The effects of Kobane in the reconfiguration of the popular geopolitical codes of Turkey’s Kurdish movement

ABSTRACT

The attack carried out by Daesh against Kobane in 2014 prompted the mobilization of worldwide media attention and of large crowds protesting across Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast and beyond. This paper examines the potentially transformative effects of this event on the popular geopolitical codes of the Kurdish nationalist movement in Turkey. This is done through a qualitative content analysis of 36 op-ed articles published in the newspapers Evrensel and Özgür Gündem. Three core findings stand out: (a) a constant emphasis on Turkey's alleged links with Daesh, even before Kobane; (b) a boundary deactivation with respect to the US and ‘the West’; and (c) a re-articulation of self-representative frames, which initially relied on post-materialistic arguments and later emphasized security and stability.

KEYWORDS:

• Kurdish movement
• transformative events
• popular geopolitical codes
• frame analysis
• Kobane

Acknowledgements

This article derives from an initial research conducted in 2016 for the final thesis for an M.A. in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies (MEAIC) at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), for which I received a generous grant (Ayudas para el fomento de la investigación en estudios de master - UAM 2015). I would like to express my gratitude to the program's faculty for all that I learnt that year, in particular to my tutor, Carmen Rodriguez López. Her suggestions to connect my initially blurry ideas not only with the literature on collective action but also with geopolitics positively influenced the research project, as well as her encouragement and constructive feedback. This research also benefited from feedback received upon its presentation at two conferences in Lisbon (February 2017) and Santiago de Compostela (September 2017). I would like to thank all participants who commented on those earlier versions, as well as Isabel David and Kumru F. Toktamış -conveners of the Lisbon conference on Turkish Politics- for believing in the paper's potential for publication. I would also like to acknowledge the very constructive comments provided by an anonymous reviewer, which clearly contributed to the improvement of this article. Last, but not least, I want to thank Daniel Rosselló, Özcan Çetin, and Tülay Yılmaz for their generous help with different aspects of the inter-coder reliability tests conducted.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Alejandro Ciordia is a PhD student in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento. He obtained a BA in Law and Political Science and a MA in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies, both at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). His research interests include social movements and collective action, nationalist movements, and Turkish politics. Methodologically he favors multi-method approaches, combining tools such as social network analysis and several forms of sociologically-oriented text analyses. Currently, he is conducting research for his doctoral dissertation on the role of national identity on the relational structures of civil society organizations in the Basque Country.

ORCID

Alejandro Ciordia http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6586-924X

Notes

1. See, among others: Barkey and Fuller, Turkey's Kurdish Question; Bilgin and Sarihan, Understanding Turkey's Kurdish Question; Ergil, “The Kurdish Question in Turkey”; Kirişci and Winrow, The Kurdish Question; and Yeğen, “Turkish Nationalism.”

2. Çakir, “The Problem.”

3. Despite figures sometimes vary according to different sources, this estimation is the most commonly accepted both in the academia and the press. For more detailed statistics up to 2010 see Sarihan, “The Two Periods.”

4. Self-proclaimed as ‘ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām’, translated into English either as the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ or the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.’ The acronyms used to refer to the group range from ISIL, ISIS or IS, to the Arabic form Da'ish or Daesh. In this article the last term will be used, as it ‘has also gained currency, both in the Middle East and further afield, and has been used as a way of challenging the legitimacy of the group due to the negative connotations of the word.’ See, for instance: Irshaid, “Isis, Isil, IS or Daesh?”

5. Kobanî in Kurdish; ʿAyn al-ʿArab in Arabic. In this paper, I will use the term Kobane, as it is the most extended way of spelling in English and the Western media in general -although Kobani is also used- presenting also the most similar pronunciation to the original Kurdish name.

