation of violent conflict. Something like this was seen on 6-7
October 2014 in almost all the Kurdish-populated cities in Turkey when around
50 people lost their lives.
Especially for the AKP
government, these so-called negotiations are not about risk-taking to make
peace – but about risk-avoidance to maintain the status quo, and so to maintain
the current actors’ grasp on power. But without taking substantial risks,
including the risk of losing power, it is almost impossible to broker peace.
Before analysing the
current conditions in the Middle East and Turkey, and the role of diaspora
communities in more depth, I would like to underline the fact that
peace negotiations are never easy. Getting started is often – usually – the
most difficult thing to do. Conflict will either continue, or only be temporarily
and conditionally stopped. Any peace process is like a game, a theatre. There
are many players, actors – from different sides – who do not trust each other.
Different sides have different agendas. Some protagonists may benefit directly
from the war, and can easily choose to destroy any possible peace process. For
example, the 50,000 men currently employed by the Turkish state as village
guards have no incentive to support peace, since peace will probably mean that
they will lose their family’s livelihood.
Moreover, with Kurdish populations
living in Syria, Iraq and Iran, as well as in the diaspora and Turkey, one
cannot separate the Kurdish and Turkish ‘peace process’ from ongoing conflicts
and wars in the neighbouring countries. Many of the Kurds I have interviewed
believe that for any successful and permanent peace, Kurds living in all of
these places, including the diaspora, must be involved in any peace process.
In the Middle East and Turkey,
especially in the last 35 years, there has never been a day without war and
violence. The most recent conflict – which started in March 2011 in Syria, and
has included Iraq from 2014 – has cost around 500 thousand lives and created
millions of homeless people and refugees. It is not surprising that all of
these wars have disproportionately affected the Kurds.
In Syria and Iraq now, there is no rule
of law, no consistent authority and, effectively, no state. The Iranian and
Turkish states both have their own agendas. They are both aiming for ‘big
brother’ style leadership of the Middle East using, respectively Shia / Sunni
proxies. Neither wants to see Kurds united: both have been accustomed to using
warring Kurdish factions as buffer armies since the 16th century. When Kurds try to distance themselves from
this situation, and connect with the international community, then Iran and
Turkey try new ways to weaken and keep Kurds divided.
Most recently, at the same time as
Turkey was supporting ISIS against Kurds, Iran was directly helping and
supporting Shia militias fighting in Iraq against both Kurds and ISIS. Both
countries are happy to see Kurds given a bloody nose and divided. There is a
famous phrase that “if you find two brothers fighting, do not try to separate
them, otherwise they will both turn on you.” In the Kurdish case, other
countries do not just leave Kurdish factions to fight with each other, they
also pour petrol on the fighting to make sure that fighting continues.
Talks about talks
So, it is difficult to talk about any
real peace process between Turks and Kurds. There do seem to have been some
talks about possible peace-talks. These limited talks have only been between
two political parties or groups (AKP and PKK), rather than involving all the
different internal and international power-holders. However, these talks about
talks are not new. Around two decades ago, in 1993, President Ozal tried to
negotiate with Ocalan through various mediators. The failure of this initiative
opened the door for the very brutal conflicts of the 1990s. Then in 1997, Prime
Minister Erbakan made another unsuccessful attempt – one of the results of
which was a military coup. In 2009, the ‘Oslo process’ involved Turkish state
representatives, especially the Turkish National Intelligence Service and the
PKK negotiating secretly with the help of diaspora representatives.
However this 2009 attempt by the AKP
government for peace with Kurds did not continue. Both sides, the government
and the PKK, blamed each other for the collapse of the talks in 2011, when the
process was made public. The broken promises and loss of hope after Oslo
resulted again in some of the bloodiest conflicts between Turkish state forces
and the PKK since before the 1999 Abdullah Ocalan arrest. The Uludere massacre
took place in December 2011, when 34 Kurdish civilians were killed by the
Turkish military. Following this, Ocalan’s meetings with his lawyers and
visitors were cancelled and PKK prisoners in Turkey took part in lengthy hunger
strikes at the end of 2012.
