Denial of the Kurdish question in the personal narratives of lay people

Abstract

For at least the past 30 years, the Kurdish question has been the most urgent agenda concern for Turkey. Denial of the Kurdish question is a state narrative and an administrative strategy in Turkey that was produced by the founders of the Republic and disseminated by its leadership using the state apparatus. However, we know very little about how denial operates within lay person accounts of the Kurdish question. Learning about the narrative forms that lay people produce in their accounts on the Kurdish question is necessary to understand the micro-level appearance of the question. Denial appears to be a foundational strategy employed by lay Kurds and Turks in different forms, through numerous arguments, and from different motivations, as evidenced in their personal accounts. This study investigates the arguments, forms, and functions of this denial in the personal accounts of lay Turks and Kurds in Turkey.

Keywords

Denial Kurdish question lay people personal narrative Turkish nationalism Kurds in Turkey

A long history of denial

For at least the past 30 years, the Kurdish question has been the most urgent agenda concern for Turkey. However, the roots of the Kurdish question date back to the late Ottoman period and the establishment period of the new Turkish Republic. Kurdish identity has been one of the “constant others” of the Kemalist ideology founders. Mesut Yegen (2011) defined three periods of denial in state perception of the Kurdish question and demonstrates how it is possible to read the history of the Kurdish question as a history of denial. The period between 1919 and the mid-1920s, during the Independence War and the establishment of the Turkish Republic, he refers to as the “pre-denial” period when “… officials declared they would recognize Kurds as an ethnic group with cultural and political rights” (2011: 67). With the establishment of the Republic, the denial produced by the founders of the Republic and disseminated from the top by means of the state apparatus was the official state discourse until the 1990s. Yegen defined this 70-year period as a time when “denial” was systematically employed and practiced through policies of oppression and assimilation (2011: 72). The subsequent “post-denial” period was in the 1990s when nationalist sentiments were at a peak, during which full recognition of Kurds did not occur, yet major steps were taken to achieve recognition (2011: 68).

Through reframing history, the state has utilized denial as its only narrative to comprehend and rename the Kurdish question. Kurdish revolts during the early years of the nation state were interpreted as resistance to the past and the rebels of that period were labeled as “bandits” and “brigands.” Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the Kurdish question was considered to be evidence of the backwardness of Kurdish social structure. In popular perception, the Kurdish question was defined as an underdevelopment problem to be solved by decades of economic and social reforms (Yegen, 2011: 70–71). Simultaneously, the perception that the Kurdish question arose as a result of foreign incitement became popular. Although the perception of the particular identities of these external powers has changed over time, it remains strong in both official and personal narratives.

After the 12 September 1980 coup d’état,¹ new right-wing politics developed through the articulation of the “synthesis of Turk-Islam.” In 1978, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK)) was founded in this political atmosphere and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish Army. Kenan Evren, the seventh President of Turkey (1982–1989), who led the 1980 military coup introduced an approach to the Kurdish question that would thereafter determine the state’s discourse on it: Evren claimed that the “Kurds are a subgroup of Turks living up in the snow-covered mountains and the word “Kurd” comes from the sound “kart kurt,” which is made while walking on the snow.” It was popularly interpreted to mean that there could not be a Kurdish question because there was no Kurdish nation.

The ruling period of Turgut Ozal, the eighth president of Turkey, is accepted as a transitional time from denial to a quiet recognition of the Kurdish question. Until the 1990s, the word “Kurd” was taboo publicly and politically, and it was firstly promulgated in February 1991 by the eighth president of Turkey, Turgut Ozal.² Ozal launched discussions of a possible federal system that “initiated secret dialogue with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders and held meetings with the PKK leader Ocalan” (Pusane, 2014: 83). This early step toward recognition was not a peaceful solution, but Kurds experienced the harshest state intervention during the 1990s.³ This period of intense conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state forced the Kurdish question to a tragic tipping point that made continued denial of the issue impossible for lay Kurds and Turks, as well as the state. In addition to the transformation of state perception, rapid and compulsory migration of Kurds to urban centers⁴ changed the perception of lay Turks as well. Encounters with Kurds in the big cities occurred in a nationalist and suppressive context, and they were perceived as culturally backward criminals and, therefore, violent. The collective memory was systematically restructured and reproduced in mainstream media during the late 1980s and 1990s through references to “traumatic moments” in Turkey’s history. Because Turks have been continually exposed to these biased and restricted messages in the mainstream media, the majority have a very limited notion of what was really happening in the Kurdish region. Kurds, however, experienced the bloodshed first-hand, or heard about the experiences of their relatives and friends.

