modernity and the linguistic genocide of kurds in turkey fernandez ilsl 2012 copy

8/17/2019 Modernity and the Linguistic Genocide of Kurds in Turkey FERNANDEZ ILSL 2012 Copy

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E GRUYTER MOUTON

DOI10.1515/ijsl-2012-0050 IJSL2012; 217 : 7 5 -9 8

esmond Fernandes

Modernity and the linguistic genocide of

Kurds in Turkey

Abstract:

Zygmunt Bauman, Alexander Laban Hilton and Paul Havemann,

amongst others, have argued that genocide is intimately linked to modernity.

Modern d iscourses on developm ent, m odernization an d western science as well

as key me ta-narratives of mode rnity (advancing the teleological myth of progress

and civilization), gard ener 's vision s and the very categorization and stand ard-

ization of nation al lang uag es (crucial to the biopolitical formation of global pop -

ulations under the system of modern nation-states) have all legitimated and ef-

fected pohcies and practices that have been genocidal in their nature and scope.

This article exam ines an d details the ex tent to wh ich all these identified aspec ts

of modernity can be observed in the case of Turkey. The findings indicate that

linguistic/cultural and physical genocide of Kurds in Turkey has taken place

(over the pa st eight and a half de cades) a s a direct consequ ence of the Kemalist/

Ataturkist modernity project. Language policy - which has advocated linguistic

imperialism alongside hnguistic genocide - has been a critical tool for the cre-

ation of the modern Turkish nation-state.

Keywords: Kurds; m odern ity; ge nocide; triage

Desmond Fernandes:

The Campaign Against Criminalising Communities.

E-mail : desmond2222@gmail .com

Introduction

In recent years, a number of scholars, drawing upon a range of case studies and

wider structural analyses, have engaged in a number of debates and concluded

that genocid e - inclusive of linguistic genocide - and mo dernity are closely

interwoven (Hinton 2007 :420). They have argued that modern disco urses on de-

velopment, modernization and western science as well as key meta-narratives of

modernity (advancing the teleological myth of progress and civilization), the


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7 6 D Fernandes DE GR UYT ER M O UT O N

legitimated and effected policies and practices that have been genocidal (inclu-

sive of linguistically geno cidal) in their natu re a nd scope.

These studies are of considerable relevance to linguists who are engaged in

linguistic human rights advocacy and who are seeking to analyze how and why

linguistically genocidal policies, educational programs and practices have been

conceptualized and implemented (and often legitimized) by nation states as part

of wider cultur al an d physically geno cidal plans to wes ternize, develop, m odern-

ize and civilize societies. This paper presents the key conceptual findings of

Visvanathan (1988), Solomon (2010) and Havemann (2005) and integrates them

for the first time into a case study analysis of the genocide of Kurds in modern

Turkey.

The findings of this study emphasize the manner in which genocidal (inclu-

sive of linguistically genocidal) processes in Turkey against the Kurdish Other

have not been accidental by-products of the state's modernity project: they have

been central aspec ts of the drive to transform society. Linguistic genocide, in this

sense, is analyzed within the wider context in which Kurds have been geno-

cidally targeted. The presentational style that has been adopted - which is used

in a number of journals, papers and academic publications by scholars such

as Bourke (2000), Ahmed (2003), Shoup (2006), Banerjee (2007), Laing (2008),

Zeydanlioglu (2008, 2009), Uçarlar (2009) and Skutnabb-Kangas (2010) -

extensively draw s up on selective and block quota tions to highlight key findings.

This study em phas izes the value and relevance of reflecting u po n the m ann er

in which the linguistic genocide (alongside other forms of cultural and physical

genocide) of Kurds in modern Turkey has taken place at a time when, all too

distressingly:

- The Turkish state still persists in bra nd ing such deb ate as thou ght crime

(Fernandes 2010a).

- Many visiting as well as residen t genocide scho lars, linguists, journ alists,

academics, MPs, editors, publishers and human rights analysts in Turkey

have been reluctant to even address the Kurdish modernity and/or genocide

(inclusive of the linguistic genocide) que stion due to the oppressive situa-

tion th at exists (Beçikçi 2009: 2; Fernan des 2007, 2010a).

- People who have dared to engage in such thou ght crime have found them-

selves being removed from their university posts in Turkey or (if they are

visiting Turkey) denied en try to the country or detain ed, depo rted an d

subjected to harrowing, lengthy and expensive court cases, criminalization,


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DE G RU YT ER M O U TO N Linguistic genocide in Turkey

Several publishers in Turkey, fearful of criminalization, have exercised

self-censorship and mutilated a number of international texts (when

translating them into Turkish) that address these concern s, thereby

depriving reade rs (including linguists) from accessing key findings that

could be of use to their future work (Üngör

2007;

Fernandes 2010a).

Many Turkish universities, fearful of state targeting, have continued to stifle

academic deb ate in these areas and barred a num ber of stude nts from

researching these subject areas (Lofti

2007:1;

Fernan des 2010a).

The physical, linguistic, and cu ltural genocide com mitted by Turkey

against the Kurds is generally treated with silence an d/o r considered

controversial. The statu s of the Turkish governm ent in denying their actions

has created pressure on the United States and other Western Nations

governments, universities, and media organizations to treat this holocaust

as delusio ns of the Kurdish peo ple (Swartz 2007 :1).

