Denial of Kurds by Turkey

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The denial of Kurds was the official state policy of Turkey for several decades, which denied that Kurds are their own ethnic group and alleged that they instead are a subgroup of Turks. The euphemism "Mountain Turks" was invented by General  [tr] and initially used to describe a people living in the mountains who did not speak their own language but a Turkish dialect.[1] Tevfik Rüştü Aras, the Turkish foreign minister between 1925 and 1938, defended the idea that the Kurds should disappear like the Indians in the United States.[2] Kâzım Karabekir, a former commander of the Turkish Army during the War of Independence, said the Kurds in Dersim were in fact assimilated Turks and they should be reminded of their Turkishness.[3] The Turkish Minister of Justice Mahmut Esat Bozkurt, stated that there is no other nation which could claim rights in Turkey than the Turkish race, and that all non-Turks would only have the right to be a servant or slave.[1]

Subsequently, the simple mention of the words Kurds and Kurdistan was prohibited, and replaced with terms like "Mountain Turks" and "The East", respectively.[4] The prohibition also included text in foreign languages.[5] That there has ever existed a Kurdish nation was denied, according to the Turkish History Thesis the Kurds migrated from Turanic Central Asia in the past[6] and in the Sun Language Theory it was also claimed that Kurds were of Turkic central asian origin, who had forgotten their ancestral language due to the fact that they were living isolated in the mountains under Persian rule.[4] During the 1920's and 1930s, merchants were fined for every word of Kurdish they used separately.[4] In school, students were punished if they were caught speaking Kurdish and during the 1960s Turkish language boarding schools were established in order to separate the students from their Kurdish relatives[7] and Turkify the Kurdish population.[8]

There is no such thing as the Kurdish people or nation. They are merely carriers of Turkish culture and habits. The imagined region proposed as the new Kurdistan is the region that was settled by the proto-Turks. The Sumerians and Scythians come immediately to mind.[9]

— , Professor of Sociology at Gebze Technical University

The term "Mountain Turk" became more commonly used in 1961 when Turkish President Cemal Gürsel supported studies to prove the Turkishness of the Kurds. In a book by  [tr] to which Gürsel wrote a foreword, he demanded studies which provided a proof of a fact which confirmed that Kurds were in reality "Mountain Turks". Gürsel was also the head of the newly established (TKAE) which published several books on the topic.[1] Besides, Gürsel encouraged the use of the phrase "Spit in the face of him who calls you a Kurd".[10] During the trials against the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths (DDKO) following the coup d'état in 1971,[11] the prosecution argued that Kurds do not actually exist, and their language was in reality a dialect of Turkish.[12] Also Kenan Evren, the chief of the military junta following the coup d'état in 1980, denied the existence of a Kurdish ethnicity and claimed the word Kurd arose from the sound the snow made if one walked in it and restricted the use of the Kurdish language.[13] The term "Mountain Turk" was officially replaced with the new euphemism "Eastern Turk" in 1980.[14]

21st century[]

In March 2021 the Turkish Ministry of National Education released a school book on the Kurdish majority Diyarbakir Province which makes no mention of Kurds or Kurdish language at all. It also claims that the language spoken in the city Diyarbakır is similar to the Turkish dialect spoken in Baku, Azerbaijan.[15] In August 2021, authorities changed the name of a 17th century mosque in Kilis from "Kurds' mosque" to "Turks' mosque" prompting criticism from the Kurdish community.[16]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Sagnic, Ceng. "Mountain Turks: state ideology and the Kurds in Turkey". SAGE Journal: 128–130. doi:10.1177/1468796818786307 – via SAGE.
  2. ^ Yilmaz, Özcan (2015-11-26). La formation de la nation kurde en Turquie (in French). Graduate Institute Publications. p. 66. ISBN 978-2-940549-28-3.
  3. ^ Bayir, Derya (2016-04-22). Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law. Routledge. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-317-09579-8.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c Hassanpour, Amir (1992). Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan, 1918-1985. Mellen Research University Press. pp. 132–133. ISBN 978-0-7734-9816-7.
  5. ^ Hassanpour, Amir (1992). p.135
  6. ^ Poulton, Hugh (1997). Top Hat, Grey Wolf, and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic. C. Hurst & Co. p. 121. ISBN 0-81476648-X.
  7. ^ Hassanpour, Amir (1992). p.133
  8. ^ webteam. "SEÇBİR Konuşmaları-41: Bir Asimilasyon Projesi: Türkiye'de Yatılı İlköğretim Bölge Okulları | Haberler / Duyurular Arşivi | İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi". www.bilgi.edu.tr (in Turkish). Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  9. ^ Gunes, Cengiz; Zeydanlioglu, Welat (2013). The Kurdish Question in Turkey: New Perspectives on Violence, Representation and Reconciliation. Routledge. p. 11. ISBN 978-1135140632.
  10. ^ Gunter, Michael (2000). "Third World Quarterly, Vol 21, No 5, pp 849–869, 2000" (PDF). Third World Quarterly. 21: 849–869.
  11. ^ Beşikçi, İsmail (2004). International Colony Kurdistan. Parvana. pp. 84–88. ISBN 978-1-903656-31-0.
  12. ^ Orhan, Mehmet (2015-10-16). Political Violence and Kurds in Turkey: Fragmentations, Mobilizations, Participations & Repertoires. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-317-42044-6.
  13. ^ Jones, Gareth (March 2, 2007). "Turkey's ex-president Evren probed for Kurd remarks". Reuters. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020.
  14. ^ http://countrystudies.us/turkey/26.htm
  15. ^ "'Baku Turkish' spoken in Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır, according to Ministry". Bianet - Bagimsiz Iletisim Agi. Retrieved 2021-03-19.
  16. ^ "'Kurds Mosque' changed to 'Turks Mosque' due to restoration, says gov't". Ahval. 15 August 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
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