Kurdology in Turkey: Barometer of the “Peace Process” (Part 2)

[Read Part 1 of the article here.]

Episode Two: From Living Languages to Kurdish Language Education

Amidst these discussions within and reactions coming from different political circles, MAU opened a Kurdish Language and Literature Department in June 2011.[1] It was the first institution in Turkey to offer undergraduate degrees in the Kurdish language. The department expressed its mission as “contributing to the much-neglected field of Kurdish Language and Literature and meeting the public need for Kurdish specialists,” and it would offer courses on different dialects of Kurdish.[2] Along with fulfilling the demands of the university administration, the opening of an undergraduate program in the Kurdish language also reflected the government’s frequent references to Kurdish language education within the context of the peace process. By 2010, government representatives were indicating that there were no legal barriers to offering Kurdish as an elective course in secondary education.[3]

Though language and education lay at the heart of the peace process discussion, the state and Kurdish supporters had totally different views towards these issues. From the Kurdish perspective, the question was perceived and formulated as one of education in Kurdish (i.e., education in one’s native language). The government, however, framed and touted the issue as only being about teaching Kurdish through elective courses. This difference in approach was not just technical. As Çiçek pointed out, the government’s policy was to discuss the question on the basis of granting “individual” rights, while the Kurdish side demanded that the government recognize the linguistic and cultural rights of Kurds on a “collective” basis.[4]

The nature and fate of Kurdish language education were intrinsically tied to universities’ ability to train language instructors who could in turn teach Kurdish in secondary schools. Seen in this light, the opening of BA and MA programs in Kurdish at MAU could potentially be a positive step towards offering Kurdish on a larger scale, particularly when taken together with Bingöl University’s opening of a one-year non-thesis master’s program in Kurdish language education in the summer of 2012.[5] Shortly after the opening of the department at MAU, the director of the program, Professor Kadri Yıldırım, said that he saw “elective Kurdish courses [in secondary education] as one significant building block towards education in the mother-tongue.”[6] Acknowledging the long history of obstacles before the Kurdish language in Turkey, both Yıldırım and the instructors of the program, all of whom are native Kurdish speakers, saw this as an opportunity. One instructor who expressed his endorsement of elective Kurdish courses also stated that “Kurdish definitely has to be the language of instruction in primary schools. This problem [the Kurdish Question] can only be solved through bi-lingual education. We are training teachers who would teach Kurdish.”[7] Apparently, there was a common belief amongst the instructors and faculty that, with the change in the state’s policy, Kurdish education had become legitimate and that it provided job opportunities for many people. The words of one instructor are worth quoting at length here to show the emerging positive sentiment about Kurdish university programs:

I am from Lice in Diyarbakir. In the 1990s, it was considered a crime to be Kurdish, and to speak and write in Kurdish. Currently, I take so much pleasure in teaching Kurdish language and literature in an official institution of the state. It is particularly enjoyable to make money from [teaching] Kurdish.[8]

The general expectation of the participants in the program was to be appointed by the state as Kurdish language teachers. Statements by the director of the institute about the newly opened master’s program further inflated expectations among the enrollees that they would be appointed Kurdish language teachers after graduation. He stated that, in a year, these students would be appointed as Kurdish teachers, adding that “bright futures are ahead of these thousand [enrollees]. As a matter of fact, Kurdish has now become the bread and butter [for people].”[9]

Stalemate and Resistance

As soon as the program in Kurdish education commenced at Artuklu, problems with the technical details emerged. The first issue concerned the program’s quota (i.e., how many students could enroll in the program in total annually). Apparently, the Higher Education Council did not approve the quota of five hundred students that was suggested by the university. There was also the question of the required teaching credentials of the applicants to the program. In order to be employed as a Kurdish teacher, the applicants needed to have training in pedagogy in education. Two hundred and thirty-four applicants who did not have this training at the time of application were not allowed to simultaneously acquire this training thereby preventing them from getting teaching positions. Tension over these obstacles reached the point that the university administration issued a statement emphasizing the significant role the university played in the peace process and put a temporary hold on admissions:

