Turkey’s ‘War and Peace’: The KurdishQuestion and the MediaSavas Coban

The Kurdish problem has been one of the most important and enduring problems facedby Turkey. The Kurds and the Kurdish issue have been kept out of sight, but theproblem has grown with the application of negative methods such as violence, and thusit has gained international importance. One state, one language, one ideology, oneculture, as in the form of state ideology, are the sources of the problem caused by theinevitable modern global migration and changes in the population. The solution to thisproblem is still under the historical mortgage because of these elements. The TurkishGovernment has never aimed at a multicultural structure and has always said openlythat such a structure would never agree with the nation-state model. Media should notbe a medium for promotion of a particular ideology, but should be there to provideinformation. This may not happen in the near future but the choice of multiculturalismmay become a social option.

Keywords: Multiculturalism; Kurdish Question; Media; Assimilation; Minorities;Nation-state

There are many minority groups living in Turkey today, and the country has beenhome to many cultures and nations throughout history. Among these minorities, agreat many have been made, or have become, Turkish as a result of culturalassimilation. They have stopped using their own mother tongue and started usingTurkish as the official language. One major reason for this, is the repressive languagepolicies. Languages of minorities that were not accepted officially as minority groupswere prohibited — this damaging policy was in use until recently and the effects ofthis repression (or the operations of the repressive mentality) still continue.During the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the Treaty of Lausanne was seen

as the most important international agreement. In the agreement there were civil andpolitical rights that were not granted to minorities as, under this agreement, they werenot recognised as being minority groups. In this respect, the provisions of Lausanne

Critique, 2013Vol. 41, No. 3, 445–457, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2013.851936

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are not adequate in terms of social life and international agreement policies. The 39thProvision of the Treaty of Lausanne is as follows:

Turkish nationals belonging to non-Moslem minorities will enjoy the same civiland political rights as Moslems.

All the inhabitants of Turkey, without distinction of religion, shall be equal beforethe law.

Differences of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Turkish nationalin matters relating to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, as, for instance,admission to public employments, functions and honours, or the exercise ofprofessions and industries.

No restrictions shall be imposed on the free use by any Turkish national of anylanguage in private intercourse, in commerce, religion, in the press, or inpublications of any kind or at public meetings.

Notwithstanding the existence of the official language, adequate facilities shall begiven to Turkish nationals of non-Turkish speech for the oral use of their ownlanguage before the Courts.

After signing this treaty, the minority issue was shelved. ‘It is important to notethat Turkish Authorities insisted on applying the rights only to the Armenian, Greekand Jewish minorities as they were the accepted ones in the Treaty of Lausanne’.1 Theother, non-Moslem, minorities did not derive benefit from any of the rights whichwere given to these three groups. As such, after the treaty, no cultural or linguisticrights were granted to the non-Moslem minorities — this policy has been appliedextensively, for many years, without any change constitutionally.The Turkish nation-state considered all Moslem minorities as Turkish, and put

into practice policies aimed at assimilating them.

It appears that Kemalism in the 1920s and the 1930s offered three definitions of theTurkish nation. The first of them was territorial, an idea embodied in the TurkishConstitution of 1924, which registered all inhabitants of Turkey as Turks. This actpromised to accommodate the Kurds, the Armenians, and all others as equalcitizens of the Republic. The second definition, less inclusive than the first, wasreligious. As a legacy of the millet system, the Kemalists saw all Muslims in Turkeyas Turks. This was best demonstrated by the overall tone of the Kemalistimmigration regime that facilitated the immigration of Ottoman Muslims in theBalkans. This definition had an internal conflict: although all Turks were Muslims,not all Muslims were Turkish-speaking.