Herman an d Peterson (2010: 88) have additionally identified a remarkably

deep

ideological bias but also a cons istent, even a rigid one over a long

period of

time

that ha s resulted in gen ocide not really being significantly

addressed or debated in mu ch of the

U

mainstream press, as far as

Turkey's treatm ent of its Kurds in the contem porary period is conce rned.

ey terms and definitions

Key terms need to be defined at the outset of the study. Modernity can best be

described as a set of interrelated proce sses tha t characteriz[ej the emergence

of 'modern society'. Politically, modernity involves the rise of secular forms

of government ... Economically, [it] refers to capitalist expansion and its

derivatives Socially, [it] entails the replacem ent of 'trad ition al' loyalties with

'mod ern' on es and culturally, it encom passes the m o v em en t. .. to an emphat-

ically secular and materialist worldview which , in man y way s , was epito-

mized by Enlightenm ent thou gh t (Hinton

2002: 7,

8). Social scientists , accord-

ing to the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics (2005, cited in Book

Rags [2006:1]), describe modern ity as a particula r form of culture or society de-

pendent on and supportive of science and technology, with the process of creat-

ing such a society defined as m odern ization Modernization is a . . . term for a

concept known in the nineteenth century as the 'civilizing' process, and during

the first half of the twe ntieth century a s 'W esternization' .


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7 8 D Fernandes DE GR UYTE R M O UT ON

By 'genocide' we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group Generally

speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, ex-

cept when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to

signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essen tial founda-

tions of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves

Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the nationa l pa ttern of the oppressed g roup;

the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. (Lemkin 1944: 80).

In sociolinguistic terms, Lemkin identified the following acts as genocidal when

assessing Nazi policies and practices:

In the incorporated areas ... local institutions of self-government were destroyed and a

German pattern of administration imposed. Every reminder of former national character

was obliterated. Even commercial signs and inscriptions on buildings, roads, and streets,

as well as names of communities and of localities, were changed to a German form

Nationals of Lu xe m bu rg ... were required to assume in lieu thereof the corresponding Ger-

man first nam es; or, if that is impossible, they must select German first names The de-

struction of the national pattern in the social field has been accomplished ... by German-

ization of the judicial language and of the bar The local population is forbidden to use

its own language in schools and in printing. According to the decree of August 6,1940, the

language of instruction in all Luxemburg schools was made exclusively German. (Lemkin

1944:

83,

85)

Linguistic genocide is 'prohibiting th e use of the langu age of the group in daily

intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circulation of pubhcations in the

language of the group'. This was how linguistic genocide was defined in Article

III(l) of the final draft of wha t becam e the [Genocide] Convention (Skutnabb-

Kangas 2000:1). Although this article was voted down for questionable political

reasons when the Convention was finally accepted, those states then mem bers

of the UN were in agreement that this was how the ph enom enon could be de-

fined (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000 :1). Policies of assim ilation - aim ed at eradication

of indig eno us/m inority educ ation - which linguistically, often also cultu rally

result in transference to the majority grou p , can also be held to be genocida l,

according to Articles II(e) and II(b) in the p resen t conv ention (Skutnabb-Kangas

2000:1) and Lemkin (Docker 2004:13).

Ethnocide, as defined by Lemkin (who coined the term alongside genocide)

and several other scholars, is often held to be synonymous with the term and

phen om eno n of genocide (Lemkin 1944; Lukunka 2007). Constructive gen ocide

is defined in the following m ann er:


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DE GR UY TER M O U TO N Linguistic genocide in Turkey 9

R ac ism ... which denies the very existence of its victims, can safely be termed, in law, 'con-

structive genoc ide'. When a pe o p le .. . are not recognized as existing, when they are denied

their homeland , their national existence and identity, and the basic rights and fundamental

freedoms accorded to other peoples - wha t, in such circumstances, remains of them and for

them as a people? They become non-people and the individuals non-persons. Is this not in

ef fe ct ... constructive genocide? (Al-Qasem 1977:13)

Phillipson defines linguistic imperialism as:

... a theoretical construct, devised to account for linguistic hierarchization, to address

issues of why some languages come to be used m ore and others less, what structures and

ideologies come to be used more and others less, what structures and ideologies facilitate

such processes, and the role of language professionals Linguistic imperialism is a sub-

type of linguicism Linguistic imperialism takes p la c e .. . where language interlocks with

other dimensions, cultural (particularly in education, science and the media), economic

and political. (Phillipson

1997:

238-239)

Modernity and genocide: theoretical

considerations

Modernity is fundamentally about conquest, 'the imperial regulation of land,

the discipline of the sou l, and th e creation of tru th' (Turner 1990: 4), a discou rse

that enable d the large-scale regulation of hu m an iden tity - even in a linguistic

sense - both within Europe and its colon ies (Ashcroft et al. 200 0: 145). Such

regulation a nd s tand ardiz ation wa s often effected in the nam e of prom oting west-

ern science, the nation state, modern empires, civilization and progress. Alvares

(1988:

32) argues th at this app lication of reductionist science sought structur ally

to r e d u c e .. . diversity by eliminating it, and introducing more simplified, mech-

anized designs instead The process of elimination . . . [in] . . . the dom ain of

lang uag e w as, consequen tly, all too often rationalized and und ertak en to stan-

dardize the popular language and eliminate anarchy in the domain of the peo-

ple's speech an d the peo ple's use of 'other ' langu ages (Alvares 1988: 32). Most

significantly, all ord inary exper ience was to be recas t in the 'official lan gu age',

stam ped with official appro val, to be considered worthy of hu m an use (Alvares

1988: 32).