We were pioneers in adopting the language pillar of the democratic opening and we tried to achieve a first. Without a doubt, the most important pillar of the democratic opening is the step towards using Kurdish gradually in education. As the Kurdology section of the Mardin Artuklu University, we have decided to endorse this step.[10]

The university’s statements were anything but haughty. They did stand at the center of multiple discourses regarding the Kurdish opening. As mentioned before, for the government, the Kurdish program at Artuklu was a symbol of its “genuine” desire to promote the Kurdish language. Notwithstanding the ups and downs of the negotiations between the government and the PKK and the realities of the Kurdish opening, the government would routinely and arrogantly refer to the MAU’s Kurdology program as a product of its munificence. When the Kurdish opening was resumed in 2013, following a few years of setbacks, prime minister Erdogan gave a speech in Mardin heralding the beginning of (another) new era of armistice. His government, Erdogan said, “ended the policies of denial and assimilation,” and he reminded people that they achieved a first by offering elective Kurdish courses and training five hundred students as prospective Kurdish teachers.[11]

For the Kurdish political movement, however, the problems in the implementation illustrated the government’s hypocritical position regarding Kurdish language education. The AKP’s program for training the Kurdish teachers was a “hoax” or a “joke.”[12] This impression was further strengthened when, in two years, the graduates of the program were not appointed as teachers. Contrary to what the university administration thought and what the government promised when they received their degrees, the majority of the new Kurdish instructors joined the ranks of teachers without government appointment—a chronic problem in Turkey over the last few decades. In the past, the graduates of teaching programs in primary and secondary education were almost without exception guaranteed jobs in public schools. With the arrival of neoliberal policies, which envisioned a shrunken public sector, most of these graduates were not appointed by the government and were deprived of permanent teaching positions. Instead, the government filled teaching posts with temporary and part-time positions. As such, there emerged the problem of “non-appointed teachers” (ataması yapılmayan öğretmenler). As of 2014, there were more than three hundred thousand “teachers” who were still awaiting an appointment.[13] From time to time, these non-appointed teachers would organize demonstrations, appeal to the government, and try to sway public opinion in search of redress.

In 2013 and 2014, Mardin Artuklu University, along with Diyarbakır Dicle, Bingöl University, and Muş Alpaslan Universities, had awarded 1,500 degrees in Kurdish education—with 900 of them from Artuklu.[14] Now, Kurdish teachers were to share the same fate as others in terms of having a degree granted by a public university that failed to yield government employment as a teacher. But there was also something unique about the situation of the graduates of the Kurdology program. Their appointment would have meant that Kurdish would have to be offered in primary and secondary education (albeit as an elective course). The government’s failure to appoint them reflected its unwillingness to make room for Kurdish instruction in Turkish schools. Hence, the graduates took the matter into their own hands by appealing to the government to open up more positions for Kurdish teachers. They organized demonstrations and gave press statements. On the one hand, just like teachers in other fields who were not appointed, they wanted an opportunity to be employed and apply their skills. On the other hand, they framed the problem in a way that highlighted the organic connection between their problems and the ongoing discussions about the question of education in one’s native language. Their non-appointment was directly linked to the government’s reticence to offer Kurdish courses at primary and secondary schools and the larger question of the significance of one’s native language in one’s identity. The banners they carried with messages such as “Zimanê min nasnameye min e” (“My language is my identity”) and the slogans they chanted, including “Bê ziman jiyan nabe,” (“No life without language”), reflected this sentiment. One of the spokespeople for the teachers made it clear that Kurdish teachers’ pleas were directly tied to the “native language question”:

We think that elective Kurdish courses offered at [primary and secondary] schools are important; but that the Kurdish teachers who were trained at university to teach such courses have not still been appointed indicates a neglect of this issue. Native language is our red line.[15]

They stated that the seriousness of the government’s approach to the Kurdish teachers’ predicament would be put to the test in the peace process.[16] They also pointed out that the government was not facilitating the offering of elective Kurdish courses either through negligence or deliberate interference. In some schools, students were not allowed to take Kurdish electives under the pretext that there were no Kurdish teachers to teach the course—even though it was incumbent upon the government to appoint these teachers.

