A reluctant Turkey begins Kurdish-language broadcasts 11.06.2004

ISN, Switzerland
June 11 2004

The long-awaited implementation of Kurdish-language state
broadcasting in Turkey has earned Ankara reserved praise from the EU,
which has hailed the move as a good first start in meeting human
rights criteria for accession negotiations. In light the several
decades of bloody civil war between Turkish forces and Kurdish
separatists, the symbolism of the once taboo idea should indeed not
be downplayed, but at the same time, the lacklustre programming is
sadly insufficient.

By Burak Bekdil for ISN Security Watch

Two long years after Ankara approved the broadcasting of
Kurdish-language programs, the first such programs were aired on
Wednesday – a delay that illustrates there is still some serious
resistance to EU-inspired political reforms in Turkey. But the final
implementation of the broadcasting reforms is still a positive
indication from Ankara that its desire to join the EU – which
requires meeting the bloc’s basic human rights criteria – is growing
stronger than its desire to maintain the status quo. While the new
weekly 30-minute Kurdish-language programs are far from winning any
broadcasting awards, they are at least a positive prelude of what is
to come. The project represents the slow metamorphosis of the
official and public Turkish mindset. Only a few years ago the mere
advocacy of Kurdish-language broadcasting would have been a criminal
offence. “Either Turkish, or Nothing!” is one ultra-nationalist
slogan that still decorates the various corners of Ankara.

A slow and silent revolution through music

Speaking Kurdish was outlawed in Turkey until 1991, and until a few
years ago, the issue of the Kurdish language was taboo for the state
establishment. It had taken the guardians of Turkey’s territorial
integrity quite some time to digest Kurdish music and concerts, which
were likely the precursors to wider recognition of the language. In
many ways, the dozens of Kurdish singers who released CDs in their
own language broke the vicious circle, showing that language was not
synonymous with terrorism. Their songs worked as a catalyst,
demonstrating that the use of language, per se, was not a threat to
Turkey’s territorial integrity. Those artists sparked a slow and
silent revolution. What was unthinkable in Turkey only half a decade
ago is now becoming a reality, but it will still take several years
for the minority-language broadcasting reforms to please everyone. To
praise the reforms without reservations is premature, but it would
also be unfair to play them down altogether.

A reservedly historic move

Most analysts have contributed Ankara’s historic move was largely
designed to persuade the EU to open accession talks. Though the first
Kurdish-language program was broadcast on Wednesday, the project had
begun earlier in the week with broadcasts in other minority
languages, Bosnian and Arabic. Numerically and politically, though,
Wednesday’s Kurdish program was of much greater significance. The
Wednesday program, aired by TRT-3 state television, offered 30
minutes of news highlights, sports, folk music, and a nature
documentary in Kurmandji – one of the two main Kurdish dialects, of
which there are around 40, spoken in Turkey. Kurdish is an
Indo-European tongue unrelated to Turkish, though it has many Turkish
words. On Friday, the TRT-3 was scheduled to broadcast a second
program in the Kurdish dialect of Zaza. The programs also broadcast
Turkish subtitles. State radio also broadcast a program in Kurmandji
earlier in the week. Various estimates put the number of Turkish
Kurds anywhere between eight million and 25 million, as Turkish
population censuses do not produce statistics on ethnic origin. There
is, however, empirical evidence that the Kurds are the largest ethnic
minority in the country, with nearly 100 different races.

The Turkish legislative malady

The legislation approving minority-language broadcasting was passed
in 2002, but the typical gap between passing legislation and
implementing it, the Turkish malady, delayed the project for two
years. Though the legislation paved the way for lifting the ban on
minority-language broadcasting, there was still no legal basis to
regulate such broadcasting. For over a year, various state agencies
passed the buck down the line, none wanting to spearhead the
controversial program – not, at least, until Brussels stepped up the
pressure, waving the EU carrot before them. Despite pressure from the
government to implement the reforms, the administration of TNT
remained reluctant. The day before the first Kurdish program was to
be aired, police in Istanbul detained 25 journalists from pro-Kurdish
media outlets in a security sweep ahead of the NATO summit on 28
June. In a series of raids in Istanbul, a journalist from the small
Dicle News Agency said police had seized computers and other records.
He said the charges against his agency included belonging to an
illegal organization and publishing in Kurdish. Strange timing,
indeed.