With the deconstruction of the official state ideology of the Islamist-conservative government in the 2000s, the political landscape was transformed, and the Kurdish question reached a new level of urgency. Two political moves of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party (JDP)) during its ruling period has shaken the Kurdish question’s taboo position for lay people. The first was advancement of the politics of the new conservative Democratic Party which intended to challenge the secularist and militarist Kemalist ideology. Challenging the army and the deep-rooted administrative patterns of the state transformed the Turkish political narrative. In the Islamic discourse, “Kurds were understood as fellow victims of the secular Kemalist republic and acknowledged as people with a language and identity of their own” (Bahcheli and Noel, 2011: 103). The weakening credibility of the army invited criticisms and investigation of its activities in the Kurdish region, which revealed paramilitary operations and made the public expression of individual and collective experiences of the Kurds both possible and legitimate.

The second JDP maneuver was development of its Kurdish Democratic Opening Project, which aimed to regulate the cultural and political rights of Kurds. This effort began in 2009 and the Turkish government maintained that the project gave democratic rights to the Kurds and expected it to lead to disarmament of the PKK, a peace agreement and resolution to the Kurdish question. These moves by the government toward resolving the Kurdish question did not automatically yield democratic developments since the Kurdish question was perceived as a “terrorism problem” fixable only by military means. Although today Erdoğan insists that Kemalist policies were abandoned by recognizing the ethnic aspect of the question Erdoğan also states, “There is no Kurdish question but a PKK problem in Turkey.”⁵

This field research was conducted throughout the time of the Kurdish opening process.⁶ Because this issue was foremost in respondents’ awareness at that time, it conveniently allowed respondents to access and express their emotions, thoughts, and experiences regarding the issue when interviewed: both Kurds and Turks could speak about the Kurdish question and it was possible to witness the dissemination of individual stories, thoughts, and emotions (even within an interview) after they had asked the first question.⁷ Conditions have changed since 2015, demonstrating that the official discourse has lost all its gains and turned back dramatically to the classical discourse of denial. Therefore, if this study were conducted in the current context, the results could be quite different. The questions that this research aims to answer are:

How does the strategy of denial regarding the Kurdish question appear in the personal accounts?

By which arguments is the strategy of denial regarding the Kurdish question discussed?

What are the functions of the strategy of denial regarding the Kurdish question in the personal accounts?

Methodology and field work: On personal narratives

Patterson and Monroe note that the use of personal narratives can be interpreted as an attempt to capture the world (1998: 328), and “nowhere is this more starkly and politically demonstrated than in narratives of national identity” (1998: 322). Narrative inquiry, as a methodological approach, provides flexibility during interviews and throughout the process of analysis. The dilemma between big and small stories and the ways personal narratives are employed to understand and explain collective issues are overcome by the approach of Stanley (2008) who suggests that narrative inquiry is a result of the interpretational overview of the researcher, based on small-scale stories (p. 436). Departing from this approach, defining the personal narratives as “political” and situating the individuals in a wider political space becomes possible, while the ways in which ethnic identities are practiced and narrated become visible. Stanley notes, “Narrative inquiry provides a methodology, a set of broad procedural ideas and concepts, rather than a pre-set method or specified technique, and it encourages responsiveness to the dynamics of the research context” (2008: 436).

The personal narratives of individuals and observations of the interactions between two groups are the primary empirical data on which this research is based. Complex genres of narratives, such as media-generated visuals and narratives were not considered. This does not mean that meta-narrative forms, such as media narratives, official political narratives, visual narratives, and narratives of the bodily practices of individuals are ignored: rather, it indicates that our primary foci are the personal narratives of lay Kurds and Turks. Data were collected in Ankara between March and November 2011 and included 40 semi-structured interviews with Kurdish and Turkish men and women aged 17–70 and living in Ankara, who did not have any kind of political affiliation or party and organization membership. All the interviews were conducted solely by the main researcher.

Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is a metropolis which has allowed immigrants in various historical contexts and has a current population of 5271 million. The immigrations have rendered Ankara as a place where Turkish and Kurdish populations encounter each other. In comparison to cities such as İstanbul, Izmir, Mersin, and Antalya which experienced much higher levels of immigration, Ankara serves as the most appropriate study field location because it has a more moderate political atmosphere which is ideal for observing ordinary and daily interactions.

