A generational analysis of the social reproduction and legitimacy of political violence in teh Basque and Kurdish Cases.

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea Thesis under the joint supervision agreement between EHESS and UPV/EHU PhD in Law, Political Sciences, and Philosophy (EHESS) PhD in Research Models and Areas in Social Sciences (UPV/EHU) A g e n e r a t i o n a l a n a l y s i s o f t h e s o c i a l r e p r o d u c t i o n a n d l e g i t i m a c y o f p o l i t i c a l v i o l e n c e i n t h e B a s q u e a n d K u r d i s h c a s e s Co-supervised by: Hamit BOZARSLAN (EHESS) Benjamín TEJERINA MONTAÑA (UPV/EHU) Date of defense: 27 May 2021 JURY MEMBERS 1. Antimo Luigi Farro, Sapienza Università di Roma 2. Ayşen Uysal (Rapporteur), SciencesPo Paris 3. Benjamín Tejerina, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea 4. Caroline Guibet Lafaye (Rapporteur), Université de Bordeaux 5. Hamit Bozarslan, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales 6. Mesut Yeğen, İstanbul Şehir Üniversitesi 7. Michel Wieviorka, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales 8. Pedro Ibarra Güell, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea BARIŞ TUĞRUL (cc)2021 BARIS TUGRUL (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) To my father i Acknowledgments Throughout the long research trajectory of this study, I have revised an innumerable number of valuable scholarly works. Due to a personal interest in life histories on which this study is also primarily based, I have carefully read many prefaces and forewords. However, only after having lived through a similar experience now I truly understand what scholars mean when acknowledging specific individuals who play a vital role in their research trajectory. Although a Ph.D. dissertation is considered an individual exercise, I believe it is always a collective work to which many people contribute. The experience I have lived through is obvious evidence of this affirmation. It would be unthinkable to finish this study without the valuable contributions of many people. Having affirmed so, first of all, I wholeheartedly thank my Ph.D. supervisors, Hamit Bozarslan at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris), and Benjamín Tejerina at Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU, Bizkaia) for the extraordinary support they have provided from the beginning, and for dedicating their valuable time and attention in each phase of this study. I must also recognize their everlasting patience with me during this time drain activity and their bountiful comprehension. I will always remember and appreciate the trust and confidence they have transmitted and everything they have taught me throughout this long journey. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I must recognize my colleagues’ support and helpfulness at the Center for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian Studies (CETOBaC) at EHESS and Collective Identity Research Center (CEIC) at UPV/EHU during my stay in Paris and Bilbao. I cannot forget the contribution of other mentors and colleagues I have had before and during my doctoral studies. I express my gratitude to all academic staff at the University of Ankara, most of whom have been purged and lost their jobs as they prioritize scholarly ethics, liberty of expression, and living an honorable life instead of falling silent in the face of what they consider unjust. Speaking of challenges and severe consequences of becoming a scholar in Turkey, I must recognize and thank the role that İsmail Beşikçi has played. Besides his support and encouragement whenever I have needed, the route he has paved continues to enlighten many generations following his footprints. Likewise, I appreciate the contributions of the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology members at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The period during which I had my MA degrees has been crucial to getting to know Spanish history and politics and, therefore, become an incubation period for this study. In this sense, I must specifically thank Luis Enrique Alonso, Alfonso Pérez-Agote, and Elena Casado for their time and intellectual guidance. I must also express my sincere gratitude to the Spanish Agency of International Development and Cooperation (AECID) to make it all possible and all staff and colleagues at the Colegio Mayor Nuestra Señora de África. Finally, I must name other scholars who supported my efforts through the way. First of all, I must recognize all my colleagues' support and encouragement at the Department of Communication Sciences at Hacettepe University. I specifically want to name Suavi Aydın, who has satisfied my curiosity with his profound knowledge and experience as a prominent anthropologist, and Emre Toros, who has provided valuable last-minute contributions with brilliant ideas. I also thank Francisco Letamendia and José Manuel Mata at the UPV/EHU, Michel Wieviorka at CADIS, EHESS-CNRS, Jeffrey C. Alexander at Yale University, Monserrat Guibernau at the Queen Mary University of London, Donatella della Porta at the European University Institute, and Therese Pettersson from Uppsala University for their support, kindness and helps at various stages of this study. Besides the scholarly world, there are other people who contributed to this study during my ethnographic research in two challenging fields. During my stay in the Basque Country, I had the chance to get to know great people who made me feel at home. Among many others, I am particularly grateful to Asier Amezaga and Alicia del Alamo, who always kept an open door in Bilbao whenever I needed it. In the field phase, I must recognize the vital role that Olatz Dañobeitia, Eneko Ibarguren (Kurku), and ii Joxean Fernández (Magila) played in my research practices on the ground. Without the extraordinary effort they have made and the time they have dedicated, it would be impossible to complete the Basque field of this study. Additionally, I also thank Father Juan José Agirre, who generously shared whatever I needed from the Benedictine Foundation in Lazkao village. Similarly, during my stay in Diyarbakır and my field research in Kurdistan, I received a lot of help and support from many people. Among them, I must specifically name Hamdullah Menteşe (Apo) for his generous hospitality and friendship and Feride Laçin for her tremendous help and effort during my field research in the northern Kurdish field. In the south, Kerem Çiftçi was always ready to assist my questions and needs. Zagros Hiwa and Dalyan have dedicated significant time and effort to make it as fruitful as possible. Finally, I must specifically name my colleague and friend Neslihan Yaklav who made an enormous contribution to this study. As a brilliant researcher, she worked day and night under very challenging conditions. I thank them all very much for their invaluable contributions, without which it would be unthinkable for me to finish the Kurdish field with such valuable outcomes. Besides the Basque and Kurdish fields, several people have also contributed to different phases of this study. I also must name them: First of all, my dear mother Şükran Tuğrul and my brother Özgür Tuğrul have always been there whenever I have needed. During my stay in France, Bénédicte Vallet and Réjane Schapira showed a great deal of hospitality and helped me with French texts. Similarly, my friends Gaizka Etxeberria and Seyhan Atak helped me with texts in Basque and Kurdish Kurmanji. My friend Mikail Darbinyan spent day and night on the exhaustive work of English proofreading. Caroline Guibet Lafaye from CNRS – Centre Émile Durkheim included me in her research team and offered invaluable assistance for my field research. My friend and colleague Asier Amezaga patiently read the final draft of the entire study and shared with me his opinion and critics. From the beginning, my friend Evin Deniz has shared with me anything related to the subject of this study and helped me anytime I needed it. I thank all of them very much for their valuable assistance and help. Also, several people personally prefer their name not to be mentioned for obvious reasons. Understanding their concerns, I also thank all those anonymous individuals very much for their help and support. There is also one last group of anonymous individuals to whom I must extend my deepest gratitude. I must acknowledge the contribution made by all those who have voluntarily participated in in-depth interviews of this study in the Basque and Kurdish fields. Their contribution undoubtedly constitutes the central pillar of the final work. It truly saddens me that some of them will never be able to read these words, nor will they even see that I have concluded this study thanks to their voluntary collaboration. Therefore, I dedicate this study to all those who have sadly passed away shortly after participating