The third, and least inclusive, definition was ethno-religious. First, Kemalists sawonly ethnic Turks, determined by their mother tongue, as Turkish. Second, theyused religion to classify the non-Turks into two hierarchical categories as Muslimsand non-Muslims. They favored the former over the latter. Ethnic Turks were not asolid majority in Turkey. If the Kurds and the other Muslims assimilated, theycould enhance the Turkish population. For this reason, helped by the legacy of themillet system, the Kemalists were willing to accept the Kurds as Turks if they

1 Kemal Kirişçi and Gareth M. Winrow, Kürt Sorunu (Istanbul: Tarih VakfI Yurt Yayinlari, 1997), p. 48.

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adopted the Turkish language, albeit without forgetting that they were not in realityethnically Turkish. Accordingly, Kemalists carefully screened them to prevent theirnumber from increasing and their national identity from blossoming. Paradoxic-ally, such moves may have strengthened the Kurds’ national identity.2

The ‘one language, one nation’ policy was considered the most effective tool forpromoting such solidarity among people of different ethnic backgrounds andadvancing their assimilation into a Turkish national identity.

The Turkish Republic with its strong centralized state tradition had from itsfoundation the means to disseminate a unified identity. On the historiographicallevel this has been expressed by the Turkish Historical Thesis and the SunLanguage Theory, according to which the Turkish language is the source for allexisting languages in the world.3

Turkey has no constitutional arrangement concerning minorities. There are nosections concerning minorities in the 1921, 1924, 1961 and 1981 constitutionalcharters. Turkey’s domestic policy concerning international conventions aims to giverights only to those minorities which are non-Moslem. As shown in the example of‘The Framework Contract about the Protection of National Minorities’, if the contractespecially concerns the rights of minorities, then the policy is not to sign it.

The authorities in Ankara put forward persistently that the policy concerning theminorities is based on the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne. So, there are nonational or ethnic minorities only religious minorities in Turkey, according to them.

The leading anxiety of the Turkish authorities is to protect the unity and unitarysystem of the state and the nation. It seems there is a common belief in officialareas that when an accepted ethnic or national minority receives any certain rights,it is inevitable that this will lead to the rights of nations to self-determination ordemanding separation eventually.4

The nations which were not accepted officially as minorities in the Treaty of Lausannedid not have the right to teach or learn their own language until recently, so they couldnot transfer their mother tongue into writing. Those, especially at education age, speakingtwo languages still have difficulty reading and writing in their mother tongue. For thisreason, some municipalities in Kurdish-inhabited cities have started to make items likebills and street signs bilingual, so that people can learn to read and write their mothertongue — but Kurdish citizens who want to receive their education in their mothertongue are accused of being dividers and demanding separation. In contrast to the Treatyof Lausanne, many international treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of theChild and minorities, mention the educational rights of children in their mother tongue.Turkey is, historically, rooted in a pluralist social, cultural and historical structure.

The two most important sources of pluralism were the commonwealth of the

2 Soner Cagaptay, ‘Passage to Turkishness: Immigration and Religion in Modern Turkey’ in Haldun Gulalp(ed.) Citizenship and Ethnic Conflict Challenging the Nation-state (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 77.

3 K. Hirschler, ‘Defining the Kurdish Historiography in Turkey in the 1990s’, Middle Eastern Studies, 37:3(2001), pp. 145–166 at p. 147.

4 Kirişçi and Winrow, op. cit., p. 48.

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Ottoman Empire and the multicultural system of Anatolia. The Turkish Republic,however, has disregarded difference from the day it was established and has aimed,instead, to lessen the social and cultural traces and effects that result from differences —as opposed to the religiously, linguistically and ethnically pluralist political structuresthat came from the Ottoman Empire and Anatolia.During the first few years of the Republic, in the 1921 constitutional charter, ‘being

