Rival Kurdish Movements in Turkey, Transforming Ethnic Conflict

Excerpt

Recent years have seen an explosion of protest movements around the world,
and academic theories are racing to catch up with them. This series aims to
further our understanding of the origins, dealings, decisions, and outcomes
of social movements by fostering dialogue among many traditions of thought,
across European nations and across continents. All theoretical perspectives are
welcome. Books in the series typically combine theory with empirical research,
dealing with various types of mobilization, from neighborhood groups to
revolutions. We especially welcome work that synthesizes or compares different
approaches to social movements, such as cultural and structural traditions,
micro- and macro-social, economic and ideal, or qualitative and quantitative.
Books in the series will be published in English. One goal is to encourage nonnative speakers to introduce their work to Anglophone audiences. Another is to
maximize accessibility: all books will be available in open access within a year
after printed publication.

Quotes

Highlights

• People began to hear the term “deep state” after a traffic accident in the small town of Susurluk in northwestern Turkey in 1996. Three of the four passengers in the luxury car died at the scene. Revelation of the occupants’ identities became a milestone event as it publicly revealed a peculiar network for the first time. Those who died were (1) an ultranationalist hit man on Interpol’s Red list, (2) his mistress who carried a fake identity certificate, and (3) the former deputy head of the Istanbul Police Department. And finally, the survivor was a deputy in the Grand Turkish National Assembly and the leader of a Kurdish village guard clan. The Susurluk accident triggered a massive public reaction and introduced a new political term derin devlet, the deep state.7

• Fast forward to November 2005 when a defector from the PKK employed as an informant by the security forces and two officers of the local gendarmerie bombed a local bookstore in Şemdinli, revealing that some army officers illegally target PKK sympathizers.8 The state prosecutor linked high-ranking military officers to the incident, including General Yaşar Büyükanıt (later the chief of the general staff) who had served in the region in the late 1990s. The prosecutor’s indictment pointed out that the bombing “was part of a series of similar attacks intended to provoke the security forces into a clampdown on the restive Kurdish region that would then unleash European criticism and jeopardize Turkey’s hopes of joining the EU.”

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