To Devy (2009: 46), the rhetoric of mo dernity an d the ideology of progress

boiled down to wh at Gandhi called violence . The resulting ethical framework


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8 0 D Fernandes DE GR UY TER M O U TO N

an d belief systems - being routinely destroyed Modern civilization is base d

on unres tricted violence (Devy

2009:

46). For Visvanatha n:

Theories like racism in anthropology, orientalism in linguistics, IQ in psychology, social

Darwinism in political economy and biology, are bracketed off as 'pseudo-sciences' or as

distortions of normal [modern] science. I suggest an altemative explanation. The maraud-

ing genius of science needs these spaces - these 'pseudo-sciences' - for the free play of its

imagination. This collective unconsciousness of science constitutes an integral pa rt of the

scientific experiment. Marking it off saves science as a phenomenon but contributes little to

our understanding of it. t does not explain why these theories so often recur in science . One

can see the same trend in the modern discourse on development. Development should be

regarded as a [modern] scientific project. It represents the contemporary rituals of the labo-

ratory state. As a project, it is composed of four theses, ingrained in the logic of western

science, of modernity as technocracy. One can call them:

1. The Hobbesian project, the conception of a society based on the scientific method;

2.

The imperatives of progress, which legitimize the use of social engineering on all those

objects defined as backward or retarded;

3.

The vivisectional m andate, where the o ther becomes the object of experiment which in

essence is violence and in which pa in is inflicted in the name of science;

4. The idea of triage combining the concepts of rational experiment, the concept of obso-

lescence and of vivisection - whereby a society, a subculture or a species is labeled as

obsolete and condemned to death because rational judgment [by those overseeing the

modern nation-state] has deemed it incurab le.

Development as a [modern] technocratic project includes all four themes. (Visvanathan

1988:

258-259)

As he argues:

In fact, if concepts could ever be death warrants, the above glossary could be regarded

as genocidal Lurking quietly vnthin modernity-as-a-scientific-project is the idea of

triage

If progress dem ands the summ oning of the Other into modernity,

tri ge

is the

dispensing vsrith of the O th er ... . Societies and cultures are now being destroyed because

they are considered refractory to the scientific gaze The western encounter vnth the

other ends in its eventual logic as erasure Science [in this context] has no place for

the defeated except as objects of an experiment Social triage... is a deliberate decision

or act of a state to define a target group such as a minority within its territory as dispens-

able. The decision, however, m ust also be articulated on rational ground s. For, though

tri-

ge is genocide, it involves the rational imposition of death on those regarded as refractory

to the scientific gaze. It is in this sense tha t the term helps us to understand the particular

quality of violence of which scientific rationality is capable. (Visvanathan 1988: 259, 271,

272)


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ture the idea of a ma ss society of equal a nd uniform individ uals. Modern society

wa s m ono cultu ral in more ways tha n o ne (Visvanathan 1988: 276). With the re-

alization of such projects , as May (1999:1, 2) ha s observed: Not surprisingly,

education - as a key institution of the nation-state - has played a central part

historically in the subjugation of indigenous languages and cultures and the re-

lated assim ilation of indigenous peop les into the dom inant or 'comm on' language

and culture of the nation-state . In the process, indigenous languages and cul-

tures were specifically proscribed, dem eane d and dim inish ed - ind eed, often

subjected to linguistic/constructive genocide and linguistic imperialism (Fer-

na nd es 2010a) - by the state via its edu cation system Consequently, indige-

nou s languag es - when acknowledged as existing , that is - and cultures

[often] came to be constructed as antediluvian and unnecessary in the modern

world - a vestige of 'prim itive' cultures bes t left in the past. In contras t, 'n atio na l'

languages and cultures - or, more specifically, the languages and cultures of

dom inant ethnic groups - were viewed as the apogee of modernity and progress

(May

1999:1,

2).

For Solomon (2010: 44): Historically-speaking, it goes with out saying th at

language poHcy has been a critical tool for the creation of the modern nation-

state and a con stant site of state interven tion . Indeed , in w hat has virtually

been a universal process , mo dern nation-states have established themselves

linguistically by the elimination of difference through standardization - along

with the concomitant displacement of minority populations and the appropria-

tion of minority land s (Solomon 2010: 44). And educa tion , as Alvarado (2010:

1) observes, is such that it plays a vital role in shap ing both lan guag e sta nda rd-

ization an d its primacy over alternative langu age us e .

For Solomon (2010: 45), looking at the history of modern linguistic trans -

formation, postcolonial writers have shown not only how the colonial and post-

colonial state mobilized language in the creation of 'invented traditions', but

also how the establishment of national literary and linguistic traditions ... in

metropolitan social formations originated as a technique of colonial governance

- in which other languages were often subjected to hnguistic imperialism and

linguistic/constructive genocide. To Havem ann (2005: 57, 59), colonization is a

key feature of mo dernity in which indigenous peoples:

. . . have been [perceived as chronic obstacles to modernization to be overcome by whatever

means - typically by violence concealed behind liberal legalities Modernity [in this

context] ... generates waste: both the physical detritus of industriahsation ... and those


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Consequently, in its imp erial/paleo -im perial/co lonial con text, the law defines

both the citizen's bu nd le of rights and the exclu ded 's absen ce of rights [The

excluded] occupy a zone of exception wherein the sovereign suspends its law's

protection from them and their land or lives may be taken with impu nity (Have-

mann

2005:

59,60). Torture, incarceration (in camps and prisons), deculturation,

forced resettlement, forced cultural transfer of children through educational lan-

guage programmes, cleansing and/or disappearance within a genocidal context

become rationalizing instrum ents th at are used by m odern vivisectionist, labora-

tory states.