from Turkey’ was emphasised as the primary identity — but in later years, throughthe construction of the nation-state, the minority problem began with the applicationof ‘one nation, one language’ and with the emphasis on ‘being Turkish’. The processhas come to a point now, however, where there is a wish, among some, to be inaccordance with the EU and the modern world, where there is a need to changerapidly as multiculturalism and multilingualism in Europe and America have becomeassociated with the idea of prosperity. Even so, those municipalities in Turkey whichhave tried to start bilingual applications are yet to encounter any reward legally. Infact, they often meet with severe criticism and even attempts to take them to court inorder to stop their work. Many arguments take place concerning this matter — butboth the party in power and the opposition party still see multilingualism as aseparation or an end to the country.The insular and nationalistic construction of the Turkish state, in the 1930s, has

limited the ability of contemporary politicians to respond to the present-daychallenges posed by Kurdish activities, except through the use of force. However,the military approach, as we have seen, does not provide any long-term solutions.Experiences around the Kurdish uprisings during the founding of the Republic, andmore recently in the 1980s and 1990s, have shown that this problem cannot be solvedwith violence. Coercive measures, such as collective detentions, can easily be seen assteps towards deadlock rather than steps towards a solution.

The Kurdish

The Kurdish are a large national group, of around 20 million, living in themountainous region of Kurdistan, in the heart of the Middle East. Mehrdad Izadydescribes the region:

Kurdistan, or the land of the Kurds, is a strategic area located in the geographicheart of the Middle East. Today it comprises important parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq,Syria, and Azerbaijan. Since it was, and still is, denied independence, most scholarsdescribe Kurdistan as the area in which Kurds constitute an ethnic majority.Kurdistan was first divided in 1514 between the Ottoman and Persian empires.Four centuries later, Britain and France further altered the political contours ofKurdistan by dividing the Ottoman Kurdistan into three main parts. IranianKurdistan stayed where it was. The area thus partitioned consisted of about 190,000square miles divided as follows: Turkey (43 percent), Iran (31 percent), Iraq (18percent), Syria (6 percent), and the former Soviet Union (2 percent).5

5 Mehrdad Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook (Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis, 1992), p. 3.

448 S. Coban

The Kurdish question is a central problem for Turkey. Throughout the OttomanEmpire, the Turkish Republic and to the modern day, it has been one of the mostimportant issues and poses an ever greater problem over time. Discussions aroundthe issue have been going on for years, and a low-intensity war has been waged foryears, but a serious approach to the problem has yet to be taken. It is now the mostcrucial question facing Turkey, at home and abroad.

Evolution of the conflict (at armed level and at general level) has taken place inmultiple directions and dimensions up to present time. The amelioration in thesituation of Kurds in Turkey is highlighted by local and international observers.Legal or de facto changes have taken place in Turkey reducing discrimination andopen violence (e.g. lifting of the state of emergency; reduction in human rightsviolations, such as torture; lifting of some restrictions on linguistic rights;establishment of a state TV channel with 24 hours in Kurdish). However, manyrestrictions for the development and implementation of the Kurdish identity andtheir well-being (e.g. restrictions in linguistic rights, including prohibition of publiceducation in mother tongue and access to health services in Kurdish; socio-economic inequalities; difficulties for political engagement at formal level, includingdifficulties linked to the electoral threshold and the legal provisions for dissolutionof political parties; restrictions to media in Kurdish) as well as the continuation ofdirect violence implies that the Kurdish question remains as a main challenge forTurkey to address.6

However, approaches to the Kurds, it is important to note, were quite differentbefore the republic was established:

In his first speech to the newly gathered parliament in April 1920, Mustafa Kemalargued that the parliament was not composed of the representative of Turks, Kurds,Circassians and the Laz, but rather the representatives of a strongly unified IslamicCommunity. Kemal had even envisaged, according to some accounts of hisspeeches and conversations with journalists, that where Kurds were in a majoritythey would govern themselves autonomously. Kemal and his rebellious forces,facing shortages of men and material, could not afford to alienate the Kurds: Theyneeded Kurdish cooperation to carry out the war against the foreign invaders. TheKurds claim that they gave their support on the understanding that a commonMuslim cause existed against Western interventionists, and that a future Turkish–Kurdish common multiethnic state would emerge. Still, some Kurds did revoltagainst Kemal: Among those revolts, that of the Kocgiri in 1920 was the mostsignificant, as it forced Kemal to divert troops from the main theater of war to dealwith what could potentially have led to a serious division within Turkish/Kurdishranks.7