During this crisis I carried out
fieldwork research in Germany and met and talked with Sakine Cansiz about the
conflict and the poor prospects for peace just a few weeks before she and other
two female Kurdish political activists were assassinated in Paris (9 January
2013). The murderer’s links with the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) have
been established. Despite a bloody war, 67 days of hunger strike and the Paris
assassinations; Newroz 2013 was seen as another step towards peace between
Kurds and Turkey when Ocalan’s ceasefire message was read during the Newroz
(New Year) celebrations in Diyarbakir. The PKK and Ocalan openly declared that
‘Peace Process’ negotiations were going on. However, the AKP government claimed
for a long time that it was not the government but the state that was in
contact with Ocalan and other Kurdish political representatives – thereby
trying to protect the AKP from any damage from this process. They were
avoiding, rather than taking, any risks.
Six years after the
2009 Oslo talks there has not been much in the way of substantive developments;
except for several talks between Ocalan and some key players, including some
Kurdish MPs, the Turkish Intelligence Service and some AKP members. Erdogan has
avoided, at least openly, either being part of the process or working to move
the process on.
For any successful
peace negotiations, the different parties must work together and be prepared to
take risks to solve the dispute. In contrast, in the Turkish and Kurdish
so-called peace process many political and societal power holders have not been
involved. Key actors within different civil societies and the various relevant
political parties do not know the details of the negotiations between the
imprisoned Kurdish leader and the AKP or state representatives. There is no
clarity about the peace talks themselves, the possible reconciliation process,
and possible new institutions in the formation of a potentially decentralised
Turkish state.
Past experience suggests
that this may open the door for brutal conflict. Even if a peace process was
successfully developing between the PKK and AKP, the exclusion of the other
factions is likely to increase the possibilities of conflict. For
example, Kurdish Hezbollah could turn their guns onto the Turkish state, saying
that they do not recognise any peace process, and that they want to fight for
an independent Kurdish or Islamic state, as pursued by Hamas. Already, Turkish
nationalists and former members of the Turkish military do not recognise the
current process and may support a bloody war. Since bad and good can easily,
and very quickly, swap sides in Middle East politics, it is important that any
peace process should include all main actors, and factions.
Statelessness,
diaspora, nationalism and democracy
The underlying concern is how to work
towards successful negotiations for peace, including stability post-conflict,
with the help of diasporas. One can easily observe deep differences between and
within diasporic communities. There is a strong emotional connection between
Kurdish diaspora communities and society in Kurdish regional homelands. Just
like Kurdish homeland society, diasporas are not a unitary or homogenous
entity.
War and conflict over the past thirty
years have forced hundreds of thousands of stateless Kurds to flee their
homelands in Turkey and other countries in the Middle East in an attempt to
secure safety outside of the region.
It can be argued that statelessness,
diaspora and nationalism are strongly connected in so far as statelessness and
diaspora can be seen to feed nationalism. Since Kurds have no ‘unitary’
religious or linguistic identity, many Kurds have claimed that the only way
forward is to become much more nationalistic. From this perspective, unity
through nationalism is the only way to end Kurdish statelessness and to make a
stable peace.
Many Kurds believe that Kurdish people,
both as individuals and as a community, have not been ‘strong enough’
nationalists, since they have not been successful at establishing their own
state. The weak nationalism of stateless people, including Kurds, has been part
of academic debate in recent years. For example, Ismail Besikci, a well-known
Turkish academic who has researched Kurdish issues for decades, has asserted
that:
Kurds are not good enough nationalists.
They should not be as democratic as they are today. It’s too much. It is not
Kurds’ business to make Turkey a more democratic country.
Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who has been imprisoned by Turkey since 1999,
has also called on all Kurdish people around the world to unite, and to show
resistance against their enemies. Kurds who have left the various imagined
homelands of Kurdistan to live in diasporas, often take such calls for national
solidarity especially seriously. The ISIS attack on Kobane, which has cost
thousands of lives and caused suffering to hundreds of thousands of people, is
the first time in history that Kurds from different parts of the world have
joined together to fight for the same cause. These efforts demonstrate a
significant shift in Kurdish nationalism: from localized and weak nationalism
towards a collective, stronger form of nationalism with the help of diaspora
mobilization.
