http://www.thenewanatolian.com/opinion-18265.html
The revival of Kurdish Islamism? Onder Aytac & Emre Uslu 17 November 2006 Kurdish Islamism in Turkey and in northern Iraq appears to be resurfacing. Unlike Kurdish nationalists' and Western intellectuals' efforts to portray Kurdish identity as a secular identity, the reality on the ground tells a different story. As a sociological reality, Nakshibendi and Kadiri networks have always been part of the Kurdish social structure. No matter how Western intellectuals portray it, Islam is the main ingredient of Kurdish identity. Recently, we have seen some reports on Kurdish Islam in Turkey. Yet this is not a new phenomenon. In January last year, a Washington based think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, reported that Kurdish Hizbullah is reviving. How this happened isn't complicated to understand. The Washington Institute reported that in the early 2000s, in a series of police raids, a total of nearly 6,000 Hizbullah members were arrested. Although these operations represented a serious setback for Hizbullah, the organization still remains intact. Hizbullah estimates its current strength at 20,000 sympathizers. But Turkish counterterrorism experts believe the true figure is substantially larger. Under the new leadership of Isa Altsoy, a Turkish Kurd living in Germany, the organization has withdrawn from violence to reestablishing grassroots support (in doctrinal terms, this represents a retreat to the teblig -- propaganda -- stage). Hizbullah is conducting publicity, fundraising, and recruitment operations aimed at the Kurdish diaspora in Europe as well as in Turkey. It is printing books and publishing magazines in Turkey and Europe, and has opened new bookstores in eastern Turkey. Recent intelligence information suggests that the adult populations of many villages throughout Turkey's Kurdish southeast are almost universally Hizbullah sympathizers. Recently, Hizbullah activists managed to organize a demonstration of an estimated 100,000 people in Diyarbakir to protest the notorious Danish Prophet Muhammed cartoons. (Although most of the demonstrators were neither members nor sympathizers of Hizbullah, the legal wings of Hizbullah were the principal organizers of the demonstration. These legal entities, organized as non-governmental organizations, include a human rights association which defends the rights of Hizbullah members in prisons.) In contrast, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been able to muster only a few thousand people for its demonstrations in the southeast's largest city. Recent reports show that Hizbullah may form a political party. What we and other observers believe is that if Hizbullah or another Kurdish Islamist group forms a political party, the secular Kurdish nationalist parties will have no chance of winning any election. For this very reason, pro-PKK Democratic Society Party (DTP) members have started asking for "secular cooperation" with the state. According to a Diyarbakir representative of the DTP, "If the state doesn't want to cooperate with the DTP, the Kurdish Islamists may get stronger." Another factor is that if the PKK continues its terror, the DTP may lose their political support to a Kurdish Islamist party or an Islamist party that cooperates with Kurdish Islamists. These developments may take Kurdish nationalism to a new stage, similar to a Hamas-type formation. If we analyze the Hamas experience closely, we see that its two components resonate in Kurdish Islamist nationalism. As in the case of Hamas, the existence of Israel is considered the "external other." Although it isn't comparable to Israeli troops' presence in Palestine, which are seen as invaders, to a certain extent the Turkish forces in southeastern Anatolia are considered by the Kurdish Islamists and nationalists their "external other." Moreover, just as the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) secularist stance is rejected by Hamas, which is seen as the "internal other," similarly Islamist Kurdish organizations, especially Kurdish Hizbullah, have rejected the PKK's secularist Kurdish nationalist stance, treating it as the "internal other." Furthermore, not surprisingly, whereas the PKK has sympathy toward the PLO, Hizbullah's sympathy goes to Hamas. Lately Islamic wedding ceremonies have become good indicators of rising Kurdish Islamism. In an interesting development, Hizbullah has been organizing wedding ceremonies in the region for propaganda purposes, bringing together thousands of participants. Moreover, pro-Islamist associations are opening branches even in the smallest towns, where they are able to garner significant support. In Diyarbakir alone, hundreds of associations operate. The question that begs an answer is why the Islamist Kurds aren't visible in the public sphere. Why these developments aren't reflected in everyday politics can be answered in two ways. First, there is no political party that pursues Islamist Kurdish nationalism. The observers we have talked to in the region tell us that an Islamist Kurdish political party would easily defeat secularist Kurdish political parties. Kurdish Islamists themselves also see such a development as being inevitable in the near future. Second, in the March 2004 municipal elections, despite forming a coalition with a minor left-wing party, the now-defunct pro-Kurdish political party Democratic People's Party's (DEHAP) share of the vote fell to 4.9 percent. It held onto the mayor's office in Diyarbakir, but lost stronghold cities, such as Bingol, Siirt, Van, Mus, and Agri. Thanks to its close associations with some permanent Kurdish Islamists, the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party won these municipalities. Beside other factors, the AK Party's Islamist identity and its Kurdish connections played an important role in winning the elections in these Kurdish cities. These developments aren't unique to Turkey. In northern Iraq, too, Kurdish Islamists have managed to garner significant grassroots support. No matter how Kurdish nationalists and Western experts, most of whom are hired by the Kurdish groups anyway, portray the Kurds as a secular nation, it is a nation that has strong Islamic elements in its culture. There's nothing wrong with the Kurds having strong Islamic sentiments in their identity. But there are Islamist Kurdish groups capitalizing on these sentiments to create a Hamas-type Kurdish nationalism. So far, the Islamic groups have taken significant steps in this direction. But Western intellectuals, either deliberately or through misreading the facts, have ignored this development. Can we consider this development a fundamentalist development? We don't think so. After our analysis, some may try to use these developments as "evidence" of fundamentalism, but this is more about an identity shift from secular Kurdish nationalism to Islamist Kurdish nationalism. The main reason for this shift is the state's failure to provide security and fully functional free market economic policies. We're afraid that some circles will try to implement their well-known but ineffective strategies to "solve" this fundamentalism problem, which would make it worse. There should be a comprehensive, democratic, and civilian plan to solve the Kurdish problem, whether caused by secularist or Islamist Kurdish camps. 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