Mixed reactions

The minority-language programs have sparked a wide range of reactions
in Turkey. Most Turks remain indifferent to the broadcasts. According
to Reha Tartici, director for the Istanbul-based Consensus research
house, the early results of a survey show that a majority of Turks
“do not see broadcasting in ethnic languages as a threat against the
country’s territorial integrity”. After all, if Kurdish music has not
posed a threat to territorial integrity, why should state-sponsored
programs? However, the Turkish nationalists are divided over the
issue. Ulku Ocaklari, an ultra-nationalist youth organization dating
back to the street fights in the 1970s that claimed half a dozen
lives a day, staged a protest against broadcasting in non-Turkish
languages – though no more than a handful of people turned out for
the demonstration. In a conspicuously soft tone, Mehmet Agar, a
right-wing opposition leader and a former police chief with quite a
notorious pan-Turkic past, labeled the programs a “democratic
overture.”

Minority indifference and opposition

Like the rest of the population, Kurds also seem to be indifferent to
the programs. “Most Kurds in the countryside have different
priorities and problems, mostly economic ones,” a local journalist
based in Van, eastern Anatolia, told Security Watch. “State
broadcasting in their own language will not add much to their lives.
Besides, there are many Kurds who do not understand the two main
dialects.” Other minorities have had reacted differently. Bosnians
and Arabs had raised objections to the program, saying they could not
understand the Kurdish dialects. Circassians, too, have objected, but
for a different reason. A spokesman for the Circassian community in
Turkey said that the country’s ethnic Caucasians did not their own
language programs. “Although we come from Circassian descendants, our
country is Turkey and our language is Turkish,” he said. Apparently,
the Circassians, who have remained extremely loyal to Turkey, do not
want to be labelled as separatists. Another group, the Laz, or Black
Sea people of Georgian/Caucasian-origins, have also objected, saying
that they have been left out of the program.

Down-playing the program’s Kurdish aspect

Ali Bayramoglu, a commentator writing in the liberal, pro-Islamic
Yeni Safak, takes a fairly negative view of the programs. He accuses
the Turkish authorities of trying to down play broadcasts in Kurdish
by introducing other, less relevant minority languages, such as
Bosnian and Arabic. “In order not to prioritize the broadcasts in
Kurdish they had added such languages as Arabic, Circassian, and
Bosnian,” he told Security Watch. At the same time, the Ankara has
could argue that the reforms could not justify prioritizing any
particular language, which would be unconstitutional. As part of the
Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey gives equal status to its non-Muslim
minorities in terms of religion and education. A few thousand Greeks
have the same rights as the 25’000 Jews and 65’000 Armenians living
in Turkey. The Supreme Court could have annulled the
minority-language broadcasting legislation if it had proposed only
Kurdish dialects.

The reward for reform

Most importantly, the proposed “recipient” of the move, the EU, is
content, but also has many reservations. “This is a good start, but
not the finished product yet,” said an EU ambassador in Ankara.
“Thinking about the bureaucratic resistance, it is a big step for the
state establishment. But it may not be sufficient.” Another EU
diplomat in the Turkish capital warned that Brussels might soon start
to pressure Ankara to broaden the scope of minority-language
broadcasting. “This is only a first move for informative,
professional broadcasting. You cannot please an audience with
week-old news or hastily picked programs. We reckon that the Turkish
government should be quite keen for upgrades.” According to George
Coats, a London-based Turkey specialist, the EU will inevitably be
looking for further steps. “You need something more substantial,
topical,” he told Security Watch. For now, the program is not
receiving praise for its content merits, but only for the symbolic
value seen in diminishing Turkish paranoia. State broadcasting is
limited and its content still reflects a hostile mindset. The
government would do best to encourage private stations to get in on
the program, but Ankara has made it clear it wants complete control
over sensitive Kurdish-language broadcasting – a message taken to
heart with the arrest, the day before the first scheduled state
Kurdish broadcast – of 25 “pro-Kurdish” journalists.

Burak Bekdil is a columnist for the Ankara-based Turkish Daily News
and the Athens-based Kathimerini. He is a correspondent for Defense
News weekly, Virginia, United States.