This study includes seven accounts drawn from a total group of 40 respondents who were involved in my previous PhD research, three of whom are Turks and four of whom are Kurds. Although the strategy of denial came up in each of the original interviews, these seven accounts were chosen because they included quite clear and profound examples of denial. All four Kurdish respondents defined themselves as Kurds and they were quite secular. Similarly, the other three respondents defined themselves as nationalist Turkish citizens. One of them could be described as Islamist, while the other two were more Kemalist in inclination.

On lay Kurdish and Turkish people

Although there is less observable interest in lay perspectives, some recent research on the Kurdish question has started to develop a “bottom-up” perspective that focuses on the micro level of the question. Two significant qualitative research examples are worth noting. Saracoglu (2009), through his conception of “exclusive recognition,” addresses antipathy towards Kurdish immigrants living in Izmir. This conceptualization of the everyday aspects of the conflict between Kurds and Turks is accentuated and analyzed through the theoretical themes of neoliberalism, migration, and negative perceptions of the “experienced Other [Kurds].” Unlike the work of Saracoglu, this research interrogates both sides of the interaction, namely Kurds and Turks.

I have utilized the previous research of Başer and Çelik (2014) which explores the description of the Kurdish question provided by young Kurds and questions how they imagine peace in Turkey. By centralizing the social and political agency of youth in society, they focus on the dominant frames regarding the Kurdish question that are produced through their own daily observations and experiences. The data are based on fieldwork research undertaken in 2010 in Diyarbakır with 55 Kurdish young people. Through this research, it becomes possible to gain detailed information about the perspectives of young Kurds on “peace” which they describe as; “absence of social exclusion,” “social and economic marginalization,” and as the “possibility to gain political and cultural rights.”

In addition to this qualitative research, there are quantitative studies that address Kurdish conflict frames and perceptions of lay people in Turkey (Uluğ and Cohrs, 2016). Within these studies, the importance of understanding the perspectives of lay people in order to understand conflict frames is emphasized as understanding the shared perceptions of lay people. Other research on intergroup contact (Uluğ and Cohrs, 2017a; Ulug et al., 2017) and conflict narratives (Uluğ and Cohrs, 2017b) contribute to the field with empirical data that make visible the interactions of two ethnic groups in Turkish society. I believe that the frames that quantitative work represent should be examined with the more detailed and open-ended perspective offered by qualitative methods.

The work of Uluğ and Cohrs (2016) is an example of quantitative research that primarily interrogates how lay people think and talk about the conflict and attempts to understand the shared frames on the Kurdish question through quantitative approaches. Four different conflict frames are revealed. The first frame, the “terrorism and foreign power frame,” is also termed the Turkish nationalistic conflict frame. It is mostly applied by ethnically Turk respondents and basically perceived the PKK and foreign powers as responsible for the Kurdish question which is defined as one of the strategies in the denial narratives. The second frame, the “class, economy, and democracy frame,” tends to explain the reason for the Kurdish question. This frame is mostly employed by the members of the Kemalist and secular groups of the society. Unlike the work of Uluğ and Cohr, in this research study, the economic frame that explains the Kurdish question through economic underdevelopment is found to be quite weak as a narrative theme for my research. Conversely, “cultural underdevelopment” was quite prominent. The third frame, “rights, freedom, and democracy” which is affected by the European Union and the democratization process of Turkey, is the most popular one among the young participants since it presents common understanding despite their distinct political stances.

Although previous research provides rather detailed information regarding the frames and narratives of lay people on Kurdish question from a quantitative perspective, its limitations prevent understanding of the accounts in their entirety. Conversely, the narrative inquiry method that is employed in this research makes it possible to understand the meaning of the entire account as well as all possible sub-meanings, divisions, and contradictions.

Analysis of the strategy of denial

Discussion of denial

Denial is the prominent attitude of the Turkish state towards Kurds and the Kurdish question. Most of the research on the Kurdish question presupposes this strategy as a macro-level political strategy employed by the state. However, we know very little about how lay people perceive and practice the denial narrative. Although the denial strategy of the state clearly functions as a means to avoid responsibility for the atrocities that have occurred, a deeper investigation is needed to explain the use of this denial by lay people.

