Recent arrests in London reveal a vital need for cross-cultural solidarity against ethno-nationalism
Leyla Reynolds
In the early hours of Wednesday 27th November, seven people were arrested by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command for suspected activity linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party known as the PKK. The raid, which took place at home addresses and a Kurdish community centre across North London represents a worrying level of collaboration from the British government in the policing of Kurdish activism. This follows a pattern felt across Europe over the past twelve months and is being described as an “orchestrated” attempt at repression.
But this isn’t an isolated spate of attacks on the Kurdish community. The recent arrests are part of a historic pattern of persecution from Turkey against the Kurdish people. Since the foundation of Turkey’s republic in 1923, the nation has has long denied, as well as actively erased the presence of ethnic minorities as a mode of supposedly strengthening its claim to the region following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
In a similar way to Israel’s ‘ethno-religious state’ proscribing a home to the Jewish people, Turkey’s ethno-state model argues that the Turkic people have a birthright that surpasses all other ethnic groups' claims to the land. The state has used a wide variety of different methods to reinforce this, including a commitment to the exclusion, marginalisation, or assimilation of minority ethnic groups, as well as a refusal to acknowledge any separate identity of the Kurdish minority.
Kurds are regularly referred to in official communications as ‘Mountain Turks’ and the Kurdish language was for a time banned in Turkish schools. The erasure of minority groups who are not deemed Turkish has been, and remains extensive and insidious. And this erasure is not confined to the unofficially largest minority in the country. There exist many racialised groups in Turkey including (but not limited to): Alevis, Assyrians, Jews, Caferis, Causcasians, Kurds, Laz, Yazidis, Roma, Armenians, Afro-Turks, Arabs, Syrian minority refugees and Yezidis (Ezidis).
As a dual British-Turkish citizen of Trinidadian, Turkish and English heritage I’ve been surprised at how my own difference manifested on trips to Turkey. When I was in a busy area a well-meaning shopkeeper would sometimes ask “Arap?” by way of making conversation. I initially took this at face-value - albeit a little confusedly: Arab wasn’t an ethnicity I was usually mistaken for. After a quick Google search I found out that 1) in Ottoman Turkish this meant a person of dark complexion due to the fact that a lot of Arab colonies were in Northern Africa. 2) That it was often used to refer to the estimated 20,000 afro-Turkish population. 3) And that it was usually prefixed with the pejorative ‘dirty’.
Whilst President Erdogan has played a significant role in heightening tensions between minorities and the Turkic majority (he was once described as a “vociferous opponent of Kurdish demands for more rights”), experiences like my own indicate that there has been a long running project of hostility towards the perceived other.
In 1923 the Republic of Turkey was formed and the country suddenly only had 85% of the territory the Ottoman Empire had previously held and was looking for ways to secure its influence. All Muslims were catergorised as Turks and non-Muslims gained became second-class citizens. Efforts to strengthen the Turkish national identity encouraged conformity and ethnic cleansing became rife; non-Turkish names and minority languages in schools were banned. When the PKK emerged in 1978 the project of Turkification was far in motion, and the state was quick to criminalise the party activists and their resistance.
So why is the British state now carrying out Turkey’s policy of aggressive ethno-nationalism from overseas? Whilst the PKK have been branded a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and UK, their reputation among many younger Turkish demographics is of a liberation group fighting for the elevation of minority rights in the face of systemic discrimination. Is it any wonder that the Section 60 Counter-Terrorism Act under which the seven were arrested is the same act that is being used en masse to deter pro-Palestine protesters? It’s the same act that allows police to stop and search young black men they’ve racially profiled without any clear reason why. Once again, the British government is complicitly enabling discriminatory policy towards those most marginalised minorities, and suppressing the rights of Kurdish people in the process.
In the last few days Erdögan appears to be signalling an olive branch to the Kurdish community, with noises of an early release for PKK founding member Abdullah Öcalan sounding around Ankara government buildings. However, directly following an extensive purge of Kurdish mayors in southeastern Turkey, messages appear mixed. Skeptics suggest the change of heart to be a calculated move from Erdogan to win votes ahead of the next presidential election.
On Sunday 1st December demonstrators marched from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall in a display of solidarity with those detained last month. A repeated chant from the community over the past week has been “Resistance is not terror”. These latest arrests show us that our struggle against ethno-nationalism is shared and that cross-cultural solidarity is vital to its resistance.
Join the demonstration at 6PM, this Tuesday 3rd December at Turnpike Lane Station, to support the Kurdish hunger strike, stop UK complicity with Turkey and defend Rojava.
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