M odernity related discourse[s] deh um aniz e poten tial targets and con struct

them as enem ies of the state , terroris ts and traitors , effectively placing

them outside of the state's protection and denying them their citizenship rights

(Zeydanlioglu 2009: 5). Technologies tied in to the western, colonizing, moder-

nity project - railways, dams, telegraph systems, aircraft, poison gas - have also

been used to crucially advance quite specific genocidal agendas (Fernandes

2010a). To H inton:

European [modernity linked] expansion was largely driven by a desire for new lan ds, con-

verts,

wealth, slaves, and m arkets, [and] some scholars refer to the resulting ann ihilation

o

indigenous peoples as 'development' or 'utilitarian' genocides This devastation was le-

gitimated by contradictory discourses that simultaneously asserted that the colonizers had

the 'bu rden ' of 'civilizing' the 'savages' living on their newly conquered territories and that

their deaths mattered little since they were not fully hum an.

Metanarratives of modernity supplied the terms by which indigenous peoples were con-

structed as the inverted image of 'civilized' peoples. Discourse about these 'others' was fre-

quently structured by a series of value-laden binary oppositions (see also Bauman 1991;

Taussig

1987);

modernity/tradition, civilization/savagery, us/them, centre/margin, civilized/

wild, humanity/barbarity, progress/degeneration, advanced/backward, developed/

underdeveloped Maybury-Lev r̂is [2002] describes how the inhu mane and genocidal

treatm ent of indigenous peoples was often framed in meta-narratives of modernity, particu-

larly the notion of 'progress'. (Hinton

2002;

9,10)

Certainly, it need s to be recognized tha t, within these types of ideological frame-

works and planning contexts, cultural destruction even in the post-1945 period

has become an accepted key process that has often been advocated in par-

ticular modernization-linked development programmes. Escobar (1994: 4) has

revealed the way in wh ich one of the mo st influential doc um en ts of the post-


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develo ped' societies . It clarified th at: There is a sense in which rapid economic

progress is impossible without painful adjustments. Ancient philosophies have

to be scrap ped. Old social institutio ns have to disinteg rate. Bonds of caste, creed

and race have to burst, and large numb ers of persons who canno t keep up with

progress have to have their expe ctation s of a comfortable life frustrated (Escobar

1994: 4).

As Visvan athan (1988: 277) has arg ued: Underlying mo dernization is a sub -

stratum of intolerance. The variegated traditions of .. . the nom adic, the tribal,

the pastoral and the pea san t conceptually and practically have to be bulldozed

into a flatland called mod ernity a nd there is little time for con sultation o the

laboratory state, these people are . . . ethnics practising styles of li fe .. . which are

refractory to science . Consequently:

According to the logic of development, they must either acculturate or disappear In the

process, [allegedly] peaceful developm ent [of this

kind]

has created more refugees What

we are in fact confronting here is developm ent as slow genocide Intrinsic to all such

technocratic projects is the idea . . . [that] a mechanical scheme [can b e ] . . . imposed on a

culture without any consideration for the traditions of the community.... [And with this]

. . . lcirge dams literally become experiments on the people The technology of most large

dams is basically vivisectional For the scientist-technocrat, the development of all land

is inevitable.... The movement from cultural destruction through obsolescence to triage

as-erasure is a short

step.

(Visvanathan

1988: 277,

278,279)

For Visvanathan (1988: 280), then , the exam ple of the elimination of the Ache

India ns in Paraguay has raised in a fundam ental way the problem of genocide

through development. The process of resettlement, involving slow death through

dec ultura tion, does fall within the clauses of the Genocide convention. Item three

of the Genocide convention of the UN includes: 'Deliberately inflicting on the

group co nditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole

or in par t' . Consequently, to remove tribal people from their na tur al hab itat

wou ld be cultur al ethno cide The fact [is] tha t the laboratory state now deems

certain cultures dispen sab le (Visvanathan 1988: 280) and , in this respect, the

notion of calculated dispensability, of erasing people from the commons of the

world (Visvanathan 1988: 280) becomes a rational, modernizing bu reaucratic/

accou nting c onsid eration (Neu an d Therrien 2003). Rojas (1996:1), in reviewing

Rostow's 1960 mo dernization th eory - wh ich ha s so influenced Turkey's Cold

and post-Cold War development-cum-counter-insurgency programme in the pre-

dom inantly K urdish East (Fernan des 2010a) - has observed the man ner in which


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be anti-progress an d inimical to the interests of the mod ern, western state. It

follows that crush ing hum an beings involved in these social distu rba nce s - even

in a genocidal sen se, if nee d be (Fernand es 2010a) - takes the form of 'hu m an i-

tarian actions' to preserve social order and social peace to maintain the balance

[ofthe] family-civil society- state (Rojas 1996 :1). Maybury-Lewis, moreover, con-

cluded in 2002 (cited in Dean 200 9: 1069) tha t all too often [nation ] state s feel

they cannot modernize effectively if they tolerate indigenous cultures in their

midst .

4 The modernity project in Turi


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DE GR UY TE R M O U TO N Linguistic genocide in Turkey 8

Concerning the nature of this project, Atatürk is recorded as emphasizing

tha t the Turks have only ever gone in one direction - tow ards the West (cited in

pi g l

2 0 1 0 :1 ) .. . For everything in the w orld - for civilization, for life, for suc-

cess, the tru est guide is knowledge and science (cited in Kinzer 2001 : 36)

Gentlemen, uncivilized people are doomed to be trodden under the feet of civi-

lized peo ple We will live as a progressive and civilized na tion in the aren a of

civilization (cited in Zeydanlioglu 2008: 155, 160), wh ere we will take science

and technology from wherever it is and insert it in the head of each member of

the nation. There is no restriction an d cond ition on science and tec hn ol og y. ... If

[ignorance] is not eliminated, we will stand on the same spot. If something is

stand ing on the same spot, this m ean s that it is going bac kw ards (Atatürk, cited

in cited in Zeydanhoglu [2008:160]).