in this study. I will always remember each of them and wholeheartedly appreciate their vital contribution, which makes it possible for me to write these words today. Finally, while analyzing stories between life and death throughout a long research period, I have lost some beloved ones to whom I would like to pay tribute. Among them, there is Juan Sorín, a good friend with whom I spent considerable time in both fields of this study. I lost my feline friend Musti, with whom I shared friendship and love. I also lost two of my uncles, Güray and Koray, who had left unforgettable memories in my life. Finally, I lost my dear father, Türkay Tuğrul, who, despite the discrepancies and differences of opinion, taught me to be generous, honest, and in solidarity with others and showed total respect for my free will. He wanted so much that I would finish this study, and he supported me until his last days. My father died in December 2015. This study is the result of a promise that I gave him in life. I would like very much that my father could read these words. iii Abstract This study analyzes the social reproduction and legitimacy of political violence through three consecutive generations of the long-lasting Basque and Kurdish conflicts in Spain and Turkey. By adopting an approach based on cohort analysis towards the phenomena of ethnic revivals and radicalization of ethnonational movements resulting from a generational rupture, the initial part of the study provides historical insight on period and cohort effects in the emergence and development of non-state organizations (ETA and the PKK) that resort to political violence as a new generation style. In a later stage, a longitudinal cohort analysis based on the life-history technique through qualitative data collected in the Basque Country and Kurdistan is applied to three consecutive generations selected by considering large-scale political events with significant social consequences in both Basque and Kurdish societies. This categorization, in which generations are used as a social metric, involves an extended period, beginning from the early 1970s and continuing until the 2000s. Focusing on the premilitancy period experiences and political socialization of those individuals who served in the selfproclaimed Basque and Kurdish liberation movements through a life-course approach, this analysis reveals the role that primary and secondary socialization processes play in the militancy engagement and the reproduction of group truth that justifies the use of arms in each period. The transformations taking place during this extended time frame in key variables such as physical and symbolic violence exercised by the state, the regime tolerance towards national minorities, and the availability of political mechanisms that permit voicing ethnonational demands through non-violent repertoires also affect the social legitimacy attributed to the non-state organizations resorting to violent repertoires for political ends. Changes in the degree of popular support to ETA and the PKK as avant-garde actors of the Basque and Kurdish liberation movements by their respective societies observed through the sources of quantitative data, which draws a diametrically opposite picture since the early 1990s, play a decisive role in shaping the politico-military trajectory that both organizations follow in later periods. Keywords: Cohort analysis, generations, political violence, social legitimacy, Basque conflict, Kurdish conflict iv Résumé Cette étude porte sur la reproduction sociale et la légitimité de la violence politique à travers trois générations successives de conflits basques et kurdes de longue durée en Espagne et en Turquie. Les phénomènes de renouveau ethnique et de radicalisation de mouvements ethno-nationaux résultant d'une fracture générationnelle sont abordés à partir d'une approche fondée sur l'analyse des cohortes. L'étude offre dans une première partie un aperçu historique des effets de période et de cohorte dans l'émergence et le développement d'organisations non étatiques (ETA et PKK) qui recourent à la violence politique comme nouveau style de génération. Dans une autre partie, une analyse longitudinale basée sur la technique du récit de vie, à partir de données qualitatives collectées au Pays basque et au Kurdistan, est appliquée à trois générations successives sélectionnées sur la base d'événements politiques de grande envergure ayant des retombées sociales significatives dans les sociétés basque et kurde. Cette catégorisation, qui utilise la génération comme métrique sociale, couvre une longue période, qui démarre au début des années 1970 et se poursuit jusqu'aux années 2000. A partir des données obtenues par une approche de parcours de vie portant sur la période antérieure à l'activisme et à la socialisation politique des membres des mouvements autoproclamés de libération basque et kurde, cette analyse montre comment les processus de socialisation primaire et secondaire influent sur l'engagement militant et la reproduction d'une vérité de groupe qui justifie l'utilisation des armes à chaque période. Les transformations qu'ont connues au cours de cette longue période des variables clés telles que la violence physique et symbolique exercée par l'État, la tolérance du régime envers les minorités nationales et l'accès à des mécanismes politiques permettant d'exprimer des revendications ethno-nationales par des répertoires d'action non violente impactent aussi la légitimité sociale accordée aux organisations non étatiques qui ont recours à des répertoires d'action violente à des fins politiques. Les variations du niveau de soutien populaire à l'ETA et au PKK, en tant qu'acteurs d'avant-garde des mouvements de libération basque et kurde, par leurs sociétés respectives, sont mesurées à partir des données quantitatives qui dressent un tableau diamétralement opposé depuis le début des années 1990. Ces variations jouent un rôle décisif dans la trajectoire politico-militaire que suivent les deux organisations ultérieurement. Mots-clés: Analyse de cohorte, générations, violence politique, légitimité sociale, conflit basque, conflit kurde v Resumen Este estudio analiza la reproducción social y la legitimidad de la violencia política a través de tres generaciones consecutivas de los conflictos prolongados vasco y kurdo en España y Turquía. Adoptando un enfoque basado en el análisis de cohortes hacia los fenómenos de resurgimiento étnico y radicalización de los movimientos etnonacionales resultantes de una ruptura generacional, la parte inicial del estudio proporciona una visión histórica de los efectos de período y cohorte en el surgimiento y desarrollo de organizaciones no estatales (ETA y el PKK) que recurren a la violencia política como un nuevo estilo generacional. En una etapa posterior, se aplica un análisis longitudinal de cohortes basado en la técnica de la historia de la vida mediante datos cualitativos recogidos en el País Vasco y en el Kurdistán a tres generaciones consecutivas seleccionadas teniendo en cuenta los acontecimientos políticos de gran envergadura con importantes consecuencias sociales tanto en la sociedad vasca como en la kurda. Esta categorización, en la que las generaciones se utilizan como medida social, abarca un período prolongado, que comienza a principios del decenio de 1970 y continúa hasta el decenio de 2000. Basándose en las experiencias previas a la militancia y la socialización política de las personas que militaron en los autoproclamados movimientos de liberación vascos y kurdos mediante un enfoque del curso de la vida, este análisis revela el papel que los procesos de socialización primarios y secundarios desempeñan en el compromiso de la militancia y la reproducción de la verdad grupal que justifica el uso de las armas en cada período. Las transformaciones que tienen lugar durante este largo período en variables clave como la violencia física y simbólica del Estado, la tolerancia del régimen hacia las minorías nacionales y la disponibilidad de mecanismos políticos que permiten expresar las demandas etnonacionales a través de repertorios no violentos también afectan la legitimidad social atribuida a las organizaciones no estatales que recurren a repertorios violentos con fines políticos. Los cambios en el grado de apoyo popular a ETA y al PKK como actores en la vanguardia de los movimientos de liberación vasca y kurda por parte de sus respectivas sociedades, observados a través de las fuentes de datos cuantitativos, que dibujan un cuadro diametralmente opuesto desde principios del decenio de 1990, desempeñan un papel decisivo en la configuración de la trayectoria político-militar que ambas organizaciones siguen en períodos posteriores. Palabras clave: Análisis de cohortes, generaciones, violencia política, legitimidad social, conflicto vasco, conflicto kurdo vi Abbreviations (Basque case) AAA (Alianza Apostólica Anticomunista, Triple