Since the early years of the republic, however, the Kurds have been disregarded andattempts have been made to prove that they are actually Turkish — ‘In 1936, theGovernor of Tunceli (Dersim) General Abdullah Alpdoğan claimed that the Kurds

6 Ana Villellas, Turkey and the Kurdish Question: Reflecting on Peacebuilding (Escola de Cultura de Pau(School for a Culture of Peace), Barcelona: Agencia Catalana de Cooperacio al Desenvolupament, 2011), p. 6.

7 Henri J. Barkey and Graham E. Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998),p. 9.

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were actually “mountain Turks”. He was criticising why these people were calledKurds and why they were acting as if they had been a different race.’8

Use of the term Kurdistan, and Kurd, to describe the region and people began inthe 20th century — the word Kurd deriving from the sound, ‘kart, kurt’, of takingsteps in the snow. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk used the word Kurdistan for the regionuntil he founded the Turkish Republic. However, it is considered a crime now to say‘Kurdistan’ in Turkey — it is seen as having connotations of separatism.

Presentation and Perception Internationally

The Kurdish situation was explained, in the 1950s, to the then British ForeignSecretary, Anthony Eden, in the following way:

The government has tried to assimilate the Kurdish people for years, oppressingthem, banning publications in Kurdish, persecuting those who speak Kurdish,forcibly deporting people from fertile parts of Kurdistan for uncultivated areas ofAnatolia where many have perished. The prisons are full of non-combatants,intellectuals are shot, hanged or exiled to remote places. Three million Kurds,demand to live in freedom and peace in their own country.9

The Kurdish issue has long been of importance, and has been followed, in theinternational arena. It is important to look to the three, recently unclassified, CIAreports on the Kurdish question: Kurdish Minority Problem, 1948; Kurdish Problemin Perspective, 1979; and The Kurds, Rising Expectations, Old Frustrations 1991.10

In the 1948 report, which was dominated by concerns with the issue in relation tothe Soviet Union, it was stated that the Kurds faced great difficulties in their ability tobuild a state and that the cause of this was the internal disagreements and conflicts ofinterests of the tribal constitution. The report also looks into the general features andconstitution of the Kurdish people. It investigates and evaluates the Republic ofTurkey’s efforts to assimilate the Kurds:

Since 1937 the Turkish Government has kept a strict watch over the Kurdish areasand, while doing so, has worked assiduously to assimilate the Kurds. Turkish policyis based on the concept that ‘there is no Kurdish problem, and there are no Kurds.’In official usage, the Kurds are ‘mountain Turks’ who theoretically possess all theprivileges which are the constitutional birthright of every Turkish national. Theteaching of Kurdish is prohibited, and primary schools are being set up in whichKurdish children are taught to speak Turkish. Roads and railroads have beenconstructed in Kurdish areas, not only to facilitate administration and militarycontrol, but in an honest effort to raise the Kurdish standard of living; the majorrailroad construction currently in progress in Turkey is on a line which willeventually run through the heart of Turkish ‘Kurdistan,’ from Elazig eastward toQutur in Iran, by way of Muş and Lake Van. Kurds who resist assimilation have

8 Kırişçi and Winrow, op. cit., p. 108.9 David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), p. 208.10 CIA. Kurdish Minority Problem (US Government Printing Office, 1948); CIA, The Kurdish Problem in

Perspective (National Foreign Assesment Center, 1979); CIA, The Kurds, Rising Expectations, Old Frustrations(National Intelligence Estimate, 1991).