For Conversi (2006: 326), Atatürk could only conceive developm ent as u tter,

rem orseless and com plete W esternization . As far as the founde rs of the Turkish

Republic were concerned, the E u ro p ea n .. . experience of the past century was

central to their p ro je c t— Em phasis was given to developing a sense of nation-

hoo d based on the Turkish langu age (Kirisci 200 4:276 ). Indee d, Tachjian (2009:

2) con clud es that it wa s just as im portant to 'Turkify' it econom ically, linguisti-

cally and demographically as it was to liberate the land. Indeed, the aim of the

leaders was to establish a [modern] nation-state that was based exclusively on

Turkish identity. Consequently, the presence of other ethno-n ationa l groups, the

question of their cohesion and investment in the development of their commu-

nity became insupportable . Colonial genocides against Kurds, Armenians, As-

syrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Greeks and Others have, not surprisingly, taken

place (Fernandes 2010a, 2010b, 2010c).

For Üngör:

. . . the key discursive devices which the Kemalist centre employed to represent their rela-

tionsh ip with the Kurdish periphery was 'civilization' The non-Turkish population of the

eastern provinces was looked down upon as primitive and inferior, fit only] for colonial rule

by a Turkish [westernized] master nation which operated in the name of progress and ratio-

nality. They were viewed, moreover, as inherently treacherous and anti-Turkish and hence

threats to security against which Turkish state and army personnel had to be perm anently

on guard. (Üngör 2008: 32)

Forging a uniform nation out of the heterogeneous Ottoman population meant

official into leranc e to differences. In tolerance m ean t either forceful assim ilation


12/25


geno cide of Kurds (Fernand es 2007). So assim ilation followed by eviction and

decimation of the 'others' became inbuilt characteristics of the republican re-

gim e (Ergil 2009 :1).

It was the d iscourse of we sternization/m ode rnization , Mesud Yegen (1999)

co nte nd s, tha t led the Republic to perceive - an d de-legitimize - the Kurd-

ish resistance as a resistance of pre-m odem ity and briga nd s (Uçarlar 2009 :

117). Atatiirk, indeed, is recorded as justifying repressive - indeed, genocidal -

state action in the following way: Could a civilized nation tolerate a m ass of

peop le who let themselves be led by the no se by a herd

oishaykhs dedes sayyids

chelebis babas

and

amirsV

(McDowall 1996: 196). The physical ex istenc e of

Kurds, moreover, could even be rejected and denied by Turkish state-discourse

thoug h the app lication of mo dern pseudo-scientific theories (Fernandes 2010a).

After the elimination and forced removal of the Kurdish elites from the

East , using such rationa lizations, the Kemalists saw the rem aining K urdish

pop ulation . . . as 'raw ma terial ' for the Turkish nation (Üngör 200 8: 33) to be

disposed of at will (Nezan 1993; Fernandes 1998, 2010a). The Turkish constitu-

tion, moreover, con secrate d Kem al's vo luntarist fiction, accord ing to wh ich

Turkey

is

strictly Turkish (Chaliand 1994:30 ). As the m ode rn state wa s founde d

on an extrem e fascist kind of natio na lism , like tha t of the Nazis in som e re-

spects (Hayri, as cited in Akturk et al.

[2001:

479]) and that of Mussolini in Italy

(Tirman 2005; Beçikçi, as quoted by Van Bruinessen [2005: 28]), impulses that

made genocide a conscious strategy amongst the Kemalist elite became even

more pronounced (Fernandes 2010c). Orientahsm and other western pseudo-

scientific theories justified and inspired genocidal assaults against the Other. For

Zeydanhog lu (200 8:159): The Kemalists took on w hat I call the 'White Turkish

M an's Burde n' in order to carry out a civilizing m ission :

The making of the Turkish nation went hand in hand with the forgetting, postponing and

canceling ofthe Kurdish ethnic identity [Mesud] Yegen 199 9:1 20)... and the suppression

of the Kurdish ethnic identity was made possible by a state knowledge-production that re-

lied on European O rientalist constructs and racial theories. Etienne Copeaux

(1998: 52)

h as

unde rlined that Turkish historiography and linguistics are 'children of Western Orientalism;

they are its products'. (Zeydanhoglu 2008:161,162,163)

In prac tical term s, Turkish Orientalism wa s crystallized in Kemalist pse ud o-

scientific theor ies: These theories were disse m inated widely through ou t society,

especially in school textbooks, and still continue to influence the discourse of

Turkish natio nah sm tod ay (Zeydanhoglu 200 8:16 4). The application of torture


13/25


In terms of the manner in which metanarratives of modernity supplied the

terms by which indigenous Kurdish peoples were constructed as the inverted im-

age of civilized peo ples, Ayce Akturk ha s detailed the m ann er in which Kurds

were called kuyruklu kurt, meaning 'Kurd with a tail', or kiro, meaning 'uncivi-

lized, uneducated, rude, worthless, one who knows nothing'. Meanwhile , the

Kemalist inspired, modern mass education system and med ia indoctrinated

people that Turks were the h eroes of the world (Akturk et al. 2001: 479, 480 ).

