• DOI:10.1080/00263206.2011.652778
• Corpus ID: 53584439

Ethnic Groups at ‘Critical Junctures’: The Laz vs. Kurds

@article{Sarigil2012EthnicGA,
  title={Ethnic Groups at ‘Critical Junctures’: The Laz vs. Kurds},
  author={Zeki Sarigil},
  journal={Middle Eastern Studies},
  year={2012},
  volume={48},
  pages={269 - 286}
}

• Zeki Sarigil
• Published 24 February 2012
• Political Science
• Middle Eastern Studies

The Turkish Republic emerged onto the world stage as a secular and centralized nation state in the early 1920s from the remnants of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual Ottoman Empire. The newly created nation state was established on the bedrock of Turkish nationalism. However, there are numerous ethnic groups in the country. Among these, the Kurds constitute the second largest ethnic group after the Turks. Since its initiation, the Republic has encountered strong Kurdish ethnonationalism in both violent and peaceful forms. For instance, during the 1920s and 1930s, the Republic was contested by several Kurdish revolts with strong ethnoreligious elements. Major rebellions were: Shaykh Said (1925); A grı (1930); and Dersim (Tunceli) (1937–38). In the mid-1980s, an armed conflict emerged between the security forces and the separatist PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party, Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan). In the 1990s, the Kurdish movement led by the PKK became more ethnonationalist and also much more violent. For instance, from 1984 to 1999 the number of people killed is estimated to be more than 30,000 (half of them PKK members, one-quarter civilians and one-quarter security members) and the cost of fighting during this period was hundreds of billions of dollars. Besides these violent formations and movements, the country has also witnessed the founding and eventual closure of successive pro-Kurdish political parties operating within the Turkish political system in the last two decades. The major ones were the People’s Labour Party (HEP, 1990–93); the Democracy Party (DEP, 1993– 94); the People’s Democracy Party (HADEP, 1994–2003); the Democratic Society Party (DTP, 2005–9). These parties were accused of involvement in separatist activities and fomenting propaganda against the indivisible unity of the state’s people and its territory and of helping the separatist PKK. As a result, they were banned by the Constitutional Court. Although Kurdish ethnonationalism has been one of the biggest challenges to the Turkish state and democracy in the last three decades, it is difficult to observe any similar movement within other groups such as the Laz, a distinct ethnic group of Caucasian origin mostly living at the eastern end of Turkey’s Black Sea shore in the coastal lowlands, especially in the provinces of Rize and Artvin. Large numbers of the Laz also reside in western provinces such as Bolu, Bursa, Istanbul, Kocaeli, Sakarya and Zonguldak and in Western Europe, especially in Germany. Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, 269–286, March 2012