In late August 2014, discontented graduates at MAU went on a hunger strike to make their voices heard by the government. They had four demands: First, to have Kurdish become a language of education; second, to grant the Kurdish language a constitutional guarantee; third, to have Kurdish become the second official language of the government; and finally, to appoint Kurdish teachers to permanent positions, which they said was a necessary first step in the fulfillment of the first three.[17]

Both the graduates and the university administration knew that their prospects in teaching Kurdish were tied to the path of the peace process.[18] Their demands went beyond the limited framework offered by the government (i.e., elective Kurdish courses) and entailed granting the Kurdish language a legal and institutional framework. The extent of their political horizon was shaped by two factors. Some of the graduates seeking employment had already been active in the political struggle concerning the recognition of Kurdish linguistic rights. Hence, in a way, their demand to be appointed as teachers was one phase in a long political struggle for which some of them had previously served prison terms. Secondly, the Kurdish program itself and the discussions about offering elective courses at schools came to the fore during negotiations between the PKK and the Turkish state. Thus, the Kurdology graduates’ protest was directed at these political discussions. Hence, it was only natural that their plea found a voice in the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Even before the problem of the Kurdology graduates’ appointment emerged, HDP deputies took it upon themselves to bring the issues related to Kurdology departments to the parliament. When there was a clash over the admission requirements between the university and YÖK, HDP deputies requested a parliamentary inquiry.[19] For them, the predicament of the MAU Kurdology graduates was a reflection of the government’s general cultural and linguistic policies of denying Kurdish rights.[20] They argued that this was a violation of the equality principle and a continuation of the Turkish state’s long-standing policy of imposing the Turkish language and identity on its Kurdish citizens.[21] At around the same time, the government was discussing how to make Ottoman a required course in primary and secondary schools. This was further proof of the government’s insincerity on the question of the Kurdish courses. The government was making the offering of Kurdish courses, even as electives, impossible while simultaneously trying to make Ottoman a required course for all pupils. It is important to note here that Ottoman is a dead language one can use only to read historical documents—whereas Kurdish is the native language of millions of Turkish citizens.

The HDP’s attitude to the question of Kurdish elective courses was cautious but realistic. In requesting that the Kurdish teachers be given appointments, they also pointed out the problems in offering Kurdish merely as an elective course. Offering elective Kurdish courses, Mardin MP Gulser Yildirim stated, was a “symbolic” and yet “relieving” (rahatlatici) solution to the native language problem of the twenty to twenty-five million Kurds in Turkey.[22] However, of the 1500 graduates of Kurdology, only 17 of them had been appointed to teaching positions.  For the HDP, then, the appointment of these teachers was directly and inevitably related to the Kurds’ demands for education in their native language. Despite recognizing its limitations, they still asked the government to take concrete steps towards making elective Kurdish courses available and appointing the Kurdish graduates to teach these courses.[23] Significantly, while discussing the Kurdish language, the HDP’s agenda on cultural and linguistic rights went beyond Kurdish to include all languages spoken in the country. In parliament, they urged the government to open departments on languages spoken in Mesopotamia along with Kurdology and teach these languages at educational institutions.[24] Even though their demands fell on deaf ears, HDP deputies took every opportunity to place the issue of the Kurdish teachers and Kurdish language education on the parliamentary agenda and in doing so they frequently referred to the prospects of Kurdology and its graduates at Artuklu.

Epilogue: Disintegration

The final months of 2014 were accompanied by significant changes at MAU. In November, the president of the university, Serdar Bedii Omay, together with 68 other academic and administrative staff, including the dean of the Institute of Living Languages, Kadri Yıldırım, were detained on allegations of corruption. The dean of the Divinity School, Ahmet Ağırakça, was appointed as the interim president of the university. Later in 2015, Ağırakça was appointed university president by YÖK. For many, this appointment was an ominous sign of the government’s attempt to bring MAU under its conservative-nationalist sway. Throughout his term, Ağırakça took many steps that corroborated these concerns. In July, he dismissed fourteen international faculty without any legal justification. Facing a backlash, he publicly defamed these faculty for being foreign “agents” and repeated his allegations without providing any evidence. These dismissals were illegal and, despite court orders to return the faculty to their positions, the university administration did not do so.

