Battling with Memleket in London: The Kurdish Diaspora's Engagement with Turkey

Abstract

Since the late 1980s there has been a significant migration of Kurds from Turkey to various countries in Western Europe. Even though Kurds from Turkey make up a significant proportion of London's ethnic minority population, they constitute an ‘invisible’ diasporic community, both in terms of the current debates surrounding ethnicity and the Muslim minority in the UK, and in diaspora studies. This article examines how the Kurdish diaspora interacts with, and relates to, their country of origin. It highlights their resistance to, and struggle with, Turkey (as defined by their displacement and suppression of cultural and linguistic rights) as well as the close and, at times, intimate ties Kurds continue to maintain with Turks and Turkey. Whilst the first is conceptualised as ‘battling with Turkey’, the latter is conceptualised within the framework of ‘memleket’ (homeland) ties. The article explores how the Kurdish diaspora encodes its orientation towards, as well as its resistance to, Turkey; in so doing, it brings visibility to this largely ignored and understudied, yet politically very active, diasporic formation in London.

Keywords:

• Battle
• Diaspora
• Kurds
• Memleket
• Turkey
• London

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research conducted during a sabbatical with the financial support of a ‘Seed Grant’ from the Department of Sociology, University of Leicester. I would like to thank the Kurdish and Turkish community in London for their contributions and generosity.

Notes

1. This article specifically focuses on Kurds from Turkey. In the remainder of the article, when I refer to ‘Kurds’, I mean Kurds from Turkey who are living in London.

2. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

3. For various reports of this conflict see Human Rights Watch (2010), http://www.hrw.org/en/publications/reports/218/related?page=-1, accessed 15 August 2010.

4. Not all those who ‘left’ Turkey have been politically active, mobilised and oriented towards what they see as injustices in Turkey. For a comparison, see Toktaş 2007 on Jews who migrated from Turkey to Israel.

5. See Eccarius-Kelly (2002) for a discussion of legislative pressures and political lobbying applied by Kurds (usually ones based in Germany) to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

6. For a discussion of the role of Kurdish diasporic activism in the shaping of the Kurdish movement in Turkey see Lyon and Uçarer (2001); Østergaard-Nielsen (2001); Van Bruinessen (1998).

7. Suppression of the Kurdish language, as well as assimilation strategies in Turkey, mean that Turkish is not only used extensively by ordinary Kurds in London, but ‘somewhat ironically, Turkish is often the common language of Kurdish political mobilization’ (Houston 2004: 412).

8. Due to village evacuations, as well as urbanisation, Istanbul has become the city with the biggest Kurdish population in the world with the ‘western’ parts of Turkey also possessing a sizable Kurdish population (Saraçoğlu 2010; Van Bruinessen 1998).

9. The official census in Turkey does not include data on Kurdish ethnicity or on Alevis.

10. According to the estimates of the Alevi Religious Centre (Cemevi) in London, 80 per cent of those from Turkey are Alevi; and of those, 70 per cent are Kurds.

11. For a discussion of the Alevi movement and identity in diaspora, see Massicard (2003) who focuses on Alevis in Germany.

12. As was pointed out by some of the Kurds in London, in their denial of, and/or non-engagement with, politicised Kurds in the UK, the Turkish authorities problematise ‘battling’ and do not sufficiently recognise the Kurdish diaspora's ‘memleket’ ties.

13. For a discussion on the low levels of educational attainment amongst the Kurdish and Turkish community in London see Enneli et al. (2005), Greater London Authority (2009) and Issa (2004). Enneli et al. (2005: 53) argue that ‘Young Turkish-speaking-origin people are also among the most disadvantaged groups in multicultural London. … There is little life beyond the kebab shops’.