According to Van Dijk (1992), denial is the “denial of racism,” which begins as denial of the perception of racism and as an appeal to that perception (pp.87–88). It most often appears in the writings and speeches of societal elites. Van Dijk analyzed the discursive strategies and social-cognitive functions of denial in different texts within their interpersonal and socio-political contexts. Dominant (i.e. white) groups resent being perceived as racist and therefore deny that racism is a negative category. In Turkey, the strategy of denial at state and individual levels is not necessarily related to racism or racist attitudes, nor is it utilized as a means to create a positive self-presentation. Instead, it functions as a major management strategy to control resistance and to control the political problems of this multi-ethnic society (Van Dijk, 1992: 97). Although the strategy of denial does not rest on a racist argument, it has produced and reproduced antagonistic language towards Kurds across the decades. In brief, denial does not function as an escape from the racist label; rather, it functions to demonstrate the nationalist, patriotic, and loyal character of Turkish citizens. Defining oneself as a Turkish nationalist is necessary for denial of the existence of the Kurdish question.

Cohen (2001) addresses the personal and political ways that individuals ignore uncomfortable realities, such as poverty, injustice, and human rights violations. In this context, denial is defined as a type of blindness to reality which is activated when the subject encounters uncomfortable topics. This analysis is a multidimensional and comprehensive explanation of the strategy of denial that defines “individual, personal, psychological, private or shared, social, collective, historical, official and organized” levels (2001: 9). His analysis of the denial of atrocities and suffering and the terminology he created for this concept provide the tools used in the discussion of the denial of the Kurdish question in the current study.

This detailed exploration by Cohen (2001) of denial addresses the denial of atrocities. Atrocities are a reasonable starting point for defining a denial strategy. According to Cohen, when atrocities occur, individuals, communities, societies, and states employ the strategy of denial with various goals and forms to avoid responsibility for the psychological burden of these incidents. However, the term “denial” has a broader meaning in the current study. In this context, denial is an official strategy which is initiated, structured, and sustained by administrative elites due to the resources of the nation state. It is also a rooted historical strategy and a comprehensive Turkish nationalistic narrative. According to Cohen, the sense of denial surrounding the Kurdish question is a political disavowal. Furthermore, political disavowals are not private states of mind. They are embedded in culture, banal language codes, and state-encouraged legitimations. “These culturally shared mind-sets that allow people to be the perpetrators or colluding bystanders do not constitute an explanation of the origins and aims of atrocities” (Cohen, 2001: 76).

It was the belief of the Turkish state that ignoring differences such as ethnicity, race, language, and religious sect was the only way to create a new nation as Turkish. According to Cohen, such denial is both official and literal. Literal denial is refusal to blatantly acknowledge the facts (2001: 7). In the current study, the statement, “there is no Kurd, there is no Kurdish, and there is no Kurdish question” is the main argument of literal denial. The objective of literal denial is to silence alternative narratives (White, 2010: 8).

The second type of denial is interpretive denial, in which “the raw facts are not being denied. Rather, they are given a different meaning from what seems apparent to others” (Cohen, 2001: 8). Here, the consequences of denial might be acknowledged, “but its legal and common-sense meanings are denied, contested or minimized by some strategies” (2001: 108). In the narratives from this study, interpretive denial was exemplified by statements, such as “The attacks that Kurds were exposed to western cities and towns are not lynch attempts, these are just isolated incidents.”

The final category is implicatory denial, which, “comes from some rather banal folk techniques for avoiding moral or psychological demands, such as justification, rationalization, evasion and so forth” (Cohen, 2001: 9). In both official and personal accounts, “There is not [a] Kurdish question in Turkey, there is a terror problem” is the most popular example of implicatory denial. I propose that these types of denial work together in the everyday practices and conversations of individuals. It is difficult to differentiate the implicatory from the interpretive type of denial. However, even in state denials, literal denial is not the only type employed. Occasionally, states develop a balance among the three types of denial to enhance their public and international legitimacy.

The place of denial in personal narratives

As has been stated previously, the data used in this study are from a larger project designed to understand the perspectives of lay people on ethnic conflict between Kurds and Turks, how they define the “self” and “other” in encounters, and how they define their relationship with the ethnic other in an excessively nationalistic political atmosphere. The answer to the main question of this study (How do Turkish and Kurdish individuals perceive and narrate this ethnic conflict?) is evident because denial is the main narrative strategy that frames the personal accounts of Turks regarding Kurds. While formulating their individual responses to the Kurdish question, Turkish respondents mounted their collective identity as strong and superior, whereas Kurdish respondents spoke from a self-defensive stance, employing a narrative that endeavors to prove that which is denied: this determinant narrative mechanism operated in the stories of Kurdish individual stories, too when they adopted an intensely explanatory and persuasive tone during their interviews.