A) Anti-Communist Apostolic Alliance ANV (Acción Nacionalista Vasco) Basque Nationalist Action AP (Alianza Popular) People’s Alliance ATE (Antiterrorismo ETA) ETA Antiterrorism BVE (Batallón Vasco Español) Spanish Basque Battalion CAPV (Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco) Autonomous Community of the Basque Country CCOO (Comisiones Obreras) Workers’ Commissions GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación) Antiterrorist Liberation Groups EA (Eusko Alkartasuna) Basque Solidarity EE (Euskadiko Ezkerra) Basque Left ELA (Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna) Basque Workers’ Solidarity ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) Basque Homeland and Freedom HB (Herri Batasuna) Popular Unity KAS (Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista) Socialist Patriotic Coordinator. LAB (Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak) Nationalist Workers’ Committee MLNV (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco) Basque National Liberation Movement PCE (Partido Comunista de España) Spanish Communist Party PNV/EAJ (Partido Nacionalista Vasco/Eusko Alderdi Jeltzalea) Basque Nationalist Party PP (Partido Popular) People’s Party PSE (Partido Socialista de Euskadi) Socialist Party of the Basque Country PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party UCD (Unión de Centro Democrático) Union of the Democratic Center ZEN (Zona Especial Norte) Special Northern Zone vii Abbreviations (Kurdish case) AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) Justice and Development Party ARGK (Artêşa Rizgariya Gelê Kurdistan) Kurdistan People’s Liberation Army BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi) Peace and Democracy Party CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) Republican People's Party DDKO (Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları) Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths DEP (Demokrasi Partisi) Democracy Party DEHAP (Demokratik Halk Partisi) Democratic People’s Party DTK (Demokratik Toplum Kongresi) Democratic Society Congress DTP (Demokratik Toplum Partisi) Democratic Society Party DYP (Doğru Yol Partisi) True Path Party ERNK (Eniya Rizgariya Netewa Kurdistan) National Liberation Front of Kurdistan HADEP (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi) People’s Democracy Party HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi) People’s Democratic Party HEP (Halkın Emek Partisi) People’s Labor Party HPG (Hêzên Parastina Gel) People’s Defense Forces. JİTEM (Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele) Gendarmerie Intelligence Counter-Terrorism KCK (Koma Civakên Kurdistan) Kurdistan Communities Union KUK (Kürdistan Ulusal Kurtuluşçuları) National Liberators of Kurdistan MİT (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı) National Intelligence Organization PDK/KDP (Partiya Demokrat a Kurdistanê) Kurdistan Democratic Party PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) Kurdistan Workers’ Party RP (Refah Partisi) Welfare Party SHP (Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti) Social Democratic Populist Party TAK (Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan) Kurdistan Freedom Hawks TİP (Türkiye İşçi Partisi) Workers' Party of Turkey THKP-C (Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Partisi-Cephesi) People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey TKP/ML (Türkiye Komünist Partisi/Marksist-Leninist) Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist YJK (Yekîtiya Jinên Kurdistan) Patriotic Women of Kurdistan YJWK (Yekîtiya Jinên Welatparêzên Kurdistan) Union of Kurdistan’s Patriotic Women YNK/PUK (Yekîtiya Nîştimanî ya Kurdistanê) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan xiv List of Tables Table 1 Demographic growth in Bizkaia between 1779 - 1900 Table 2 Electoral results in the Basque Country in general elections before the Spanish Civil War Table 3 Net immigration flows to the Basque Country between 1920 – 1981 Table 4 The 1927 and 1965 census in predominantly Kurdish cities Table 5 Constitutional referendum of 6 December 1978 in the Basque Country + Navarre and five main provinces in Spain Table 6 Referendum of 25 October 1979 on the autonomy statute for the Basque Country Table 7 1991, 1995 and 1999 General Elections in Turkey’s Kurdistan Table 8 Number of casualties in Kurdish conflict in Turkey between 1990 - 2000 Table 9 Evolution of the image of ETA militants between 1978 - 1989 Table 10 Attitudes of the Basques towards ETA in the early 2000s Table 11 Internal voting among ETA militancy for the proposal of definitive dissolution (2018) Table 12 Percentage of affirmative answers regarding the central political questions and administrative preference Table 13 Public demonstrations and events organized by abertzale left groups (1978 - 1988) xv Contents Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................................... i Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... iii Résumé ..................................................................................................................................................... iv Resumen .................................................................................................................................................... v Abbreviations (Basque case) ....................................................................................................................... vi Abbreviations (Kurdish case) ...................................................................................................................... vii Glossary (Basque case) ............................................................................................................................. viii Glossary (Kurdish case) ............................................................................................................................... xi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................ xiv Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Research subject, scope, and outline ................................................................................................................. 2 Basque and Kurdish nationalisms in context .................................................................................................. 3 Basque and Kurdish national revivals: Generational rupture and radicalization ........................................... 5 Understanding the social reproduction of ETA and the PKK: A generational perspective ............................. 6 Research question(s) and hypotheses .............................................................................................................. 11 Research methodology: Implementation and challenges ................................................................................ 12 Secondary source consultation: Literature revision and data availability .................................................... 13 Data collection process in the Basque and Kurdish fields ............................................................................ 16 Methodological problems: Epistemological concerns and practical challenges .......................................... 20 1. Generations, nationalism, and political violence .................................................................. 22 1.1. Understanding the question of generations and generational research ............................................ 22 1.1.1. Generations: Definition, scope, and sociological significance .................................................... 23 1.1.2. Socialization processes, political generations, and generational rupture .................................. 25 1.1.3. Collective traumas, violence, and generational reactions .......................................................... 27 a. Experienced trauma: Social change and generational silence ............................................................ 28 b. New cohort generation and the social reproduction of trauma narrative .......................................... 29 1.1.4. Designing a cohort analysis: Generations as a social metric....................................................... 31 Some remarks on the methodology of generational analysis ...................................................................... 32 1.2. A generational approach towards nationalism and political violence................................................. 34 1.2.1. Nationalism and nation-building in the stateless nations .......................................................... 35 Ethnicity and ethno-symbolism in the stateless nations .............................................................................. 37 1.2.2. Nationalism as a generational rupture: Social change and ethno-nationalist movements ........ 