450 S. Coban

been transported to the western, non-Kurdish provinces and resettled, a few at atime, in widely scattered villages. At the same time, Turks from western Anatolia,and more particularly immigrant Moslem Turks, are encouraged to settle in‘Kurdish’ territory.11

These assimilation policies, aiming at strengthening the construction of the nation-state, did meet with successes in subsuming the cultures of various minorities.However, the Kurdish people persisted in their efforts to preserve a national identity.In the second report, of 1979, it was again stated that tribal constitution and

competing political groups were the biggest barrier to Kurdish national unity. Whenall the regions (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey) were analysed in turn, an interestingobservation was made about the Northern Kurdistan region in the south-east part ofTurkey. It was stated, although kept secret, that ‘the ruling power in Ankara maypermit freedom of expression in broader sense rather than giving them politicalautonomy’.The report also looks into the relation between revolutionary organisations and

Kurds:

In the past several years, several overt ‘cultural associations’ and covert liberationgroups have formed to promote the idea of Kurdish autonomy and independence.The appearence of these groups broadly parallels the growth of Turkish radicalleftist student groups that appeared in the late 1960s. These radicals often includeddemands for greater Kurdish autonomy in their programs, and until the Kurdsbegan to form their own associations, Kurds were prominent in these organizations.Mahir Cayan, the most prominent martyr of the Turkish left after he was killed bygovernment forces in 1972, was a Kurd. Because avowedly Kurdish organizationsare still illegal, the overt radical groups feature nonethnic names such as theRevolutionary Democratic Cultural Association and Revolutionary People’s Lib-eration Association. They insist that they are interested mainly in social progressand Turkish recognition of long-denied Kurdish cultural rights.12

The report suffers from innaccuracies here, however — Mahir Cayan, for instance,was not a Kurd but from the Black Sea region, and the report also omits mention ofthose organisations interested not only in social progress but also in a free, socialistKurdistan.The 1991 report, though in some parts still censored, explains and assesses in detail

the political situation of the Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The partsconcerning US interests stand out especially:

The growing Kurdish insurgency in Turkey will place greater strains on the US–Turkish partnership, especially if Ankara escalates its military campaign against theKurdistan Workers’ Party or cracks down even harder on the Kurdish insurgents inthe southeast and expects US support in these efforts.13

11 CIA, Kurdish Minority Problem, op. cit., p. 12.12 CIA, The Kurdish Problem in Perspective, op. cit., pp. 20, 21.13 CIA, The Kurds, Rising Expectations, Old Frustrations, op. cit., p. 59.

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American intelligence states that building a united and independent Kurdish stateis difficult but possible. In this respect, they are correct:

If a serious Pan-Kurdish independence movement develops — which we deemunlikely — the west may be pressed to change its longstanding policy and facilitatethe peaceful emergence of a new ethnic state, while trying to preserve its strategicinterests in the existing states.14

The attention that is given to the Kurdish problem in these reports by the CIA, andin other international studies, reveals the importance that is placed on the Kurdswithin the region. The geographical position and the value of the undergroundresources in Kurdistan is one indicator as to why the region is considered to be soimportant. That they are such a large and concentrated population without anyunifying state, along with historical relationships with the Western world, is also ofimportance.

Presentation and Perception in the Turkish Media

Perceptions of the Kurdish have changed and adapted over time, shaped, in a largepart, by media presentation and representation. There is a political and ideologicallanguage surrounding debates and discussions on the Kurdish issue that the publichave acquired through the media and through education. The Turkish public aredivided over the issue, as we can see in the report Public Perception of the KurdishQuestion:

The survey’s results indicate that society seems to be divided into two as far aspolitical representation, claims and hidden intentions of Kurds are concerned,which is a dramatic mix-up of perception and reality. Social or collective politicalperceptions work differently than those perceptions based on daily experience. Thisdifference might prove to be an opportunity if managed effectively; otherwise, it canresult in serious problems. Such a reality denotes the responsibilities of publicopinion makers and political actors in dealing with these socially significantissues.15