6. McAdam and Sewell, “It's about Time” and Sewell, “Historical Events.”

7. According to estimations provided by UNHCR. See Al Jazeera English, “Kurds Flee.”

8. A Kurdish Islamist party associated with the radical Sunni movement Hizbullah, which does not have any relationship with the famous homonymous Shia organization in Lebanon. More about this group in Gürbüz, “Revitalization of Kurdish Islamic Sphere.”

9. Examples include Álvarez-Ossorio, “Guerra de agotamiento en Siria” and Thornton, “Problems with the Kurds.”

10. See for example Gunes and Lowe, The Impact of the Syrian War; Gunter, “Iraq, Syria, Isis and the Kurds”; Larrabee, “Turkey and the Changing Dynamics”; and Weiss, “From Constructive Engagement.”

11. Carpenter, “Tangled Web,” 5–7, and Lawson, “Syria's Mutating Civil War.”

12. Tank, “Analysis.”

13. Barkey and Fuller, Turkey's Kurdish Question, 49–53, and White, Primitive Rebels, 129–34.

14. Gunter, “The Kurdish Problem in Turkey,” 402 and McDowall, A Modern History, 231–48.

15. della Porta and Diani, Social Movements, 186–88.

16. McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, 333–39; and Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 27–44.

17. For reviews, see Muro, “Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Social Movements”, and Olzak, “Ethnic and Nationalist Social Movements.” Actually, as some authors have pointed out (e.g. Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics), the extended label of ‘social movement literature’ is somewhat misleading, as the field focuses more broadly on various forms of contentious collective action, among which social movements campaigns are one particular subtype. Specifically, social movements can be seen as one particular mode of coordination of collective action (Diani, The Cement of Civil Society). Thus, henceforth, I will refer to this literature subfield with the broader term of ‘literature on collective action’.

18. Muro, “Ethnicity,” 187.

19. Hooghe, “Nationalist Movements,” 21.

20. Using a broad concept of ethnicity, based on the definition proposed by Eriksen (Ethnicity and Nationalism, 8), according to which, diverse features such as race, religion, region, language, or a combination of two or more of them can be used as defining elements of this cultural difference.

21. ‘Peripheral nationalism seeks to bring about national self-determination by separating the nation from its host state.’ Hechter, Containing Nationalism, 70.

22. Kornhauser, Politics of Mass Society, and Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior.

23. McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald, Comparative Perspectives.

24. Sharing the spirit of the synthetic perspective proposed by McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald (Ibid.), which later crystalized in the ‘contentious’ -and contested- proposal put forward by McAdam, Tilly, and Tarrow. See, for example, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, Dynamics of Contention; Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics; and McAdam and Tarrow, “Introduction.”

25. Goodwin and Jasper, Rethinking Social Movements; Jasper, Protest; Johnston and Klandermans, Social Movements and Culture; Ullrich, Daphi, and Baumgarten, “Protest and Culture”; and Williams, “The Cultural Contexts.”

26. ‘Including how we understand our own action and motives, how we signal them to others, how we understand the actions of other, and figure out who we are and who we wish to be.’ Jasper, Protest, x.

27. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes,” 612; Snow et al., “The Emergence, Development, and Future,” 35–6; and Williams, “The Cultural Contexts,” 93.

28. Goffman, Frame Analysis.

29. Snow et al., “Frame Alignment Processes,” 464.

30. della Porta and Diani, Social Movements, 74.

31. Gamson and Meyer, “Framing Political Opportunity.”

32. Melucci, Challenging Codes.

33. Which could be defined as ‘consistent -but not necessarily formal or permanent- dimensions of the political struggle that encourage people to engage in contentious politics.’ Tarrow, Power in Movement, 19–20.

34. An idea that can be summarized as follows: ‘Opportunities may shape or constrain movements, but movements can create opportunities as well.’ See Gamson and Meyer, “Framing Political Opportunity,” 276.

