Political Participation of Turkey’s Kurds and Alevis: A Challenge for Turkey’s Democratic Consolidation

Abstract

This paper focuses on the political participation of Turkey’s two largest minorities, the Kurds and the Alevis. It argues that the political participation of Kurds and Alevis is disproportionately weak compared with their population size both for historical reasons and due to state practices. Creating an environment conducive to strong political participation of Turkey’s Kurds and Alevis will comprise a decisive step in the course of Turkey’s transformation from a procedural to a substantive democracy. Political integration of Kurds and Alevis would also mean the removal of a potential source of domestic conflict and enhance the long‐term stability of the Turkish political system.

Notes

[1] For more information on Turkish minority policies, see Alexandris (1983), Yıldız (2001) and Aktar (2000).

[2] The two groups also coalesce, as there are a considerable number of Alevi Zaza‐speaking Kurds in the province of Tunceli.

[3] For further reading on Turkey’s Kurdish question, see Kirişçi and Winrow (2003), Yeğen (2002), Bozarslan (2002), Houston (2001), van Bruinessen (1999), Barkey and Fuller (1998), Gunter (1997), and Olson (1989).

[4] On the tribal nature of Kurdish identity in Turkey, see van Bruinessen (1978).

[5] The case of the Turkish author and columnist Ahmet Altan is characteristic. Altan was found guilty for an article in support of Kurdish rights in Turkey. See Altan (1995).

[6] The fate was similar of three successor parties of the HEP, the Freedom and Democracy Party (Özgürlük ve Demokrasi Partisi‐ÖZDEP), the Democracy Party (Demokrasi Partisi‐DEP) and the People’s Democratic Party (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi‐HADEP), which were shut down in 1993, 1994 and 2003 respectively (Güney 2002: 122–127). The HADEP was succeeded by the Democratic People’s Party (Demokratik Halk Partisi‐DEHAP), which is still in operation.

[7] The term ‘political culture’ is here used as introduced by Almond and Verba (1963).

[8] The migration of a large part of Turkey’s rural Kurdish population from eastern and south‐eastern Turkey to urban centres in the west of the country, part of a gigantic urbanization trend in post‐Second World War Turkey, greatly facilitated state homogenization programmes. These populations, uprooted from their original communities and in need of recognition in their new social environment, were more prone to assimilation.

[9] HADEP won 4.2 per cent of the vote in the 1995 elections and 4.8 per cent in the 1999 elections. Its successor DEHAP won 6.2 per cent in the 2002 elections.

[10] Many of the leading political and military figures in republican Turkey were claimed to be of—at least partial—Kurdish descent, Turgut Özal being the prime example.

[11] Alevis represented heterodox Islam in the Anatolian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Their version of popular Islam comprised a blend of orthodox Sunni Islam with Shiite Islamic, Christian and other local religious and cultural elements. Sunni Muslims classified Alevis as infidels (gâvur), and Alevis were exposed to Ottoman state discrimination, which was positively correlated with the rising role of Sunni Islam as a shaping factor of late Ottoman politics and identity. For more information on Alevis, see Olsson et al. (1998), Melikoff (1999), Kaleli (2000), Erman and Göker (2000), Schüler (2000), Shankland (2001) and Canbakal (2005).

[12] Although estimating the number of Alevis in Turkey is a notoriously difficult task given that dissimulation (takiyye) is a common practice between them, it is believed that Alevis account for 15 to 20 per cent of the Turkish population. Some scholars raise this figure to 25 per cent. See Vorhoff (1995: 32–33) cited by Zeidan (1999: 74).

[13] For more details, see Türkiye İnsan Hakları Vakfı (TİHV) (1997: 194–213).

[14] See for example a series of ten articles on Alevis in the Turkish daily Radikal starting with Ergün and Saymaz (29 January 2006).

[15] Studying Alevi political participation patterns has been complicated by the incidence of Alevi dissimulation. As many Alevis prefer to hide their identity, identifying an Alevi through opinion polls can often become a very arduous task (Çarkoğlu 2005: 281–285).

[16] On the identification of Alevis with the left, see Erman and Göker (2000: 113).

[17] Yet in recent years there has been evidence that Alevi voters have increasingly supported non‐Islamist parties coming from the centre and the centre‐right (Poulton 1997: 254–255).

[18] The ‘National View’, founded in the late 1960s, was the first Islamist political movement in republican Turkey.

[19] When the EU Commission reports used the term ‘minority’ to describe Alevis, it was protested by some Alevi representatives (İstanbul Bürosu 2004). This resulted in the use of the less controversial term ‘community’ in the 2005 EU Commission report (Commission of the European Communities 2005: 29).

[20] On this, see Commission of the European Communities (2005: 134–136; 2004: 164–172) and European Council (2004).