With the Republic becoming the great storyteller of the nation , sponsoring the

grand narratives of nationalism, independence and secularism , Kurdish dis-

course s were cast as villains (Houston 2001: 89). During the Tunceli [Dersim]

rebellion , unsurprisingly, it wa s said: 'W hat the Republican regime has been

doing in Tunc eli' - i.e. its linguis tic/cultural an d physically genocidal assau lt

against Kurds (Sociahst Party of Kurdistan [PSK] 2008; Fernandes 1998, 2010a,

2010c) - 'is not a military op era tion , bu t the march of civilization' (Mesud

Yegen

1999:

560). The Turkish position was that these 'primitives' and 'ban dits '

should give way to modern civilization, just like the American Indians had. This

should be effected by their assimilation to the supposedly superior Turkish cul-

ture an d the physical elimination of those who resisted (Van Bruinessen 1994b:

167,168). After the Dersim rebellion had bee n supp res sed , other Kurdish regions

being 'civilized' from abov e knew better tha n to resist (Van Bru inessen 1994a:

12,13).

Military reports call[ed] all people of Dersim indiscriminately 'bandits'

even as the Law on Resettlemen t providefd] the legal framework for a policy

of eth no cid e (Van Bru inessen 1994: 149, 150, 152, 153). Inö nü , right ha nd an d

successor of Atatiirk , indeed , expressed th e official positio n: 'We are frankly

[njat ionalist—

We

m ust Turkify - even in socio-linguistic terms - the inhabit-

ants of our land at any price, and we will annihilate those w ho opp ose the Turks

or le turquisme (Barkey an d Fuller 1998:10) (Jongerden

2001:

81).

Concerning the impacts of the Southeast Anatolia Regional Development

(GAP) Project, intended to modernize, civilize and develop the predominantly

Kurdish East via the con struction and ope ration of

9

power stations,

22

dams and

linked developm ents, the top-down project has always been und erpinn ed by the

long standing assimilation policies of the Turkish state with regard to [indige-

nous] Kurdish people - their forced inclusion into mainstream Turkish culture

and society (Ronayne 200 5:36 ), using genocidal processes and tech niqu es (Fer-

na nd es 2010a). For Gerger (1997:18), mod ern Turkish na tion al, s ecular values as

advance d by Kemalism had ensured that the nation -buildin g process degener-


14/25

8 8 D

Fernandes

DE GRUYT R

MOUTON

Constitution as sacrosanct which cannot be amended; even proposals to do so

may constitute a criminal offence .

5 The Kurdish genocide 1924-2010

The consequences of this paleo-imperialist march towards modernity and civili-

zation have been d evas tating. Not only the Kurds, but o thers have been subjected

to ongoing genocidal assaults as modern laws, administrative, developmental,

educational and accounting/propaganda systems, penal codes (some fashioned

on Mussolini's fascist codes) and rational military and counter-insurgency meth-

ods and techniq ues have been applied (F ernandes 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). In

Besikci's (1990) view, the law on the pacification and modern reform of Tunceli

un dou bted ly served to legitimate genocide (Van Bruinessen 1994b: 183).

It is also imp ortant to apprec iate that Atatürk, as its first Preside nt, saw the

unification an d mod ernization of educa tion as the key (Commission on Social

Issues 20 08: 1) toward s framing c ulture within a modernist-Turkish nation alist

straight-jacket. Under this guiding framework, the diversity of langua ges in

Anatolia was an obstacle to the construction of a homogeneous cultural identity

that would become the basis of a national one. Thus, the imposition of Turkish

lang uag e - in schoo ls, law courts, press and media outlets and all public recre-

ation al and v/ork spaces - becam e the most significant instr um ent of the state

for creating a Turkish national identity. The new link between the state, its citi-

zens and the national identity was enforced by the obligation of Turkish as the

national language, whose alphabet [even] replaced Arabic letters with the Latin

script in November

1928

(Uçarlar 200 9:120 ):

The Latin script

w s

introduced not only

to

undermine the power of religious lea d e rs .. . but

also to break ties with the Ottoman past in order to accelerate the reforms in favor of

westernization Furthermore, the expected increase of literacy was supposed to serve

the construction and spread of the concept of [the modern] nation Moreover, the Turk-

ish language was [itself] purified from the Arabic and Persian words that represented the

Islamic and 'backward' Ottoman past. (Uçarlar 2009:121,122)

For Shafak: In the nam e of mod ernization, our language shrunk tremendously

(cited in Lea 2006 :1) Very few peo ple in Turkey questio n today the Turkeyfi-

cation of the language that we went through. I find that very dangerous because


15/25


the Turkish Historical Fou nda tion. The aim of the foundation was to create a

natio nal [modern] edu cation in the service of political aim s (Uçarlar 2009 :121,

122).

To Uçarlar: Every attemp t by the Turkish elite to eliminate the hegem ony of

the Kurdish elite over the Kurdish people also aimed to destroy the political, eco-

nom ic and social elemen ts of Kurdishness, as well as the co nsciou sness of Kurd-

ishn ess am ong the peop le It is not so striking that the Kurdish lang uag e was

targeted in the service of [modern] nation and state build ing (Uçarlar 200 9:

125).

In terms of the painful adju stm ents that were deem ed to be necessary to

progress to the level of contemporary civilization, certain Kurdish sources have

estimated that over half a million [Kurdish] pe op le were depo rted, of whom

nearly half died

en route

between

925

and 1928 alone (Lustgarten

2003:

6). Dur-

ing the aftermath of the failed Sheikh Said uprising of

1925,

seen by many as a

natio nalist and religious respo nse by Kurdish factions to the secular a nd Turkifi-

cation linked reforms of the m odern state (Leicht

1998;

Fernand es 2010c), Randal

(1999: 121) ha s concluded tha t hu nd red s of Kurdish villages were burn ed, and

between 40,000 and 250,000 peasants died in the ensuing 'pacification'. Over

the next dozen years or so, perhaps a million Kurdish men, women and children

were uproo ted and shipped to Western Anatolia . Large pa rts of the Kurdish

popu lation were sent to concentration cam ps in the western provinces (Frodin

1944: 5).