The report is based on a Turkey-wide survey (see figures 1 and 2). It shows us thatthe media plays an important role in Turkey and has strong influence on daily life.The research shows that the media is considered by the people of Turkey to play animportant role in resolving the Kurdish problem — but the media has also played alarge part in shaping these opinions of the relative importance of these differentinstitutions in the settlement.Those journalists in the media who are the voice of the war (of course, local

journalists whose articles are shaped by editors should be excepted from this), havemade great efforts to polarise public opinion on the question, creating a gulf betweenthe two sides. The Kurdish issue has been presented in many different ways, which

14 Ibid., p. 5.15 Taha Özhan, Ibrahim Dalmış, Hatem Efe et al., Public Perception of the Kurdish Question (Istanbul: Seta

and Pollmark, 2009), p. 61.

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have compounded the quite different public understandings and opinions on thequestion. It is unhelpful, however, to present the issue, as is often done, only in termsof security and terrorism. A recent report on the question considered:

The Kurdish Question is not a mere ‘terrorism problem,’ but rather an issue withethnic, cultural, legal, political, social, economic, and psychological dimensions. Itwas there before the PKK existed; even if the PKK were to be completelyeliminated, the problems and demands of the Kurds would persist. The era ofarmed conflict has inflicted heavy material and emotional losses on the region andKurds in particular, and on the entire society in general. The state’s failure topursue policies during non-violent periods in favor of restoring permanent peacehas caused it to miss very important opportunities to find a solution, and hascreated among Kurds a feeling of distrust towards the state. The Kurdish Question,which has so far been a political issue between Kurds and the state, increasinglyrisks rapid transformation into a clash between the Turks and the Kurds.16

The relationship between the Kurds and the state is understood by Kurds in differentways across different areas. The state policy of assimilation, and its failures, areunderstood, lived and resisted by Kurdish people in their everyday lives in specificways. However, the experience of resisting the assimilation of their national identityby the dominant nation-state is held in common, and there are demands which canbe shared:

Despite the fact that different segments of Kurdish society may have highly varieddemands, the majority of Kurds, particularly those living in the region, do sharesimilar demands on issues such as linguistic, political, and cultural rights, villageguards, landmines, and affirmative action. There is also a group that believes asolution to Kurdish Question requires a general political amnesty, ending theisolation of Abdullah Öcalan on İmrali Island, and providing PKK members asecure place in society.17

The demands of the Kurdish people may appear to some as unacceptable but it isoften a question of empathy and representation, which can make these demandsappear less extreme. The media role is very important in this representation ofKurdish demands.Despite the fact that most Kurds do not want to set up a new state, it very often

claimed otherwise — the media has had a big influence on public opinion here, theword ‘Kurd’, for instance, very rarely appears in the news without being followed bythe word ‘seperatist’. In another part of the Public Perception of the Kurdish Questionreport, the distinct perceptions of Kurdish and Turkish respondents on the idea ofsetting up a new state are explored. The response to the question, ‘In your opinion,do the Kurds want to have a separate state?’, is very illuminating:

The results reveal the dominant and widely held perceptions in Turkey on theissues under discussion: 64.4% of the respondents believe that the Kurds want toestablish an independent state; 24%, on the other hand, do not share this view. Of

16 YIlmaz Ensaroğlu and Dilek Kurban, A Roadmap for a Solution to the KurdIsh Question: Policy Proposalsfrom the Region for the Government (Istanbul: Tesev Publications, 2008), p. 5.

17 Ibid.

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Figure 1 ‘In your opinion, which of the below will be the most effective in the process ofsettlement of the Kurdish question?’ Source: Reproduced from Taha Özhan, IbrahimDalmış, Hatem Efe et al., Public Perception of the Kurdish Question (Istanbul: Seta andPollmark, 2009), p. 33.

Figure 2 ‘In your opinion, which of the below will be the most effective in the process ofsettlement of the Kurdish question?’ Source: Reproduced from Taha Özhan, IbrahimDalmış, Hatem Efe et al., Public Perception of the Kurdish Question (Istanbul: Seta andPollmark, 2009), p. 33.