Denial is not merely the content that respondents borrowed from the official discourse. It is a tool for shaping the content and form of the personal narrative. Kurdish and Turkish respondents specifically applied the strategy of denial when they first introduced their accounts. During the telling of their narratives, they revisited this strategy, but, usually it emerged when they appeared to feel challenged about the ideas, people or atrocities they had denied. When they situated their experiential knowledge, they recognized that they were actually contradicting the strategy of denial that they had highlighted and therefore they tended to end the account by rephrasing the arguments of denial. In other words, denial functioned as both the opening and the epilogue of each personal account.

Predictably, the official ideology disseminated through the educational system and mainstream media has great power, and it significantly influences the ways that ethnic identities were constructed and narrated. However, when the respondent was speaking personally, personal encounters and experiences provided the potential for different ways to describe the Kurdish question. The interactions between Turks and Kurds in big cities in the western part of the country during the 1990s challenged the idea that there is no Kurd or Kurdish question in Turkey, because their (Kurds’) presence made it impossible to make this to claim. To practice their ethnic identities, they were forced to refer to their personal experiences and to the actual people that they encountered. Since then the narratives regarding the Kurdish question have been built through actual encounters and relations, and this question can no longer be dismissed as an armed conflict between the Turkish army and the PKK.

I propose that this is the reason that the interviews tended to consist of two distinct parts: political speeches and political stories. Although the interview structure was not designed that way, these two distinct themes formed the structure of the accounts during the pilot process. The political speeches were relatively vague political statements based on media reports on the Kurdish question, and the political stories were everyday experiences of the respondents. The summaries of the ethnic conflict made the first part of each interview more superficial than the second part, which tended to include detailed opinions. Broad political speeches were tools used to frame the issue by specifying the political ideas of the individual with the dominant political clichés, slogans, and common sense references. In particular, the first part of each interview was devoted to general political talk in everyday conversation, which then framed the “Question” within the boundaries of denial.

Generally, the Turkish respondents employed denial as a narrative strategy. Because of the assimilationist policies conducted since the establishment of the Republic, some Kurds also employed a strategy of denial without hesitation and some of the Kurdish respondents presented relatively stronger types of denial in presentation of content and language. However, most Kurdish respondents were aware of the denial strategy and gave personal accounts opposing it. They refuted arguments of denial by pointing to the historical roots of the Kurds and the origin of Kurdish as a language. Using these examples, they apparently wanted to demonstrate that “Kurd is a separate ethnic identity,” “Kurdish is a distinct and original language,” and “there is a Kurdish question in Turkey.” In their personal accounts, they disputed the main arguments of denial. Thus, the accounts of the Turkish respondents took the position of the Turkish founders while Kurds gave its counter-narratives, which form a dialogue when read together. In short, when lay people talk about the Kurdish question, two main arguments determine the political position of the individual:

Contextualization of the Kurdish question in the frame of denial of Kurds and the question

Recognition of Kurdish ethnicity and the Kurdish question

Arguments and forms of denial

Literal denial

There is no Kurd and Kurdish! How can there be a Kurdish question?

A literal denial of Kurds as an ethnic group and Kurdish as a genuine language appears to be an exceptional and weak argument in the personal accounts. It is ironic that the only respondent who denied the existence of Kurds and Kurdish was a Kurd. Denial of Kurdish and Kurd identity by a Kurd could be interpreted in two ways: as accomplishment of assimilation policies or as a self-protection strategy:

I don’t want to say something wrong. I support their endeavours to gain their educational rights, but I do not think they [Kurds] even have a proper alphabet yet. Yes, maybe, there is a language called Kurdish, but it is so disconnected … When you transform the language into written form, there appears funny things. They use the letter ‘X’ to voice the ‘H’. When you say ‘X’, does it sound like ‘H’? [laughing] I really wonder. When one is speaking, it does not sound like that. Of course, I am not sure, but I believe that it is a kind of fake language. (Umut, Turkish, male, 28)

Conversely, Turkish respondents tended to categorize the Kurds in two groups: good (innocent) and bad (separatist/betrayer). Denial as a narrative strategy is practiced within interaction forms with good Kurds as well. When a Turk continues to practice denial of the Kurdish question through the interactions with a “good Kurd,” this argument is not criticized by that Kurd. That is why they are identified as “good Kurds”; because they do not take issue with denial of Kurdish question. It is important to emphasize that these interactions between Kurd and Turks are held in the context of quite unequal social positions in the big western cities of Turkey. These reactions that lay Kurds present in daily life should be read as the strategies that serve to maintain their well-being and legitimate their position in the society.