However, some other Kurds argue against
stronger nationalism, and instead believe that Kurds need to be more democratic
than they are currently. When Abbas Vali, another well-known Kurdish academic,
commented on my recent presentation of Besikci’s statement, he said that, “I
have to fundamentally disagree with Besikci. Kurds are not democratic enough.”
Kurds who want to promote a more advanced form of democracy are especially
concerned about the rights of women and other powerless groups. They even want
to champion the right to be heard for those people who hold political views in
direct opposition to their own.
Because of long years under the
assimilationist policies of the Turkish state, then until recently many Kurds
have felt ashamed of their cultural identity. Many Kurds hid their Kurdishness
and Kurdish roots. However, with the recent conflict in the Middle East and,
especially, the victorious fighting in Kobane, many Kurds are now becoming
increasingly proud of their Kurdishness. Linked to this, there is increasing
Kurdish nationalism. As Kurds are still an underdog minority, this nationalism
is developing into an ‘aggressive’ form which has even been described by
Bozarlan as ‘narcissistic nationalism’.
Kurdish diaspora
mobilization for the homeland
Members of the Kurdish diaspora have
for many years tried to remove the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from the
European Union’s list of designated terrorist groups. Freedom for Ocalan is
another key aim for the Kurdish national diaspora movement. All of these movements
are organised under the banner of the Kurdish National Congress (KNC). This was
established on 24 May 1999, just a few months after Ocalan was arrested.
Underlining the importance of the diaspora communities the KNC is based in
Brussels. This is a temporary arrangement which will last until Kurds have full
independence, or at least, substantive autonomy.
Under the KNC banner, Kurdish
transnational political and protest movements in Europe have made the world
aware of the effects of ISIS attacks against Kurds in Shengal in Iraq, as well
as in Kobane, Syria. As part of my ethnographic research, I was told that
several hundred young Kurdish men and women have travelled from London and
Berlin to fight, and help the Kurds in Turkey and Syria. Some of these people
are well-educated or work in well-paid professions.
People from the diaspora who cannot go
to fight themselves, instead organize fundraising events and take part in
lobbying activities and demonstrations with the aim of persuading British and
European politicians to help the Kurdish movements in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and
Iran. In September and October 2014, some London-based Kurds even went on
hunger strike for the Kurdish cause. Benedict Anderson may be wrong when he
claims that members of diaspora communities try to influence what is going on
in their homeland without being physically involved in destructive conflicts.
Kurds are no longer
just a local tribal group, operating through kinship networks. The Kurdish
lobby in the diaspora may not be as strong as that for Armenians and Jews, but
they are moving in that direction. Millions of Kurds and their supporters can,
and do, take to the streets of Istanbul, Berlin, London, Paris, New York and
Brussels, whenever there is an issue of concern. They also have increasingly
strong and close relationships with the governments of their new host
countries. For example, Kurds regularly use facilities within the UK parliament
for meetings and political discussions, and several MPs and Lords usually input
favourably. These increasing links should not be underestimated.
As we have seen, diaspora communities
can easily become a driving engine for homeland politics, nationalist
movements, and even armed conflict in the original homeland. They can also
become an agent of change towards peace. As discussed above, this was the case
for the peace process between the PKK and Turkish state representatives,
especially the Turkish National Intelligence Service. In 2009, initial
negotiations were brokered with the help of diaspora representatives, in the
so-called ‘Oslo Process.’ This example demonstrates that the Kurdish stateless
diaspora has already been an active, influential actor in policies affecting
its homeland. As one of my interviewees said:
If there is going to be any peace with
Turkey, it will be down to the diaspora. And that’s true for conflict too. We
are becoming as strong as the Armenian and Jewish diaspora. Assimilated Kurds
in Turkey cannot make peace – or war – without us. We [diaspora Kurds] have
suffered. And we [diaspora] will be a part of the decision-making process, if
there are going to be any decisions.
