A Turkish proverb states: “Bir dil bir insan, iki dil iki
insan.” What it means is
simply that you are one person if you speak one language, but if you can speak
two languages, you are worth two persons. Indeed, learning a new language opens
up a whole new world to you. This is why over the course of the past three months,
I have been learning Turkish fervently—to the extent that I actually enjoy
trying to strike up a conversation in Turkish with strangers.
Nevertheless, the above proverb
seems highly ironic when examining the language policies of Turkey. After all,
until recently, Turkey had long placed severe restrictions on the use of the
Kurdish language, which is spoken by the country’s largest minority, the Kurds.
Since its inception as a
republic in 1923, the Kemalist governing elite had strived to homogenize the
diverse populations of Turkey according to an idealized Turkish ethnic
identity. One side-effect of this policy of “Turkification” was the outright
denial of the existence of Kurds: they were simply seen as “mountain Turks.”
Given that one of the primary differences between ethnic Turks and Kurds is in
language, the suppression of Kurdish became an important part of the state’s
drive to Turkify its people. It is therefore not surprising that many scholars
have referred to Turkey’s language policy as “linguicide” or “linguistic
genocide.”
In the early days of the
Turkish Republic, the state actually imposed fines for speaking Kurdish in
public. Not only were the words “Kurd” and “Kurdistan” banned, it was also
illegal to publish anything in Kurdish. At the same time, the names of many
Kurdish villages and towns were replaced with Turkish ones. Despite these
coercive measures, Kurdish still remained prevalent in eastern Anatolia, where
most Kurds reside.
The suppression of the Kurds
reached its peak after the 1980 coup, when the military junta intensified
efforts to forcibly assimilate the Kurds. Prohibitions against the use of
Kurdish became enshrined in the new 1982 Constitution. Thus, Kurdish became
effectively banned in the public sphere: it cannot be taught in schools or used
in the media. Moreover, Law 2932—imposed in 1983—declared that Turkish was the
“mother tongue” of all Turkish citizens. In the eyes of the state, the Kurds
not only had to stop the use of Kurdish, but to deny its place in their
cultural identity as well.
The grievances held by the Kurds in light of
such repressive policies helped to fuel what is probably the most devastating
insurgency in Turkey’s history: the armed conflict started by the Kurdistan
Worker’s Party (PKK) in 1984. The military response towards the insurgency
during the 1980s and 1990s was exceptionally brutal, with thousands of Kurdish
villages forcibly evacuated and destroyed. It took the capture in 1999 of the
PKK’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, before the insurgency ended. Despite numerous
negotiations and ceasefires, sporadic clashes between the Turkish military and
PKK fighters still occur today—a reflection of the entrenched nature of the
conflict.
Nevertheless, there has been a
promising development arising from the conflict. Under the Justice and
Development Party (AKP), the Turkish government has shown much willingness to
negotiate with the PKK to increase the rights of the Kurds. One of the most
tangible outcomes of these negotiations was the lifting of restrictions on the
use of Kurdish over the past decade. In fact, the state-run Turkish Radio and
Television Corporation actually started a dedicated 24-hour Kurdish TV channel
in 2009.
This stunning reversal in the
Turkish government’s treatment of Kurdish might be a cause for optimism with
regard to resolving the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Back in the 1990s, the
prospect of the government funding Kurdish language programs in universities or
allowing the teaching of Kurdish in middle and high schools would have been
unthinkable. Yet, these are realities today. Of course, much work still needs
to be done, but I think that things have been heading in the right direction.
Up on the castle overlooking
the city of Kars, a friendly Kurdish man was teaching me some Kurdish phrases,
jotting them down in my little notebook. Beside those phrases, he scribbled a
word: “Kurdistan.” His finger on his lips, he gestured to me—shhh—with a secretive smile.
For his sake, and the rest of
his ethnic kin, I do hope that his linguistic and cultural identity need not be
something that has to be kept secret anymore.