The period from 2015 onwards was a time when the peace process went through countless tests. It was finally terminated in the fall of 2015 with the eruption of urban warfare between the Kurdish militias and the Turkish army in various Kurdish towns. As the political situation deteriorated and Turkey moved towards an authoritarian regime, MAU’s president repeatedly emphasized his support for the government. When he faced criticisms of partisanship despite his academic and administrative position, he responded: “I am the Mardin representative of our chair of the party [AKP].”[25] As Turkey moved towards a one-party state, a university president describing his position in this fashion as the representative of the ruling party was not considered too unusual.  

The authoritarian turn of the Turkish regime since 2015 is a topic that extends beyond the scope of this article. As this essay has demonstrated, however, from the origin of the peace process in 2009 to its demise in 2015, the Kurdology program at MAU maintained its relevance for various political discourses, which has made its academic future susceptible to political fluctuations. The program was a product of the peace process and it stood at the center of the discussions on Kurdish education and native language education. It was also considered one of the most concrete outcomes of the process.

Writing in 2014, well-known columnist Fehim Taştekin described Artuklu Kurdology as “the school which unites the four pieces of Kurdistan,” since the program brought together scholars from Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian Kurdistan. According to Taştekin, “while so many things in the peace process have stalled, this is an effort that makes you think that good things are also happening in Turkey.”[26] For others, however, Kurdology at Artuklu was far less promising. Some argued that the state-sponsored Kurdology departments aimed to seize Kurdish culture and language from the Kurdish political movement and bring it under state control. As such, they destroyed human capital and the audience for autonomous Kurdish associations and organizations in the Kurdish provinces that offered courses and conducted research on the Kurdish language. One commentator reflected another fairly common view by describing it as the “Artuklu Kurdology Corporation,” (“Artuklu Kurdoloji Ticarethanesi”) [27] referring to the financial motives of the administration and the staff since they were not only salaried government employees but they also earned additional incomes by teaching in extra-curricular programs such as the language lessons that the department offered.

In an interview conducted with him in 2015, the then-head of the Kurdish Language and Culture Department talked about the difficulties the program faced within a polarized political climate. He was dismayed since the state described them [i.e., Kurdology staff] as “separatist,” while the Kurdish political movement saw them as “pro-state” or agents of the “system.” His words on how they described their own stance in Kurdology are worth quoting at length here:

We are academics. Surely, we all have our own political identities. But we do not reflect this upon academia. My personal opinion is: the government wanted a docile Kurdology. One that would offer courses in Kurdish but will fill in its content like a Turk. We call this “disciplined” or “docile” Kurdology—there are examples of this. In some universities you find a thoroughly docile Kurdology. One that does not say Kurdistan but “Eastern Southeastern [Anatolia],” not “Kurdish nation” but “Kurdish community.” We have not accepted this by any means. The profile of the faculty did not fit with this [approach]. Some of our faculty come from a certain political tradition; people who stayed in prison; faced the state’s oppression. As such, things did not work quite like what they [the government] predicted.[28]

Notwithstanding the ups and downs of the peace process itself and amidst varying and, at times, conflicting views on the goals of the state and the motivations of the faculty, technical problems, and an ever-worsening political climate, the Kurdology programs have continued to conduct research on Kurdish language and literature and to train undergraduate and graduate students in these fields. In light of the tumultuous history of the Kurdology programs in Turkey, the implications of Dicle University’s ban on the use of Kurdish language are clear. MAU was established as a “model” university by the government where it would show its “willingness” to recognize Kurdish cultural and linguistic rights. Whereas Dicle University is an older university, established in the 1970s, where the Turkish-Islamic ideology of the state has been firmly entrenched from the outset. Dicle’s ongoing ban on Kurdish is another sad proof that in the history of the Turkish Republic what is exceptional is the existence of Kurdology programs rather than the tendency to ban them. Indeed, the republic’s history is one long, continuous story of assimilationist, essentialist, and denialists policies of the Turkish state towards Kurdish culture, language, and society.