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the Turkish respondents, 71.3% state that the Kurds want to have a separate statewhile only 30.3% of the Kurdish respondents share the same view. Of the Kurdishrespondents, 59% think that Kurds have no demand for a separate state.18

The question evaluates the extent to which the public perceives a secret agendabehind the demands of the Kurds — and given the response, here, it is evident thatmuch of the Turkish public do believe there is a secret agenda in the Kurdishdemands. This perception constitutes one of the greatest psychological barriers to theprocess of democratic reform of the Kurdish situation.The Turkish media has consistently failed to have a positive impact on the

resolution of the Kurdish issue. Turkey’s mainstream media has acted as aspokesperson for the dominant state discourse, espousing civic or assimilationistattitudes regarding the Kurdish question. US analysts Barkey and Fuller have lookedcritically at the role of the Turkish press:

The Turkish press is one of the most open in the Middle East today, embracing awide spectrum of views from far left to fundamentalist Islamist and proto-fascistnationalist. Yet this relatively free press has not been so open when it comes to theKurdish issue, or indeed any issue that directly touches on the national security. Itappeared as if most of the press took its guidance on national security issues from theofficial bulletins of the government, the military, and the National Security Council.Most coverage of fighting was contained in relatively brief stories about the numberof PKK terrorists who were captured or killed the day before, or about terroristincidents carried out by the PKK. Since there was no formal national debate inParliament or elsewhere about the Kurds, there was no serious debate in the presseither, even though this is not, strictly speaking, a government-controlled press. Withthe exception of columnists, the press finds it safer to avoid probing discussions ofthe problem; most journalists describe it as ‘self-censorship,’ which can often be morestifling on a specific issue than review by a state censorship board.19

The mainstream Turkish media has played a substantial role in the ‘securitisation’ ofthe Kurdish issue in public discourse. There has also been a prevalence of discrimin-atory, racist and ‘hate’ language and representation in the visual and print media.

Media coverage of the Kurds, the largest minority in the country (approximately 15million), is weak and mostly one sided. Kurds are mostly associated with terrorism(the PKK), and are portrayed as divisive and as putting forth unreasonabledemands. Scholarly research also confirms the nationalistic coverage of themainstream press, tending to define the nation via perceived internal and externalthreats. The coverage of the mainstream press treats Kurds as enemy others,belittling and discrediting their existence and cultural values. The choice of wordsand pictures to describe Kurds is mostly biased. While news coverage is expected tobuild bridges between different cultures, the mainstream press continues to reaffirmand reproduce prejudices.20

18 Özhan et al., op. cit., p. 61.19 Barkey and Fuller, op. cit., pp. 121–122.20 Asli Tunc, ‘Turkey’ in KAS Democracy Report 2008 — Media and Democracy, Vol. II (Berlin: Konrad-

Adenauer-Stiftung, 2008), p. 195.

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This all serves to give a very negative impression of the Turkish understanding ofKurds and their struggle. The media, as the voice of the state and the medium of war,has contributed greatly to this lack of understanding — it has played its part as avillian in the problems of the Kurdish people.

The Kurdish Media

The Kurdish are, however, also represented through their own media and journalism.An important example of this is the ‘Free Press Tradition’ newspapers and magazines:Halkın Gerçegi (Public Truth, 1990), Yeni Ülke (New Country, 1991), Özgür Gündem(Free Agenda, 1993), Özgür Ülke (Free Country, 1994), Yeni Politika (New Politics,1995), Özgür Yasam (Free Life, 1996), Demokrasi (Democracy, 1996), Ülkede Gündem(Agenda in the Country, 1997), Özgür Bakıs (Free View, 1999), 2000’de Yeni Gündem(New Agenda in 2000), Yedinci Gündem (Seventh Agenda, 2001), Yeniden ÖzgürGündem (Free Agenda Again, 2003) and Ülkede Özgur Gündem (Free Agenda in theCountry, 2004).Huseyin Aykol, a Kurdish journalist, described the situation of the Kurdish media

as follows:

Our newspapers were published with the aim of covering the developments of theKurdish problem in Turkey. The reporting we did in an environment where therewas absolutely no tolerance for the word ‘Kurd’ had to survive and then to beimproved under deadly attacks. We lost some thirty journalist and distributorfriends. Tens of friends were imprisoned. Moreover, hundreds of friends had to fleeto Europe to escape years of prison sentences.