35. McAdam, “Conceptual Origins,” 34–7.

36. Ibid., 34. Italics from the original.

37. Cairo Carou, “Elementos para una geopolítica crítica,” 197.

38. Ibid., 209.

39. Dalby, Creating the Second Cold War.

40. Erşen, “Geopolitical Codes,” 86.

41. Knowledge produced in the academia, think tanks or strategic institutes, in which ideas are systematically organized in theories Cairo Carou, “Elementos para una geopolítica crítica,” 203; and Erşen, “Geopolitical Codes,” 85.

42. Erşen, “Geopolitical Codes,” 85.

43. Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, 56.

44. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes” and Snow and Benford, “Ideology.”

45. Though certainly not the only one. Among the wide array of existing operational definitions of frames, it is necessary to mention two other popular formulations. Gamson (Talking Politics), also within the literature on collective action, has theorized about frames in a slightly different way, identifying their three key frame components: injustice, agency, and identity. Entman (“Framing”), more popular in media and communication studies, distinguished four main domains of frames: problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and treatment recommendation. However, only Snow and Benford's formulation is used in this research, as it is the only one clearly connecting with the concept of geopolitical codes.

46. Although especially media can affect decision making indirectly, as Sharp (“Publishing American Identity,” 503) points out, since ‘elites are also socialized through this site [media] themselves and are thus inclined to write their geopolitics in such a way that they will not irresolvably challenge the common sense of their readership.’ Moreover, in representative democracies, the general public can influence geopolitical decision making indirectly through electoral mechanisms, at least in theory.

47. Mere predictions or recommendations that cannot be realistically implemented in the short term by the addressed actors, and therefore function more as long-term ideal aspirations.

48. della Porta and Diani, Social Movements, 79, 93–8; and Melucci, Challenging Codes.

49. Vicari, “Measuring Collective Action Frames,” 504.

50. See, for instance Johnston, “Verification and Proof” and Lindekilde, “Discourse and Frame Analysis.” As Johnston reasons, by acknowledging the ‘inextricable link between discourses and frames’ one can find that ‘a window of access exists through the spoken words of particulars and written texts of social movement organizations.’ See Johnston, “A Methodology for Frame Analysis,” 218, 221.

51. As mas media constructs geopolitical understandings that jointly derive from elites’ discourses and from ‘bottom-up’ mass understandings. Sharp, “Publishing American Identity,” 493.

52. E.g. Gamson, Talking Politics.

53. Both founded in the 1990s and with headquarters in Istanbul. Özgür Gündem (www.ozgur-gundem.com), meaning ‘Free Agenda’, has always been related to the Kurdish nationalist political movement, even being closed under charges of terrorism (Watts, Activists in Office, 59), most recently in 16 August 2016. Although publications stopped that month, its website is today still accessible outside Turkey. Evrensel (www.evrensel.net), ‘Universal’, has usually voiced its support for Kurdish demands as well, but is distinguished from Özgür Gündem in the adoption of a more ideology-based socialist stand, and less on ethnic grounds. Evrensel is still active.

54. See, for instance Titscher et al., Methods of Text.

55. Holsti, Content Analysis.

56. van Dijk, News As Discourse, 128.

57. Titscher et al., Methods of Text, 242.

58. In this case, we are interested in op-ed articles containing at least one of the following five terms in Turkish: dış politika (foreign policy), Suriye (Syria), DAİŞ (Daesh), Rojava, and Kobane/Kobanı (since it is spelled in both ways). Thus, the following search commands were used in Google Advanced Search:

• site: http://www.evrensel.net/yazi/

  kobanı OR kobane OR rojava OR suriye OR daiş OR ‘dış politika’

• site: http://www.ozgur-gundem.com/yazi/

  kobanı OR kobane OR rojava OR suriye OR daiş OR ‘dış politika’

59. To do so, the advanced search was repeated for the period between July 2012 and January 2014, but since the number of articles exceeded 100 for each newspaper, an extra requisite was introduced: keywords must appear on the title. That way the search returned six op-eds which were added to the initial sample (B*).

60. van Dijk, News As Discourse, 13.