39 The birth of ethnonational elites as a generation entelechy ....................................................................... 41 1.3. Ethnic revival, generations, and collective violence ............................................................................ 43 1.3.1. Generation of ethnic revivals: Revolutionarism out of silence ................................................... 43 1.3.2. New generation entelechy: Construction of trauma, war, and enemy ...................................... 46 xvi 1.3.3. Political violence in ethnonational movements .......................................................................... 47 a. Group truth and justifications of violence ........................................................................................... 48 b. The legitimacy of political violence: Regime, group, and community ................................................. 50 1.4. Cohort analysis for ethnonational political violence ........................................................................... 53 1.4.1. The whys and hows of a generational approach towards political violence .............................. 53 1.4.2. Comparative cohort analysis of ethnonational political violence: A proposal ........................... 55 2. Generational Development of Basque Nationalism .............................................................. 59 2.1. Emergence and early periods of the traditional Basque nationalism ................................................. 59 2.1.1. State-building and the question of centralization in Spain and the Basque Country ................. 59 a. The centralization issue in the formation of the Spanish state ........................................................... 59 b. Resistance, loss, and trauma in the Basque Country: Carlist wars and the abolition of the Fueros ... 60 c. The period of post-Carlist Wars and the social grounds of the early Basque nationalism .................. 61 2.1.2. The emergence of Basque nationalism: Doctrine, characteristics and social components ........ 63 a. The founding generation of the PNV and the early period Basque nationalist doctrine .................... 64 b. Other Basque nationalist fractions before the Spanish Civil War ....................................................... 66 2.1.3. Basque nationalism(s) during and after the Spanish Civil War ................................................... 69 a. The legitimacy and social realm of Basque nationalism before the Spanish Civil War ....................... 69 b. The political realm of the Basque nationalism before the Spanish Civil War ...................................... 70 2.2. The post-Civil War generation and the re-formulation of Basque nationalism ......................................... 71 2.2.1. The post-Civil War period and Basque generational silence ...................................................... 71 a. Problematic legitimacy of the Franco regime in the Basque Country ................................................. 71 b. The post-Civil War trauma and generational silence in the Basque Country ...................................... 72 2.2.2. The generational rupture within the Basque nationalist universe ............................................. 74 a. The birth of EKIN/ETA and the initial period of Basque neo-nationalism ........................................... 75 b. Theorization of the revolutionary war and the use of violence by the new generation entelechy .... 76 c. Social conditions during the emergence period of Basque neo-nationalism ...................................... 79 d. Socialization mechanisms of the generational transmission of the Basque nationalism .................... 81 3. Generational Development of Kurdish Nationalism ................................................................. 89 3.1. Emergence and early periods of Kurdish nationalism ......................................................................... 89 3.1.1. Turkish modernization and Kurdish national development ....................................................... 89 a. Kurdish autonomy under the Ottoman imperial sovereignty ............................................................. 89 b. The emergence of Kurdish nationalist entelechy and early activities ................................................. 90 3.1.2. Violence and trauma in Kurdish collective memory ................................................................... 93 a. Ethnic challenges and violence in the late Ottoman period: The Armenian question ........................ 93 b. Traces of the Armenian Genocide in Kurdistan and Kurdish collective memory ................................ 94 3.1.3. Kurdish resistance against Turkish nation-building: From revolt to surrender .......................... 96 a. The Sheikh Said revolt: The end of ‘tacit contract’ .............................................................................. 97 An analysis of the consequences of Sheikh Said revolt in Kurdish memory ................................................ 99 xvii b. The Dersim revolt: The beginning of the generational silence .......................................................... 102 The use of physical and symbolic coercion in and after Dersim ................................................................ 104 3.2. The ethnonational revival of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey ............................................................. 106 3.2.1. The generational resurgence of Kurdish nationalism ............................................................... 106 a. The post-revolts period and reproduction of Kurdish identity in generational silence..................... 106 b. The 49ers: A political generation? ..................................................................................................... 109 c. The influences of Mustafa Barzani’s upheaval among Turkey’s Kurds .............................................. 111 3.2.2. The political socialization of the Kurdish left towards autonomy ............................................ 112 a. The TİP experience and Eastern Rallies ............................................................................................. 112 b. The emergence of an autonomous Kurdish political activism in Turkey ........................................... 114 c. The 12 March 1970 memorandum and radicalization of Kurdish national movement(s)................. 116 4. Generational Development of Violence in the ‘Basque National Liberation Movement’ ....... 118 4.1. The late Franco era political atmosphere in the Basque Country ..................................................... 118 4.1.1. The birth of a political cohort: The Burgos Trial and re-politicization of the public sphere ..... 118 4.1.2. Cohort effects on Basque violence: Class question and ETA in labor disputes ......................... 120 4.1.3. The late Franco period violence in the Basque collective memory .......................................... 122 4.2. The socialization processes of the Basque political cohort during the late Franco era..................... 124 4.2.1. Acquiring Basque national identity: The role of the family in the nationalist transmission ..... 124 4.2.2. Secondary socialization mechanisms: Schooling, associative world, and religion.................... 126 a. Language, schooling, and friend circles (kuadrillas) .......................................................................... 126 b. The Basque church and nationalist clergy ......................................................................................... 128 c. The question of ethnicity in Basque neo-nationalism ....................................................................... 129 4.3. From dictatorship to monarchy: The ‘Spanish Transition’ in the Basque Country ............................ 131 4.3.1. A general overview of the post-Franco politics in the Basque Country .................................... 131 4.3.2. The construction of the Spanish Transition in the group truth of abertzale left ...................... 133 4.4. What they fought for: Motivations and justifications of political violence ....................................... 138 4.4.1. The armed struggle as a tool to accomplish national and social aspirations ............................ 138 4.4.2. The perception and meaning of struggle: Emotional aspects of militancy ............................... 141 5. The Founding Generation of the ‘Kurdistan National Liberation Movement’ ........................ 145 5.1. The Kurdish politics in Turkey between 1970 - 1980 ......................................................................... 145 5.1.1. Kurdish movements, Turkish revolutionary left, and the emergence of the PKK ..................... 145 5.1.2. The generational rupture: Refusing the past, pioneering the future ....................................... 148 5.2. The construction of Kurdish national identity among first-generation PKK cadres .......................... 