Millions of people have suffered and
moved to different diasporas because of the conflict. Many of them have very
little trust in the on-going so-called ‘peace process’. All of this makes any
talks and the peace process itself very fragile. Many of my interviewees do not
trust the Turkish state, especially the current Erdogan-led government, to make
peace. Another of my interviewees explained:
Of course we [diaspora Kurds] want
peace. Who would not want peace? I have lived in three different diasporas in
the last 30 years:in Germany, in France and now in the UK. I haven’t seen my
hometown or my relatives in Turkey since the 1980s. My land was occupied by the
village guards. Peace may help people like me to end this misery and to have
their land and their home back. But Turkey is not serious about making peace.
Erdogan is just playing with us. He needs Kurdish votes and he has used us to
stay in power since 2002. He has not made any legal changes in favour of Kurds
in his last 13 years in power. He is not a friend of Kurds. We [Kurds] have to
think beyond any national borders to help each other. We cannot trust others to
help us to make peace; we should create our own state and pull down all the
borders that divide us.
The imprisoned Kurdish leader, Ocalan,
understands what a potentially important role diaspora communities have. He has
repeatedly asked the diaspora to contribute to the development of the peace
process both by organising discussions and other events, and also to involve
European institutions and governments in these events. With this in mind,
several conferences (May and December 2013, December 2014) were organised in
Brussels by the Kurdish National Congress in the Diaspora (KNC). These meetings
have shown how Kurds feel they cannot trust the Turkish state to engage in any
real peace process, and that they realise they must become just as good at
playing political games as that state.
At the 13th General Meeting of the KNC, held in Brussels on
25-26 May 2013, it was stated that Kurds have the right to live and create
their own destiny in their own land as a Kurdish nation, and:
Democratisation of [the] Middle East
can be achieved through the recognition of Kurdish identity and Kurdistan as a
nation… On these grounds Kirkuk and other parts of [the] Kurdish region[s] that
were taken [by Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran] have to be included again in the
map of Kurdistan, and these countries have to show their respect for the map of
Kurdistan and its territory.
As we see from this explanation, there
are no signs that Kurds, as represented by the PKK and KNC, have dropped their
claim of creating a unitary Kurdish state.
Are
Kurds learning to play the system?
More tactically, and perhaps more
realistically, many Kurdish nationalists have temporarily postponed their aim
to create a Kurdish state in Turkey, as they focus on state-making in Syria and
Iraq. As long as the fight continues in Iraq and Syria, the most radical Kurds
can consolidate their increasingly radical members around that struggle. As Jok
says for the South Sudanese case: “nations don’t just happen – they have to be
planned, forged and crafted.” Many Kurds in diaspora and also in Turkey are
aware that the processes and techniques for state making are not easy and may
take a long time. For example, the Mayor of Kobane acknowledged that “we
[Kurds] are not professional [yet] when it comes to independence.” Cemil Bayık,
one of the founders and leaders of the outlawed PKK, has said that although
currently there is no situation that requires an armed struggle against Turkey,
"this does not mean we will lay down our weapons. When the chaos that is
engulfing the Middle East is taken into consideration, disarming is not
possible.”
Many of my interviewees believe that
the sort of democratic autonomous system that Ocalan and many Kurdish
nationalists currently support for Turkey would not only give them time but
also allow some of the necessary preparations for a future unitary Kurdish
state. Kurds already practice their own legal system for business, family and
even criminal cases as a de facto, as part of their practical resistance
against the Turkish state and institutions of the state and also part of
Kurdish state building project in Turkey unofficially. This practice has been
re-developed and introduced by the PKK for Kurdish people.
The Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan has also pointed out in many speeches how different Kurdish
power-holders, and especially diasporas, play a crucial role in the ongoing
conflict and its resolution. The Kurdish diaspora is therefore recognized as an
important influencing factor by both sides of the conflict.
To conclude: the existing peace
negotiations between Turkey and Kurds are not balanced. Messages from Ocalan
about the negotiations are carried by a few selected Kurdish political party
members. I understand that any peace process should be limited to start with,
with only a few actual actors, but there seems to have been no substantive
process over the last six years.
As discussed above,
Kurdish diasporas have followed a ‘strong’ and even ‘aggressive’ nationalism in
recent years. They have actively contributed both to the ongoing conflict and
to peace. This dual role may be an important barrier for Kurdish leaders to
overcome if they are going to make any peace.