The term “bad Kurds” referred to a group of Kurds that supports the PKK and intend to divide the country. This reasoning reaches a point of denial of the Kurdishness of “bad Kurds” and claims that they are in reality “hidden Armenians.” It was suggested that genuine Kurds would not dare to divide the country; only “hidden Armenians,” who conceal their true ethnicity and pretend to be Kurds, hide their bad intentions. The nationalist narrative within flexible boundaries is transformed refer to various “others,” as the following example suggests:

The Kurds in the PKK are not Kurdish, I think. They are neither Kurdish nor Muslim. They are of Armenian origin and came after, I mean, in the course of the war of Independence. You know, Armenians came to this side in the course of the war and pretended to be Kurds and then they settled here. I mean they are Kurds of Armenian origin. That is my idea. (Gulsum, Turkish, female, 49)

Protecting the Kurds from this accusation, and targeting a different “other” in the Turkish nationalist narrative, is an interpretive form of denial. Denial of the Kurdish question is a vivid component of Kurds’ collective memory. It is observed that Kurds introduced their accounts with arguments that contradicted denial and highlighted the existence of Kurd ethnicity and the Kurdish language. Acknowledging the ethnic, language, social, economic, and other aspects of the Kurdish question were apparently a prerequisite to talk about the question:

I don’t need to mention the Turks because they do not believe in the existence of a nation called Kurdistan. All they do is deny us. So, how can it be possible to give rights to an unrecognized group? So many people believe that I fabricated the language I speak. Let’s say I fabricated it! Do 25 million Kurdish-speaking people speak in ‘eggy peggy’? (Nazim, Kurdish, male, 36)

The strategy of denial is presented at the beginning and end of the Turkish respondent accounts, while Kurdish respondents initiate their accounts with this strategy and maintain it throughout. In order to defend the Kurdish language, they argued that Kurds existed in Anatolia before the Turks. Official discourse has repeatedly stated, “there is no Kurd” for decades; however, lay Kurds asserted the opposite and produced counter-narratives to challenge the meta-narrative about their existence. To do this, they employed the same arguments as do the Turks, but reversed the subjects in the maxim as “Turks are not the owners of this land, but we are.”

Interpretive and implicatory denials: “This is not a Kurdish question! It is …”

In the personal accounts, denial, as a narrative strategy, is situated in and produced by two main arguments which are composed of sub-arguments. The common statement in the accounts is “There is no reason for conflict between Kurds and Turks.” The first argument and its sub-arguments were constructed and reproduced over a 70-year period as the outcome of the literal denial policies employed by the state. An explanation offered by one Turkish respondent is typical of all Turkish respondents:

When we were young, there was no mention of the Kurdish issue or the Kurdish identity on television. Why did it emerge so suddenly? I mean, why is it mentioned in all of the news and discussion programs? Someone wants to create this problem, for no reason at all. (Gulsum, Turkish, female, 49)

In these accounts, part of the argument that emerges is: “there is no reason for conflict; someone has created this.” Here we see that a responsible figure and an “invisible hand” are defined as the cause. This perception of the Kurdish question alienates the issue within individual minds and instead diverts attention to external targets. While Turkish respondents recognized the conflict between the state and the PKK, they refused to acknowledge the existence of a conflict between lay Kurds and Turks. Specifically, the Turkish respondents tended to understand the Kurdish question as an armed conflict between the PKK and the state, outside the reality of lay Kurds and Turks. This narrative strategy underscores the gap between two topics: “denial of the Kurdish question” and “denial of conflict between lay Turks and Kurds.”

The most common expression of denial in the narratives was: “I as well have some Kurdish friends and we do not have any problem at all.” This statement is a way to demonstrate the lack of conflict between lay people. A lack of negative experiences in daily encounters compelled the Turkish respondents to use a strategy of denial based on a simplistic perception of accepting the issue as a political question. This categorical perception is based on the belief in a private sphere that is free of politics and completely separate from the effects of the public sphere.