151 5.2.1. The place of ethnonational symbols in the socialization of PKK militants ................................ 152 5.2.2. Impacts of the southern Kurdish national struggle and its defeat among northern Kurds ...... 153 5.2.3. The social mechanisms of politicization of the Kurdish question ............................................. 154 5.3. The impacts of Turkish rule on Kurdish collective memory and Kurdishness ................................... 156 5.3.1. Barriers in minds: Early Kurdish revolts, violence, and perception of the state ....................... 156 xviii 5.3.2. Internal colonialism: The social perception of Kurdishness outside of Kurdistan .................... 159 5.3.3. Internal colonialism: The social perception of Kurdishness inside Kurdistan ........................... 162 5.4. Analysis of first-generation violence: Justifications, objectives, and repertoires ............................. 164 5.4.1. Motivations and justifications for the use of force in Kurdistan .............................................. 164 a. Denial, destruction, and death: Legitimate self-defense for Kurdish ethnic survival ........................ 165 b. The role of intersectionality in the Kurdish armed struggle .............................................................. 167 5.4.2. The initial targets, objectives, and repertoires of first-generation political violence ............... 169 a. The transformation from banditry to the political violence .............................................................. 170 b. The 12 September 1980 coup and introduction of new repertoires ................................................. 172 Dungeon resistance: violence against oneself as a form of collective protest .......................................... 173 The Bekaa Valley period and the internationalist guerrilla warfare .......................................................... 175 6. MLNV during the Period of Democratic Consolidation in Spain ............................................ 177 6.1. Early socialization period of MLNV actors during the Spanish Transition ......................................... 177 6.1.1 Transformations in the social meaning of violence during the Spanish Transition .................. 177 6.1.2. The diversification of violent actors and expansion of the Spain-Basque conflict ................... 181 6.1.3. Family tradition: Questioning the transgenerational transmission of militancy ...................... 184 6.2. Cohort and period effects on the Basque conflict through the 1990s .............................................. 187 6.2.1. State violence and institutional marginalization of ‘anti-democrats’ ....................................... 187 6.2.2. Secondary socialization and initial engagement of MLNV militants ......................................... 189 6.2.3. Violence in the era of ‘privatization of social life’: Introduction of new repertoires ................ 191 6.3. Motivations and justifications of violence among MLNV members in the 1990s ............................. 197 6.3.1. Interpretation of violence among the MLNV militants ............................................................. 198 6.3.2. Suffering, struggle and sacrifice: The emotional meaning of the cause and devotion ............. 201 7. The Kurdish National Liberation Movement in the 1990s .................................................... 203 7.1. Political socialization of second-generation PKK cadres .................................................................... 203 7.1.1. Objectifying the reality: Military occupation and violence after the 12 September coup ....... 203 7.1.2. The post-coup structural violence against the Kurdish ethno-symbolic universe .................... 206 7.1.3. The continuing impacts of internal colonialism in and outside of Kurdistan ............................ 209 7.1.4. The rise of the PKK as the sole actor of the Kurdish struggle ................................................... 211 7.2. Turkey, the Kurdish question, and the PKK in the 1990s ................................................................... 214 7.2.1. The introduction of non-violent repertoires: Kurdish legal politics .......................................... 214 7.2.2. The involvement of new actors and the expansion of the Kurdish conflict.............................. 216 7.3. Motivations, justifications, and mechanisms of the armed struggle ................................................ 219 7.3.1. The profile of second-generation PKK militants ....................................................................... 219 7.3.2. Justifications for the use of arms among second-generation cadres ....................................... 220 a. Violence as a means of annihilation versus violence for self-defense .............................................. 220 b. Social mechanisms and motivations for affiliation ............................................................................ 223 The serhıldan process and mass urban mobilization ................................................................................. 225 xix Indoctrination behind bars: Prison resistance and militancy in the 1990s ................................................ 228 8. Basque Conflict in the Early 21st Century in Spain ................................................................ 231 8.1. Socio-political scenery and violence on the verge of the new millennium in Spain .......................... 231 8.1.1. A new phase: ‘Socialization of suffering’ versus ‘all against terrorism’ .................................... 231 8.1.2. Social mechanisms of reproduction of radical Basque nationalism ......................................... 236 a. Family and early socialization mechanisms and processes ............................................................... 236 b. Friend circles and later stage political socialization process ............................................................. 239 8.2. The Basque conflict in the early 21st century .................................................................................... 242 8.2.1. “They’re all ETA”: Broadening the contents of terrorism ......................................................... 242 8.2.2. The effects of Stormont in the Basque Country: The Lizarra – Garazi Agreement ................... 244 8.2.3. The Post-Lizarra period: Militancy under the PP – PSOE anti-terrorism pact ........................... 246 8.3. Motivations and justifications of politico-military involvement after Lizarra-Garazi ........................ 249 8.3.1. Collective memory and strategy of the armed struggle and group loyalty .............................. 250 8.3.2. The interpretation of violence and political progress in the Basque Country .......................... 252 8.3.3. Objectives and functionality/dysfunctionality of violence in the period of illegalizations ....... 253 9. The Kurdish National Liberation Movement in the 21st Century ........................................... 258 9.1. The political atmosphere during the early socialization of third-generation cadres......................... 258 9.1.1. The perception of Kurdishness, the State, and the PKK in the 1990s ....................................... 259 9.2. Change in paradigm: The State – PKK relations after 1999 ............................................................... 264 9.2.1. A new approach towards Turkey’s Kurdish question on the eve of the ‘New Republic’ .......... 264 9.2.2. A new approach towards Kurdistan’s Turkish question in the era of the ‘New Party’ ............. 266 9.3. Political socialization and engagement of third-generation PKK cadres ........................................... 267 9.3.1. The early political activities and decision-making process ....................................................... 268 9.3.2. The transition period from part-time to full-time involvement ............................................... 269 9.4. Motivations and justifications for the use of arms among third-generation cadres ......................... 272 9.4.1. From the tailed Kurd to terrorist Kurd: Continuous consequences of internal colonialism ..... 273 9.4.2. Repression through detention and prison in the 2000s ........................................................... 276 9.4.3. Symbolic violence and concerns over Kurdish ethnic survival .................................................. 278 9.4.4. The question of women and intersectionality in politico-military involvement ....................... 281 9.4.5. ‘Önderlik participations’ ............................................................................................................ 284 10. Generational Analysis of the Social Legitimacy of the MLNV ................................................ 