61. Fairclough, Media Discourse, 13.

62. van Dijk, News As Discourse, 76.

63. Actually, here editorial articles function as mere units of data.

64. As each of them contain hierarchically inferior and more specific sub-themes or sub-macropropositions which are not examined in this investigation.

65. Inter-coder reliability (ICR) tests were conducted, comparing the author's coding output with results produced by an independent external coder. The tests conducted show reasonably high levels of reliability (79% agreement; Krippendorff's α = 0.724), surpassing customary thresholds of acceptability for tentative conclusions (Krippendorff, Content Analysis, 141–3). Given the innovative character of the coding scheme and the application of a strict criterion that treated the 14 terminal values as nominal categories, these results should be regarded as quite satisfactory. Further details on the procedures and results can be provided upon request.

66. Bulloch and Morris, No Friends but the Mountains.

67. However, some distinctions can also be made within the macropropositions that identify Turkey as a general enemy, as some focuses more on specific political parties -the governing AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) and the Turkish nationalist MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, Nationalist Movement Party)-, and others more generally on ‘the mainstream Turkish media’.

68. The list of antagonists mentioned at some point is completed with other specific state entities -such as Syria, the KRG, Israel, Saudi Arabia or Qatar-, non-state actors -Gülen movement, the Free Syrian Army, Daesh, al-Qaeda, or the Kurdish Islamist movement of Hizbullah- and vaguely defined groupings -such as ‘imperialist powers’, ‘the West’, or ‘colonizing forces’.

69. Since the ‘relationship with those who find themselves in a neutral position’ is also of great importance to the study of social movements’ frames and identities. della Porta and Diani, Social Movements, 94.

70. Which of course always attach positive values to Syrian Kurds.

71. Inglehart, The Silent Revolution.

72. Following the contentious politics perspective, we conceive processes as composed by smaller-scale mechanisms. From this point of view, ‘mechanisms are events that produce the same immediate effects over a wide range of circumstances’, while ‘processes assemble mechanisms into combinations and sequences that produce larger-scale effects than any particular mechanism causes by itself’. Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 214.

73. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes,” 618–22.

74. Resonance can be succinctly defined as ‘effectiveness or mobilizing potency of proffered framings’. Ibid., 619.

75. Ibid., 623–27.

76. Snow, “Framing Processes,” 393–94.

77. ‘Frame articulation involves the connection and alignment of events and experiences so that they hand together in a relatively unified and compelling fashion.’ Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes,” 623.

78. ‘The frame amplification process involves accenting and highlighting some issues, events, or beliefs as being more salient than others’ Ibid.

79. Features (b) and (c) can also vary, but through strategic and/or contested processes.

80. Pusane, “Turkey’s Kurdish Opening.”

81. Ünal, “Is it ripe yet?,” 108–9.

82. ‘Decrease in the salience of the us-them distinction separating two political actors.’ Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 215.

83. Uluğ and Cohrs, “An Exploration,” 115–16.

84. Ünal, “Is it Ripe Yet?”

85. Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 215.

86. The association of Turkey and other enemies with radical Islamist positions is also a constant throughout the time period covered. This resonates well with hegemonic Western discourses against ‘radical Islamist terrorism’, which might have made the ideological boundary deactivation towards the US somewhat easier.

87. Lavine, Cobb, and Roussin, “When Saying Less.”

88. ‘An external authority's signal of its readiness to recognize and support the existence and claims of a political actor.’ Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 215.

89. Watts, Activists in Office, 34–43, and White, Primitive Rebels, 129–61.

90. ‘The apparent fit between the framings and events in the world’. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes,” 620.

91. Ibid., 628.

92. Sewell, “Historical Events.”

93. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes”; Johnston, “Verification and Proof”; and Snow, “Framing Processes.”

94. In the sense that no previous advanced linguistic knowledge is required, following the spirit of Titscher et al. (Methods of Text, 5–19) and Fairclough (Analysing Discourse, 1–16).