The meta-narrative of Turkish nationalism is easily linked to conspiracy theories. When respondents sought someone to blame, they often identified external enemies. In addition to the potential of internal threats, the paranoia of unity was employed to produce conspiracy theories about “external enemies” who have maintained separatist intentions since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.⁸ This narrative has always existed and it has had an irreplaceable role in state and the public discourses since the late Ottoman era. Blaming the United States, Israel, and other imperialist countries for the internal problems of Turkey was a common theme in the political accounts of most of the respondents. Under the influence of this belief system, seeking an external party to be responsible for the Kurdish issues emerges alongside denial as an articulated strategy. This paranoia triggers a sense that one needs to be ready to respond to attacks, whether internal or external, that threaten the unity of the country:

The Ottoman Empire collapsed because of our external enemies; but, the new strategy when attacking a country is not like it was in times past. Now, those big countries provoke the minorities in the country to break up the Empire. There are hundreds of secret agents of the United States and Israel in Turkey, even today. It is obvious that they want to provoke someone to damage the unity of this country. (Mehmet, male, Turkish, 32)

The statement: “there is not [a] Kurdish question, this is a terror problem”⁹ has gained support in the speeches of governmental officials and has been widely repeated in the speeches of other nationalist political leaders. Using this statement makes it possible to transform the Kurdish question into one of terrorism, the people who support the Kurdish movement into terrorists, and to label their cultural and political demands as illegitimate. Specifically, by defining and understanding the Kurdish question, the PKK, and its sympathizers as terrorism, the public completely ignores ordinary aspects of the Kurdish question.

Counter-narratives of the Kurdish and Turkish respondents were based mainly on criticisms of the suppression of knowledge regarding executions that took place during the 1990s. Awareness of the violent policies of the state during the 1990s has made it possible to develop empathy with the Kurdish citizens. In these counter-narratives, state policies, instead of lay Kurds, are held responsible for the emergence of the Kurdish question. As described below, this argument is easily articulated within the strategy of denial:

Our state is not as pure as the driv[en] snow, you know. They tortured the people living there [in the eastern part of Turkey]. These people were tortured and exiled, forced to emigrate. They separated the boy from the dad, the girl from the mum. They made them unemployed. What could these people do? They went up into the mountains as a final remedy. You know about the brutality in Diyarbakir Jail in the period of the coup. A lot of people were hanged for nothing. They hanged 17 to 18-year-old boys, and they did this to stop the bloodshed, allegedly. They just created hostility and anger; and the result was a new generation that has been brought up in this atmosphere. They have grown up as enemies of the Turkish state. (Adil, Turkish, male, 51)

The counter-narratives of the Turkish respondents generally suggest, “Kurds were maltreated in the history because of the wrong policies of the governments of the time. As the policies have changed, there is not a reason for a question.” In these counter-narratives, policies of assimilation and oppression were acknowledged, but believed to be in the past. According to the respondents: “There was a question, but there is not one today!”

Functions of the strategy of denial in the accounts

White argued, “Denials operate to re-frame the public memory of experiences, to disempower accounts, delegitimize depictions, and to avoid the possible moral censures” (2010: 15). In the personal accounts, employing arguments of denial partially functioned in this manner. Some common arguments were employed in the accounts. First, it is important to point out that denying the Kurdish question provides a safe and secure political position which is necessary for state identification as an approved citizen. Recognizing the Kurdish question and building a narrative account based on this recognition required the respondents to take some risks even in their everyday conversations with lay people. The Kurdish respondents apparently were quite aware of the personal advantages of the denial strategy which was the most evident function of their use of it as lay individuals, although it also served other functions. During the fieldwork process, I also had the opportunity to observe how the strategy of denial operates within these relations. For example, when we had an interview with Sahin a Kurdish male of 50 years, in his home, some of his neighbors dropped in for coffee. While talking about the Kurdish movement, Sahin underlined its legitimacy, referencing his own observations and personal experiences. When his neighbors, who were Turkish, joined the discussion, they quickly dominated the tone of the interview, and after their arrival Sahin completely transformed his language, stressing how Kurdish people pushed the limits by making inappropriate demands. After they left, Sahin said to me:

Can you see the pressure on us? I like these people, but if I do not behave like this we cannot maintain friendships with these people. I have to do it. I have to hide my real political beliefs. Anyway, it is not so important for me. Politics is not as important as my neighbors. (Sahin, Kurdish, male, 50)

Denial also functioned as a barrier that prevented negotiation between the two groups. Despite the negative, humiliating, accusatory, and exclusionary accounts of their personal encounters with Kurds, the Turkish respondents during the interviews tended to deny that they experienced problems communicating with Kurds. Any problematic encounters with Kurds were, according to them, unrelated to the Kurdish question. Rather, Turkish respondents narrated their interactions with Kurds using denials of the influence of negative and exclusionary perceptions of Kurds that had been created during the 30-year history of the conflict. Ironically, they continued to accuse and humiliate Kurds based on the supposed ignorance, poverty, and cultural practices of that group.