285 10.1. The social legitimacy of armed struggle in the late dictatorship .................................................. 285 10.2. The offensive by the MLNV against the Ajuria-Enea block ........................................................... 290 10.3. The aftermath of the Lizarra-Garazi: The 11-S and a new concept of terrorism .......................... 295 10.4. The end of the cycle of violent repertoires in the MLNV .............................................................. 298 11. Generational Analysis of the Social Legitimacy of the PKK ................................................... 305 11.1. The Apocular phase: Early conditions, challenges, and social support ......................................... 305 11.2. The post-15 August 1984 guerrilla phase and the early 1990 serhıldans ..................................... 309 xx 11.3. Social support for the new PKK amid old challenges .................................................................... 316 12. Ideological and Symbolic Development of the MLNV .......................................................... 323 12.1. The changed and unchanged in the history of ETA ....................................................................... 323 12.2. The symbolic transformation of Basque nationalism and Basque national liberation ................. 326 12.3. The fundamental symbolic elements of Basque neo-nationalism ................................................ 329 12.3.1. Euskera: Where agony begins and reproduces itself ................................................................ 332 12.3.2. Leadership in the MLNV: ETA as the ‘charismatic’ leader ........................................................ 336 12.3.3. The meaning of suffering and sacrifice in the MLNV: Death, exile, and prison ........................ 338 12.4. Women in ETA and the MLNV ....................................................................................................... 344 13. Ideological and Symbolic Development of Kurdish National Liberation Movement .............. 351 13.1. Being a member of the PKK: Mountains and the re-vitalization of the genuine Kurd .................. 351 13.2. Construction of the Leadership and other cult figures in group truth .......................................... 355 13.3. The Party of Martyrs: Immortality through ‘bedel’ and ‘borç’ ...................................................... 362 13.4. Women’s liberation struggle within and outside of the PKK ........................................................ 366 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 379 Generational variables in the development and radicalization of Basque and Kurdish nationalisms............ 379 Social mechanisms of mobilization and militancy .......................................................................................... 381 Group truth and the perception of social reality ............................................................................................ 383 Justifications of violence ................................................................................................................................. 385 Generations, contention, and social legitimacy of violence ........................................................................... 388 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 393 Online sources ................................................................................................................................................ 411 Appendix 1: Maps .................................................................................................................................. 412 Appendix 2.1. Questionnaire for in-depth interviews in the Basque Country ............................................... 414 Appendix 2.2. Questionnaire for in-depth interviews in Kurdistan .............................................................. 416 Appendix 3.1. Interview chart (Basque Country) ....................................................................................... 418 Appendix 3.2. Interview chart (Kurdistan) ................................................................................................ 419 Appendix 4.1. Sociodemographic data of participants (Basque field) .......................................................... 421 Appendix 4.2. Sociodemographic data of participants (Kurdish field) .......................................................... 423 Appendix 5.1. Samples from in-depth interviews (Basque field) ................................................................. 426 Appendix 5.2. Samples from in-depth interviews (Kurdish field) ................................................................. 429 1 Introduction This study1 focuses on the phenomenon of political violence exercised by non-state actors in the Basque and Kurdish cases from a generational perspective. By proposing a research model based on a comparative analysis of specific periods within the long history of two ethnonational movements, it attempts to demonstrate the role that generational variables play in the emergence and development of violent repertoires by non-state organizations. This attempt also includes justifications made by individuals involved in these organizations and the grade of legitimacy attributed to the use of violence by their respective communities through the selected periods of analysis. Dealing with such an analysis requires from the very beginning to specify the distinctive characteristics of these movements that resort to the use of political violence for nationalist and social aspirations. The emergence of these movements has to see with socio-political conditions of a given period shaped by a multiplicity of variables at macro and micro levels. However, they distinguish themselves from other coetaneous revolutionary movements and groups that resort to using violent repertoires to achieve political goals. Unlike the latter case, the self-proclaimed ‘national liberation movements’ adopt a narrative based on nationalist historiography inherited from the previous generation nationalist groups and reconstruction of this narrative in which the new generation entelechy objectify their position as the leading actor of the nationalist movement. The national liberation movements, in this sense, are not limited to a pure armed manifestation for particular demands from the nation-states with which these organizations contend. Still, they also function as a social movement that seeks a successful diffusion of the group truth regarding the national identity among the community members whom they claim to represent. A successful diffusion of the national narrative is a challenging question that involves a set of mechanisms and a complex process of social reproduction in everyday life practices. These socialization mechanisms, ranging from family and schooling to peer leisure time activities, associations, or mass media, convert into spaces on which several definitions of truth regarding the national identity compete with one another. As observed in both cases analyzed in this study, each generation of the national liberation movements benefits from available social mechanisms they consider functional in a given period or, otherwise, create alternative arrangements to impose their identity definition on targeted sectors in society. 1 This study has been conducted as a Ph.D. research project under the co-supervision of Dr. Benjamín Tejerina (Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea) and Dr. Hamit Bozarslan (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales). 2 Finally, like these movements and the politico-military strategy they pursue, the social legitimacy attributed to them also has a dynamic character. The support by the members of the ethnic community on behalf of which these movements claim to exercise violent performances depends on the socio-political conditions of each period during which these strategies evolve. Understanding of material changes and transformations these conditions pass through in each period and the actor’s subjective interpretation on these become an essential aspect when it comes to analyzing the evolution of social legitimacy of the use of violence among the ethnic community. Research subject, scope, and outline This study analyzes the social reproduction of political violence from a generational perspective in two long-lasting cases of ethnic conflict in southern Basque Country (Spain) and northern Kurdistan (Turkey)2 led by two avant-garde politico-military actors: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom) and Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK, Kurdistan Workers’ Party). The comparative analysis of both movements that emerged under entirely different social conditions will be carried out on the purposefully selected three consecutive periods that permit to observe the role that generational variables play in the trajectory of