Among the media organs, which utilize very high technology and which embracethe ideological arguments of the state, we were usually seen as the agents of a rivalcountry. Although we had the support of some democratic Turks who believed inthe peaceful solution of the Kurdish problem, we were usually left by ourselves.21

Kurdish journalists have paid a huge price for the extent to which the existence of theKurds in Turkey is recognised today.The Kurdish have also tried to represent themselves through the media form of

television. The first television network broadcasting for Kurds in Turkey, Med TV,was set up by Kurds in Europe — it was forced to close down, however, throughinternational pressure from the Turkish Republic. The Kurds are represented nowthrough the Roj TV network, and it has become an important institution in Turkey,filling a space that has been ignored by the Turkish state for years. It has animportant role in broadcasting political news and discussions, but it also runs dailyprogrammes around women, children, culture, art, entertainment, etc. It is followednot only by Kurds in Turkey, but also by Kurds in the neighbouring countries of Iran,Iraq and Syria — it broadcasts segments in Syriac, Arabic, Turkish, Armenian,Persian and English, along with all the Kurdish dialects. Despite some demonisation

21 Huseyin Aykol, ‘It is not Easy to be a Pioneer!’ in Sevilay Celenk (ed.) Another Communication is Possible(Istanbul: BIA Yayinlari, 2007), pp. 102–103.

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in the West, Roj TV also now features noted academics, writers, authors andjournalists. It is, according to many independent research institutions, the mostwatched TV channel by Kurds in the region.The organisers of Roj TV have shown interest in extended the broadcast of their

programmes throughout Turkey. This could hint at the role that both the Kurdish andTurkish media could play in helping to foster understanding and bringing together thepeople of both nations and bringing them closer to a settlement of the Kurdishquestion. However, clearly, this scenario is very far away from the picture today.Roj TV has come under continuous pressure from the Turkish state, with attempts

made to close it down or to interrupt its broadcasting to Kurdish villages. Recently,however, the state has tried to respond in a different way through the setting up of arival channel, TRT 6, to compete against Roj TV. Previously, the state has rejected theidea of setting up a Kurdish TV channel and, over the past 60 years, has treatedbroadcasting in Turkish as obligatory, but there is now a recognition that thisapproach is not getting results. TRT broadcasting a channel in Kurdish is a sign thatdomestic and international pressure on the Kurdish issue is having at least someresults. The setting up of a TV channel, broadcasting in Kurdish, by the Turkish statecould be seen as an important landmark, especially when we consider that in the pastthe Kurdish people were not even recognised as having a distinct identity, and that aperson could be arrested for something as simple as listening to a Kurdish record.

Conclusion

The Kurdish problem, as we have discussed, is the most important and criticalproblem facing Turkey. Those who have worked for democratic reforms and ademocratic settlement to the issue face the possibility of suppression, silencing,inquiries and detention. This acts as a pressure influencing those who work in themedia. The Turkish public, in turn, are influenced in their opinions and under-standings by the mainstream, pro-government media — and there is no demand formore accurate or alternative reporting. Pressure that is placed on the news and onreporters by the state is generally believed to be legitimate, and there is consent fromthe public to this process.The dominant media in Turkey continue in their violent discourse, but then it is

impossible to imagine them advancing a different perspective, one which couldpositively change the public understanding and perception of the Kurdish issue —outside of the public, themselves, actually demanding accurate reporting andalternative, oppositional, perspectives.

Critique 457