The Turkish Prime Minister reported ly state d in 1938: We will carry out a

military opera tion in Dersim There will be an exterm ination action Our

army ... will begin maneuvers in the area, ridding it of its inhabitants. In this

way, the problem will be pulled up by

its

roo ts (Dersimi 1999

[ 952] :

289). Ataturk,

in a speech at the opening of parliam ent in

1936,

similarly clarified that: We have

to remove this a bscess [Dersim, rena m ed Tunceli in Turkish] at its roots. To deal

with this problem, we will give wider pow ers to the gov em m ent (White 200 0:

79). Such pow ers led to further genocidal mass acres, slow death m easures,

Turkish place name-changing, forced assimilation and forced resettlement (Fer-

na nd es 1998, 2010c).

In linguistically and culturally genocidal terms, in March 1924 - i.e. one year

before the first Kurdish rebellion/up rising - the public use of Kurdish and the

teachin g of Kurdish wa s proh ibited. Influential Kurdish land ow ners and tribal

chiefs were forcibly resettled in the west of the coun try (Zürcher 2004:178). Mod-

ern law courts refused to accept Kurdish (Fernandes 2010a). Article

2

of the 1924


16/25

9 0 D Fernandes DE GR UY TER M OU TO N

According to the 1925 Plan for the Reformation of the East, "the cities and

towns where Kurds live were listed, and speaking Kurdish there was banned"

(Bayrak [1993: 486, 487], cited in Malmisanij [2006: 6]). Kurdish speakers found

themselves being fined according to a tariff for every Kurdish word spoken (Fer-

nandes

1998).

"Kurdish language, music and national costume were outlawed

Like it or not, everyone w ithin Turkey's bord ers were by legislation declared to be

Turks. The words Kurds and Kurdistan like Armenia and Pontus were forcibly

erased from d ictionaries and lite rature " even as "m any slogans were coined: 'One

Turk is worth the whole world ... Turkish blood is clean, pure and superior ' "

(Baksi 1986:103). Broadcasting and pubhshing in the Kurdish language was pro-

hibited (Fernandes 2010c) even as "the newly established nationalist institution

called People's House { alkevi] would gear Turkish identity and Kemalist ideol-

ogy to the popular aud ience" (Üngör 2008: 33).

"The compulsory adoption of surnames in 1934" served to "turn numerous

Kurdish families into Turks, ö ztü rks , Tatars, or U zbeks" (Van B ruinessen

1997:

6).

Alinak reiterates the view that Turkification of Kurds via the schooling system

and forced resettlement were core objectives advanced by inönü and Marshal

Çakmak during the 193O's (Önderoglu 2010:1). For Jongerden:

In the 193O's and 194O's, government policy in Dersim ... resembles the conquest and

occupation of enemy territory.... The building of an educational structure was given

pr io rity. ... It was even suggested that Kurdish children be sent to boarding schools where

they would speak exclusively in Turkish Right up to the present day, boarding schools

are established in the Kurdish areas in order t have more control over the children's educa-

tion and to enforce a switch of their identity. (Jongerden 2003: 77,78)

In Dersim, after the 1937-1938 genocidal onslaught, "the Turkish army kidnapped

many Kurdish children w ho were unde r the age of seven and placed them in Turk-

ish families in western Turkey" (Koivunen 2002: 99). The Tunceli law ensured

that educational establishments engaged in assimilating orphan Kurdish girls

strictly enforced the teaching of Turkish, whilst banning the Kurdish language

(Fernandes 2010a). The Resettlement Law of the 193O's, moreover, "abrogated

any legal recognition of Kurdish tribes and their leaders, thus permitting the au-

tomatic seques tration of their imm ovable assets. All settlem ents in which Kurdish

wa s the mothe r ton gu e" were to be "dissolved, and the d isplaced Kurds were to be

resettled" - as part of the Turkification drive - "in localities where they would

mak e up no more tha n 5% of the pop ulation It w as further prescribed that


17/25


family un it. It has been judged that p arents, m arried son s and m arried grand sons

shall be evicted to different a reas (Turkish Hum an Rights Association 1996:19).

Other culturally and physically genocidal plans, policies and practices have

been evident since the 193O's (Fernandes 2007, 2010a). Forty nine Kurdish intel-

lectuals , for ex am ple, were arrested in 1959 as par t of a wider initiative tha t w as

aimed at intentionally murdering 1,000 Kurdish intellectuals (Anter 1991). During

the 199O's, Kurdish intellectuals were on ce again subjected to assassin ation and

disappearance (Fernandes 2010a). During the 194O's, a report by the Inspector

General of the First Inspectorate recommended that more Kurdish leaders from

the East be deported even as Turkish language board ing schools for Kurdish

children were to be con structed , where all traces of Kurdish cultu re and lan-

guage could be expu ng ed (McDowall 1996: 209, 210). The 1949 Provinc ial Ad-

min istration Law further auth orized the chan ging of nam es of places an d this

authority was used quite liberally. Moreover, article

6

ofthe

972

Popu lation Law

prohibited giving Kurdish nam es to new -bo m s (Yegen 200 8: 3).