both armed conflicts. Despite the adoption of almost an identical political discourse in their initial stage, based on the use of ‘revolutionary violence’ against Spanish and Turkish ‘colonial rules’ in the Basque Country and Kurdistan, both movements have experimented a simultaneous contrast in terms of their sociopolitical influence and social legitimacy through the following periods of their politico-military trajectory. ETA, the military apparatus of the self-proclaimed Basque National Liberation Movement (MLNV – Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco) that had been the only significant resistance against the Franco dictatorship since the early 1960s, fell into decline starting from the early 1990s. This decline continued through the 2000s until its laying down of arms and definitive dissolution in 2018. The PKK, the leading actor of the Kurdish National Liberation Movement (Kürt Ulusal Özgürlük Hareketi) that remained as the only significant organization against the military regime of 12 September 1980 coup d’état launched its first guerrilla offensive against the Turkish state in 1984, reaching a massive mobilization capacity in Kurdistan through the 1990s and 2000s. This converse development of both movements in terms of their mobilization capacity and social legitimacy between the 1980s and 2000s constitutes chronologically overlapping two cases of the same phenomenon, political violence, that offer a suitable ground for an extensive comparative analysis. 2 Southern Basque Country (Hegoalde in Basque) includes Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco) and the Foral Community of Navarre (Comunidad Foral de Navarra), both possessing political autonomy status in the Kingdom of Spain. Northern Kurdistan (Bakur in Kurdish Kurmanji) includes Eastern and South-Eastern regions of the Republic of Turkey which have no administrative competency (see Appendix 1). 3 Notwithstanding, although there are certain similarities in the initial phases of their foundation, structural differences between the Basque Country and Kurdistan and the diverging routes followed in Spanish and Turkish politics broadly impact the radicalization process of the Basque and Kurdish national liberation movements. These differences offer a suitable ground to realize a comparative analysis on both cases encouraging the researcher to look beyond macro theories of nationalism with little satisfactory explanation on why and how certain national revivals in this period evolved into armed struggle, whereas others pursued a relative pacifist route. Micro-level case-specific variables whose traces can only be sought in the sociological history of both cases (Laitin 1995) come to the forefront. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 are, therefore, dedicated to the emergence of Basque and Kurdish nationalism, briefly covering a long period up until the specific generations analyzed in detail through the following chapters. Basque and Kurdish nationalisms in context An attempt to evaluate the historical roots of Basque and Kurdish nationalism from the modernist perspective draws an entirely different picture. Violent confrontations with the central authority in the period of transition from the imperial understanding of sovereignty to the centralization of the modern state appear as one of few common characteristics. Having settled on two distinctive configurations in terms of social structure, both Basques and Kurds enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy in their dealings with the central authority, whose removal ran into a reaction by peripheral actors. Violent confrontations in the form of wars and upheavals in the 19th century ended up in the victory of modernist centralization, which later appears in the Basque and Kurdish national historiography as the beginning of loss. The culmination of these confrontations and discontinuation of both nationalist movements took place in the first half of the 20th century with the end of the Spanish Civil War and suppression of Kurdish revolts. Both events are objectified as genocidal attempts in their respective historiography (Ortzi 1975; Dersimi 1987; Beşikçi 1990; Egaña 1996). In the Basque case, the history of administrative privileges (Fueros or foral regime) from the Kingdom of Castile goes back to the period of Spanish colonial adventures in which Basque noble classes participated as the key actor in North Atlantic commercial routes, converting the Basque provinces into a hub between northern Europe and ‘New World’. Attempts to remove this status as part of Spanish centralization in the 19th century provoked confrontations between those liberals, who opted for the territorial unification of Spain, and those traditionalist Carlista sectors in favor of maintaining the Fueros. The growing Basque bourgeoisie and developing steel industry, which had been almost exclusively dependent on Castile, supported further integration with Spain. In contrast, conservative Basque peasantry and rural seigniors whose economic interests were primarily reliant on the Basque foral regime opposed this idea of centralizing the state (Díez Medrano 1999: 30-79). This 10 the stateless solution of the Kurdish question within the scope of the ‘democratization of Turkey’ (Öcalan 1999) was embraced by the majority of the Kurdish National Liberation Movement. Although this period also sees the de facto cultural recognition of Kurds as an ethnic identity, most individuals who decided to join the armed struggle had experienced the direct or indirect consequences of the low-intensity war of the 1990s, which shaped their perception of reality. The PKK activism, which mainly had remained limited to Turkey’s Kurdistan, began to extend to western Turkey through sporadic protest actions in this period where the PKK found grounds for the political and social organization as a result of the massive emigration of the 1990s. The analysis of these three consecutive generations focuses on the individual’s socialization processes under the socio-political conditions corresponding to each period, the mechanisms through which the political socialization leading to militancy takes place, and, finally, motivations and justifications of engagement expressed by the militants. Affirmations made by social actors with this respect correspond to their subjective perception of reality that reflects the group truth legitimizing political violence. However, whether the broader community on behalf of which the group carries on armed strategy also shares the definition of reality internalized by the group members remains unanswered. For this reason, Chapters 10 and 11 focus on the generational analysis of the social legitimacy of these groups and the strategy they pursue in Basque and Kurdish societies. These chapters illustrate the grade of social support granted to ETA and the PKK by basing on available quantitative data as well as the actors’ perception concerning the changes in social legitimacy through qualitative data obtained in the course of both field research. Finally, a generational analysis on the social reproduction of political violence not only does it permit the social scientist to observe the conditions and reasons of engagement but also the grade of loyalty to the collective group and the cause defended through armed militancy. This latter is equally essential for an organization to survive. The habitus and mode of belief transmitted and interiorized by the majority of collective group members through written or unwritten rules are related to symbolic elements (Lefebvre & Sawicki 2006: 42-43) whose reproduction is also a generational question. As the value attributed to these elements with definite symbolic meaning within the political culture in which each group emerges and develops are constructed and reproduced through generations, Chapter 12 and Chapter 13, therefore, analyze these processes through three consecutive generations. This simultaneous analysis of those generations involved in politico-military strategy based on a specific group truth concerning social reality eventually allows making final comparative remarks under Chapter 14. This last chapter discusses generational variables influencing the success or failure of both movements in achieving a considerable degree of plausibility of the group truth among the 11 Basque and Kurdish communities under the given conditions of each period. These conclusive remarks will be based on a specific research plan, questions, and hypothesis whose details are worth mentioning in detail as the following. Research question(s) and hypotheses After having made a brief overview of the selected cases from a generational perspective, it would be convenient to formulate the main research question as follows: “How do generational variables affect the social reproduction and legitimacy of political violence in the Basque and Kurdish