Mehmet Gurses - Anatomy of a Civil War: Sociopolitical Impacts of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

Anatomy of a Civil War demonstrates the destructive nature of war, ranging from the physical destruction to a range of psychosocial problems to the detrimental effects on the environment. Despite such horrific aspects of war, evidence suggests that civil war is likely to generate multilayered outcomes. To examine the transformative aspects of civil war, Mehmet Gurses draws on an original survey conducted in Turkey, where a Kurdish armed group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has been waging an intermittent insurgency for Kurdish self-rule since 1984. Findings from a probability sample of 2,100 individuals randomly selected from three major Kurdish-populated provinces in the eastern part of Turkey, coupled with insights from face-to-face in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals affected by violence, provide evidence for the multifaceted nature of exposure to violence during civil war. Just as the destructive nature of war manifests itself in various forms and shapes, wartime experiences can engender positive attitudes toward women, create a culture of political activism, and develop secular values at the individual level. Nonetheless, changes in gender relations and the rise of a secular political culture appear to be primarily shaped by wartime experiences interacting with insurgent ideology.

Mehmet Gurses is Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University.

Mehmet Gurses

University of Michigan Press

Ann Arbor

Copyright 2018 by Mehmet Gurses
All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America by the
University of Michigan Press

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gurses, Mehmet, author.

Title: Anatomy of a civil war : sociopolitical impacts of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey / Mehmet Gurses.
Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018021268 (print) | LCCN 2018029536 (ebook) | ISBN 9780472124282 (E-book) | ISBN 9780472131006 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: KurdsTurkeyPolitics and government. | KurdsTurkeyHistoryAutonomy and independence movements. | Partiya Karkeren KurdistaneHistory. | TurkeyPolitics and government1980 | TurkeyEthnic relations. | InsurgencyCase studies. | Civil warsCase studies. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General. |POLITICAL SCIENCE / Peace. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Womens Studies. Classification: LCC DR435.K87 (ebook) | LCC DR435.K87 G886 2018 (print) | DDC 956.1/00491597dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021268

To

T. David Mason, a great mentor and a true scholar,

and Sosin for her enduring love...

Over the course of the past four decades, much has changed in Turkey and the Middle East. Despite a dubious beginning, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which in the 1970s could best be described as just another Kurdish group formed by a few adventurous college students, has managed to grow into one of the most powerful substate actors in Turkey and beyond. It has come to present the most serious challenge to the Turkish state since its foundation in 1923. Moreover, through the PKKs offshoots or groups it has inspired in neighboring Syria and Iraq, it has become the United States most effective on-the-ground ally in the fight against radical Islamism.

Significantly, it has become a social movement industry, engendering several nonviolent organizations at both the local and national levels. It has given rise to the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), which received support from millions of Kurds as well as a minority of Turkish liberals and leftists in the June 7, 2015 elections, and won 80 seats in the 550-seat national assembly. Its fraternal party, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), swept the polls in the Kurdish-dominated East in the 2014 municipal elections. The insurgency has also stimulated a number of womens groups with radical feminist agendas and has laid the groundwork for local committees to be formed and effectively participate in their localities. This book is an attempt to explore the social and political outcomes of the PKK insurgency that has fundamentally changed the Kurdish society. In a larger sense, however, Anatomy of a Civil War is about the transformative aspects of armed conflict, and I thus hope to tie the Kurdish case to the larger literature on war and change.

Page x While the journey of this book has been long and arduous, it has also been life-changing for me. This has been a work in the making for quite some time as I was struggling to make sense of my own personal transformation. Over the past few years, as I revisited Kurdish cities and towns in eastern Turkey, conversed with hundreds of people who suffered because of the armed conflict, listened to personal, intimate, touching, and painful stories of many who had lost their daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, or friends, I came to realize that the conflict dynamics have created an insistent personality, demanding, not begging, for justice, in spite of the physical and psychosocial costs the three-decade insurgency has produced. Importantly, Kurdish women who not so long ago were largely absent from the public life had risen to be mayors, parliamentarians, party leaders, and fighters. They were asserting themselves not just as Kurds but also as women. Religion was being redefined; fewer people were referring to Islam in identifying themselves. People from all walks of life, educated and illiterates and urbanities and peasants alike, were constantly making references to such modern concepts as democracy, liberty, and gender equality. Despite, at times, the lack of a deep understanding of what such concepts actually entailed, this picture was emerging from a region where unspeakable atrocities were being committed on a daily basis at the hands of sworn enemies of the above-mentioned notions, radical Islamists.

First and foremost, I am appreciative of the dozens of Kurdish women and men who agreed to share their painful experiences with me. Listening to their stories was both difficult and transformational. As the words fail to properly convey my gratitude, I respectfully take a bow before your pain and resolve.

This research project would not have been possible without the invaluable help and contributions of many I proudly deem as my mentors, colleagues, and friends. While I received no major external grants for this research, I was fortunate to obtain some internal support from my institution, Florida Atlantic University. Specifically, the sabbatical leave I was granted in Fall semester 2015 provided me with the time necessary to refine my arguments and travel to Canada, Belgium, and Turkey to gather face-to-face interview data.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to two individuals, Zeki Mert and Erdogan Atas, who through their financial contributions facilitated this project. In fact, they, as two individuals who have been victimized by the very same conflict, typify the positive outcomes depicted in this book. Zeki Mert, who arrived in Canada as a refugee in the late 1990s, serves as an example of suffering-turned-strength. Zeki, a family man, father of three children, has Page xi built a successful business in Toronto. Whereas Erdogan, despite a humble beginning and against all odds, has launched a lucrative business in the United States. Without their generous assistance, this journey would have been longer and more laborious.