The Turkish respondents mostly identified the Kurds with whom they personally interacted as “good Kurds” and those with whom they had no contact as “bad Kurds.” Therefore, they could define themselves as well-intentioned people without prejudices, and in their narratives they referred to their conflicts with Kurds as sporadic cases unrelated to the settled narrative about Kurds as separatists, terrorists, and barbarians. However, defining their problematic experiences as sporadic cases did not prevent them from making prejudicial generalizations. Thus, a paradoxical narrative emerged in which the Kurdish question was denied and “bad Kurds” were presented as responsible for the emergence of the Kurdish question. It is reasonable that the narrative of denial serves to rationalize all of the Turkish respondents’ negative perceptions of Kurds in a paradoxical and ambiguous way.

In the accounts of both Kurds and Turks, the strategy of denial served a controlling function to prevent a potential internal war. Specifically, acceptance of the reality of the Kurdish question could be an act of provocation that might lead to uncontrollable conflict. However, the narratives of denial of Turks and Kurds operated to reflect an attitude of tolerance that makes peaceful coexistence possible in Turkey, as stated by Nazım and Mehmet in their accounts:

There is no Kurdish question between the two groups in everyday life, but if there were, they [Turks] would not live in such a peaceful environment. (Nazim, Kurdish, male, 36)

If there was [acknowledgement of the Kurdish question], I would never accept the Kurdish soldiers in my shop. I would never serve them in this shop. If we [Turks] had problems with them, they would not live as safely as they do now. We would behave like them and kill Kurds living here, in Istanbul and Izmir. (Mehmet, Turkish, male, 32)

Conclusion

Denial, as the most evident approach in addressing the Kurdish question, should be referred to as a state strategy. However, it manifests itself as the fundamental narrative strategy of lay people as well. While the state utilizes this strategy as a unifying, integrative, supervisory apparatus that makes diversity invisible, Turkish and Kurdish lay people use it in different parts of their individual narratives for different purposes and with different arguments. Looking at the personal accounts of lay people might provide us with a way to grasp the appearance of the Question at the micro level.

Denial is not practiced to avoid being perceived as racist in Turkey nor is it driven by individual socio-psychological processes. In reality, it is a meta-narrative produced and disseminated by the state. In their personal accounts, lay people employ this tool that the state has perpetuated for decades. Respondents used the prepared maxims of denial and built their accounts on that foundation. Denial is a narrative strategy that was generally employed by the Turkish respondents, but the Kurds also used denial in their accounts. Some of the Kurdish respondents employed the strategy of denial exactly as the Turkish respondents employed it. However, instead of utilizing the apparatuses of the denial narrative, Kurds usually provided personal accounts against it: they were aware of the arguments, forms, and stories of denial, and they produced accounts contrary to it. In brief, while the Turkish respondents mostly “spoke within the strategy of denial,” the Kurds “spoke against” this strategy.

In this context, denial does not refer to the denial of the existence of Kurdishness and Kurdish among lay people. The current form of denial acknowledges the ethnic aspect of the Kurdish question, but it does not recognize the existence of a question. For lay people, the existence of Kurds as an ethnic group and the existence of a Kurdish question are acknowledged. It is the existence of conflict between lay Kurds and Turks in daily life that is being denied. Even during the height of the conflict, when the only thing about which lay people were sure was that there was a question, they still declared that no problems existed between lay Kurds and Turks. While neither lay Kurds nor Turks originally produced this narrative strategy, it is unreasonable to expect that its use would end through their individual efforts. Only a radical policy transformation by the state could undermine the foundations of denial.

Highly critical developments have occurred since completion of the original fieldwork: by 2015, the Kurdish democratic opening had ended. Following the 7 June 2015 election, the moderate atmosphere has disintegrated and the situation emerged where the Kurdish question has again been framed as a terror question/issue. Therefore, there is a need for reconsideration of the process after 2015 that the fieldwork data from 2011 are lacking.

As noted previously, this study is one component based on a larger research project. Because this study is focused on the ways the Kurdish question is established in the narratives of the lay people, it has excluded other narratives. These include encounters in daily life, the ways that the images of “self” and “other” are built, individual experiences, and levels of relationships such as friendship, marriage, and neighborhood and are worthy of further study.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful and constructive comments and Aslı Gülsüm Açan for her support in the writing process.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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