Who are we?

Are we Turkish? Are we Kurdish? Are we Islamic? Are we 'Western'? (Just to name some, by far not all, of the most famous identity ascriptions nowadays Turkey ..)

Indeed, questions of identity have, ever since, been sold at high rates in Turkey. Just as they have always been a matter of perspective either.

Let's just imagine a neighborhood in Istanbul's many-sided Kadikoy district on the Asian side. Neşe, a strictly secular school teacher anxiously distinguishes herself strictly from any woman wearing the Islamic headscarf and is honestly afraid of the governing AKP and the 'creeping islamization' she deems to increasingly undermine the Turkish institution system. A few streets far lives Semra, which perceives herself just as 'modern' and clued-up as Neşe does. But she is religious, and hence in turn, deeply in rage of the 'stubborn secularists' which forbid her to study law and pick up the job of her choice since she sticked to her scarf.

In fact, both women, in this case, have more things in common than it looks on first sight. Both are working, both manage a family. They watch the same prime time TV series and visit the same tea garden. Both dream of a Fiat Panda. Both deeply detest violence and oppression, and shout for women rights. However, chances they would ever start seriously talking to each other are fairly low.

Same goes for the nationalist minded family father who suspects ever kurdish-speaking citizen to have separatist ambitions, never realizing that the guy at the corner he's buying his daily bread from and having a chat on soccer with occasionally is actually a Kurd.

It appears crackbrained, doesn't it?

Well, a short look into history may clear the matter up, at least a little bit ... Sure, state founder Ataturk's ideas of turning the defeated, bankrupt Ottoman Empire into an future-oriented and competitive nation state of European design was achieved at the price of strictly enforcing a radical cultural revolution, a clear rupture with the multi-ethnic, Islamic Empire. The overreaching politics of symbols and emotions root right at this point, respectively. Moreover they went along with a long history of control and authoritative power from above. Hence, such primary cultural conflict was quickly and insoluble intermingled with the struggle for resources, rights and privileges which, over time, the major religious, partly Kurdish anatolian population started to claim back with increasing power. Three army interventions, and recurring periods of civil riots marked the now nearly 90 years of Turkish Republic.

In a rather abstract way, or let's say in terms of political party affiliation everyone is aware of 'the enemy', the 'other', the 'reactionary'. The 'self' takes the role of the victim, the suppressed, the one in danger and in need of defense.

What to defend by the way? Rights and privileges, prestige? Financial status? Does in the end everything boil down to the filthy lucre? I think it's kind of that. The less future fears, the more comfortable the own position in society the less to fear and the less need to find the scape goat. It's a simple way of seeing the things, sure. But it's a simple fact that radical ideologies still find their best constituency among the poor. Be it Kurdish Seperatism, be it Islamic fundamentalism, be it militarism.


Are we poor or are we rich? Maybe that's the question to pose!