After the 1960 cou p, the m ilitary regime in 1961 system atically start ed to

chang e Kurdish place nam es into Turkish and establish reg ional boa rding schools

in order to ass imilate the Kurdish po pu latio n (Uçarlar 2009 : 129). The Forced

Settlement Law that was passed at the time stipulated that this was done in

order to 'carry out certain social reforms' that would 'demolish the order of the

Middle Ages tha t exists in Turkey ' (Zeydanhoglu 2008 : 65). General Gürsel, as

head of the military regime, lauded a book . . . which claimed that the Kurds

were in fact of Turkish origin , and de clared w hilst stan din g on an Am erican ta nk

tha t: 'There are no Kurds in this country. Whoever says he is a Kurd,

I

will spit in

his face' (Zeydanhoglu 200 8: 64, 65).

Waves of place nam e cha ngin g , inde ed, occurred - a nd were initiated -

[even] under so-called liberal govern m ents (Jongerden 2009 : 10). Various gov-

ernm ent initiatives were aimed at stoppin g Kurds from listening to foreign broad-

casts in Kurdish and even accessing Kurdish educational courses internationally

(Fernand es 2010c). Uçarlar (2009:133,134 ) confirms that the military adm inis-

tration (1980-3) ba nn ed strictly the use of Kurdish langua ge The assim ilation

of Kurdish children into the Turkish language w as fostered throug h the dissem i-

nation of compulsory schooling. The Kurdish names of villages that [had] re-

mained intact after the changes of the 196O's were adjusted into Turkish. Kurdish

families were forced to give Turkish names to their children , and this pressure

was still being ap phe d durin g the first decade ofth e 21st century (Fernan des 2007,

2010c). Torture has continued to be applied in a genocidal context (Fernandes


18/25


Helsinki Watch (1990: 37) ha s further detailed th e ma nne r in wh ich, in May

1989, the National Security Council launched a campaign denying the existence

of a distinct Kurdish nation and a Kurdish language. Pamphlets were issued and

distributed to schools in the south-e ast to reinforce this message. Skutnabb-

Kangas (cited in Fernandes [2006: 34]) concluded in 2002 that Turkey's policy

still fit[ted] two of the definitions of genocide in the

U

International Convention

on the Prevention and Pu nish m ent of the Crime of Genocide [What is hap pen -

ing] is genocide , accord ing to the UN definition In addit ion , Turkey is of

course also comm itting Hnguistic genocide acc ording to the specific definition on

linguistic genocide . More recent assessme nts have drawn the sam e co nclusions

(Skutnabb-Kangas 2005,2010; Skutnabb-Kangas an d Fernandes

2008;

Skutnabb-

Kangas an d D unbar 2010). Even by mid-2010, Cengiz Aktar confirmed tha t teach -

ing Kurdish at [public] school[s] is not at all on the agen da of the governm ent

and state (Aktar 2010:1).

With regard to the na ture of the sta te's genocidal policies in Turkish Kurdis-

tan between 1984-1997, some estimates suggest that over three million Kurds

were forcibly displaced and subjected to mental harm, tens of thousands of peo-

ple were killed, over 40 00 s ettlem ents w ere fully or partially destroyed a nd thou-

sands of people disappeared (Fernandes 2010a, 2010b). In development terms,

too,

the South eastern A natolian Project has been used to facilitate an ethnic and

cultura l genocide again st Kurds (Tataii 2010; see also Fern ande s 2010a). The

genocidal actions of the Turkish state during the 2000-2010 period have also

bee n recognized, as suc h, by a num ber of genocide scho lars, policy analysts, law-

yers,

human rights campaigners, political organizations and movements (Fer-

na nd es 2010a, 2010b, 2010c).

To

Gerger (cited in Cudi [2010:1]), writing in August

2010:

The US seems to have reached some sort of an und ersta ndin g with the

governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) concerning the Kurdish issu e :

The previous state strategy was to nationalist-Kemalists, 'total liquidation through

violence' Now vnth the active aid of president Obama, the liberal coalition under the

AKP government tried 'Açilim' which m eant a new phase - liberal phased liquidation

[But] even this created serious cleavages v«thin the ruling classes and now it seems that

they have met again at the old strategy of nationalist total liquidation through force and

violence. (Cited in Cudi [2010:1])

6 Conclusion


19/25

E GRUYTER MOUTON Linguistic genocide in Turkey 93

ing the genocidal process in Turkey has been substantive. For Schulter, it is im-

portant to recognize that:

while

the

European Holocaust

of

1939-1945 against Jews

and

other 'inferior' peoples

rightly serves as an ideal case of genocide, the persecution of... the Kurds under the Turk-

ish Republic, is also genocide in the original and proper sense of the term as coined by the

jurist Raphael Lemkin

. . .

Turkish policy

in

Northern Kurdistan

. . .

might serve

as an ex-

ample

of

the attempted cultural destruction

of

a 'national pattern' by forced . .. 'Turkifica-

tion'. In fact, Lemkin's original description of genocide, with its focus not only on the sys-

tematic slaughter and starvation of the Jews but also on the imposition of the German

language in places such as Luxembourg, might have cited Turkish policy in Northern Kurd-

istan. (Schulter 2000:1)

Today, culturally and linguistically genocidal policies and practices are still in

place and the spectre of physical genocide looms once again (Fernandes 2010a,

2010b). For Havemann (2005: 61): It may be comforting to claim that genocide

was a facet of early/simple/industrial modernity and that it does not happen any

more.

The law, state and dominant culture selectively forget, engaging in histori-

cal denial: they deny the immediacy of genocide and ethnocide or that what went

on in Australia , for example, ought to be described as 'genocide' . However,

modernization has always produced and legitimated atrocities and suffering

In Australia , he concludes - as I do in this article with regard to Turkey - the

apparently 'civilizing' imperatives of modernity... amount to genocide Until

we overcome denial by acknowledging the truth, we can never get to 'the place

called reconciliation' (Havemann 2005: 61, 79).

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