Illegal Ethnicity in Turkey

[Col. Writ. 2/12/02] Copyright 2002 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The modern state of Turkey owes its existence to missteps and fortunes of history. Its allegiance to Germany during the 1st World War was surely a misstep, as it led to a loss of much of its prewar national territory, and, respectively, the loss of its former powers as a seat of empire (Turkey was the heart of the vast Ottoman Empire), and, as well, the renunciation of its spiritual sovereignty as the caliphate of the Islamic world.

For the sake of the newly-organized state, there is fortune in the fact that Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal, repelled Italian, Greek and French military forces, leading to the consolidation of the new Turkey in the early 1920s.

But, it must be said that the Age of Nationalism, while a global phenomenon, had negative effects on those who were deemed somewhat lacking in enthusiasm for the nationalist project. Those ethnic groups seen as outsiders to Turkish nationality were ruthlessly suppressed and scapegoated. The Armenians were split between the Scylla and Charybdis of genocide and exile. The Kurds suffered massacres.

It has been almost a century since Turkey moved from imperial nexus to sovereign nationhood, and old habits of domination seemingly remain. For the Kurds, living in the treacherous borders between Turkey and Iraq, nationalism has been both a promise and a snare.

In 1991, Leyla Zana became the first woman elected to the Turkish Parliament, of Kurdish ethnicity. She took the oath of allegiance in the Turkish tongue, and then added in Kurdish: "I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish people may live peacefully together in a democratic framework." As soon as the words left her mouth, members of parliament erupted in rage at her seemingly inoffensive speech, with cries of, "Traitor!," "Separatist!," and venomous demands to "Arrest her!".

Fortunately, Leyla Zana was protected by parliamentary immunity. Unfortunately, that immunity lasted only as long as she was in Parliament. In March 1994, the Turkish government banned her political party. Zana was immediately placed in detention, as were 3 other Kurdish members of Parliament, and all were charged with treason.

In Turkish law, all expressions of Kurdish ethnicity are ruthlessly suppressed. One of the charges against Zana was that she wore a headband bearing traditional colors of the Kurds at her inauguration. The treason charges were later reduced to membership in an illegal armed opposition group.

In Dec., 1994, all four parliamentarians were convicted, and given 15-year prison terms. On 17 July 2001, the European Court of Human Rights determined that the 4 were denied a fair trial. Not since Winnie Mandela's prosecution for wearing ANC colors has a woman's wardrobe constituted a "crime!".

[Note: Contact Amnesty Int'l; 322 Eighth Ave., N.Y., 10001 -- (212) 807-8400]