cases?” The above-formulated question reveals the scholarly interest lying behind the field research conducted in both cases. Nevertheless, an attempt to find a satisfactory answer to this question requires formulating several sub-questions that are essential to this end. The following sub-questions to be brought about through the upcoming chapters are therefore equally necessary to answer: a) What are the key generational variables behind the emergence of organizations that resorted to political violence in the Basque and Kurdish cases? b) What are the social mechanisms of the reproduction of political violence in both cases? Do they continue or change in each generational period? c) How do actors involved in political violence perceive social reality? Does this perception of reality change through generations? d) How do social actors from different political generations justify their involvement and loyalty to violent organizations? e) Does the social legitimacy of violence exercised by ETA and the PKK change through generations? If so, how does this change affect the trajectory of these movements? These sub-questions may vary, and many others may be listed down. However, both retrospective quantitative data, as well as the qualitative data collected in this study, delimit the scope of questions. Apart from provoking further interest for future research, the primary function of these questions is to formulate hypotheses tested by basing on the accumulated data obtained through literature revision and the field research specifically designed to this end. The main hypotheses that this study has attempted to test regarding the above-formulated questions are as follows: a) Political violence exercised by non-state actors in the Basque and Kurdish cases derives from national traumas and their reproduction by future generation nationalists. 12 b) Social mechanisms that produce political violence vary depending on the socio-political conditions and variables of each sociological generation. c) The social reality perceived by militants is based on the idea of a continuous state of war for ethnic survival, which justifies the use of violence in any period. d) The decision-making on involvement in armed militancy is a long process passing through specific patterns during the primary and secondary socialization of each generation. e) The social legitimacy of political violence depends on socio-political conditions in a society in a given period under which new cohorts emerge. Qualitative data collected for this study in the Basque Country and Kurdistan, respectively, as well as the evaluation of previously accumulated data, will allow conducting a systematic analysis through the following chapters to test the above-formulated hypothesis. The results obtained in both cases will be evaluated comparatively in the conclusive remarks. Research methodology: Implementation and challenges A scholarly work dealing with such concepts as nationalism and political violence within the context of ‘stateless nations’ enters into a controversial area as definitions regarding any of these concepts tend to be subject to moral judgments. These moral judgments are reproduced continuously in everyday life through a variety of mechanisms (family, schooling, media, and alike), and academia is not exempt from this process. The social scientist whose intrinsic position is to avoid value-oriented conducts upon the research object (Weber 1949: 11) may drift apart from ‘what it is’ and get closer to ‘what it ought to be’ that leads the science to become a set of practices seeking to determine the validity or falsity of a phenomenon through empirical knowledge (Douglass & Zulaika 1990: 242). The social constructivism adopted as the general methodological perspective in the analysis of political violence focuses on the processes through which human knowledge regarding this phenomenon is developed, maintained, and transmitted through generations. In this approach, the representation becomes the object of analysis the way it exists, and such value judgments as goodness and justness attributed to the representation or its scientific veracity are deemed irrelevant (PérezAgote 1989: 146). Here at this point, the social scientists do not adopt a suspicious role by looking into the degree of the realness of the presented act, searching for ‘real reality’ (Goffman 1956: 108) or scientific curiosity on the weight of evidence and validity of arguments used by individuals in their discourse (Habermas 1975: 107-108). As basically affirmed in Thomas Theorem that constitutes the premise lying behind this approach, “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Merton 1995: 380), and no further inquiry is necessary with this regard. 13 From the perspective of constructivist phenomenology, whether Basques and Kurds are nations, whether the Basque Country and Kurdistan are colonies or not, or whether ETA and the PKK are national liberation movements or terrorist organizations are not questions for which the social scientist is concerned. The primary task of a researcher is to understand the process that leads the social actor to make such affirmations and, consequently, take a specific type of action. The researcher, in this case, focuses on the subjectively constructed reality objectified by the social group in question, making it possible to get back to the stage prior to interpretation to achieve “direct and primitive contact with the world” that he is investigating (McGowan 2004: 101). He is not primarily concerned with the degree of accuracy of what social actors claim or evaluating the moral justifications they make (Alexander et al. 2004: 9) but instead approaching the defined reality as a research object only because it is objectified and internalized as real by social actors. Implementation of this methodological approach in a comparative analysis in two different cases of the same social phenomenon from a generational perspective requires paying close attention to the temporal and qualitative characteristics of the previously realized studies and availability of reliable data through a detailed literature revision in each case as part of the pre-field research phase. It would be convenient to affirm beforehand, the research trajectory on the selected period follows explicit parallelism with the political path of both countries concerning Basque and Kurdish questions. Likewise, the same political trajectory also constitutes the primary factor in determining unforeseeable challenges in implementing the research plan in both fields. Secondary source consultation: Literature revision and data availability A significant amount of scientific work has been realized on both the Basque and Kurdish conflicts, making a wide range of quantitative and qualitative data available for new studies to be designed. Just as the subjects themselves, however, the trajectory and evolution of scholarly interest in both cases differ significantly, following a parallel pattern to political processes observed in Spain and Turkey. Consequently, existing studies offer varying amounts and distinct types of accumulated data in each case to be studied. The scholarly interest in Basque nationalism and the emergence of armed struggle has extensively been studied from different disciplines in both Spanish and international academia since the mid-1970s. The atmosphere of relative ease in liberties in this period encouraged scholars to deal with this ‘delicate’ question and allowed an increase in the number of works. Those scholars who introduced the first texts of the Basque neo-nationalist historiography in the late and post-Franco periods were ETA-affiliated and published these early works under their political pseudonyms (Beltza [pseu. Emilio López Adan] 1974, 1977; Ortzi [pseu. Francisco Letamendia] 1975, 1979). In the same 14 period, however, there were also plenty of Spanish/Basque (Caro Baroja 1971, 1974; Larronde 1972; Fernández de Pinedo 1974; Linz 1973; Apalategi 1976; Etxezarreta 1977; González Portilla 1977, 1981; Elorza 1978; Garmendia 1979; Corcuera 1980; Aranzadi 1981; Jáuregui 1981) and foreign scholars (Douglas 1971, 1975; Payne 1975; Clark 1979, 1984; Heiberg 1982) from different disciplines who focused on the history and political aspects of Basque nationalism. What may be qualified as the golden age of studies on the Basque nationalism and ETA corresponds to the mid-1980s onwards, namely the democratic consolidation in Spain. In this period, Basque and Spanish sociologists (Pérez-Agote 1984, 1987; Gurrutxaga 1985, 1990, 1996; Gurrutxaga, Pérez-Agote & Unceta 1990; Tejerina 1992; Tejerina & Aierdi 1995; Díez Medrano 1995; Arriaga 1997), historians and political scientists (Fusi 1984, 1989; Linz et al. 1986; Ibarra 1987; Elorza 1992; Mata López 1993; Llera 1994), and anthropologists (Aretxaga 1988; Zulaika 1988; Douglass & Zulaika 1990; Alcedo 1996) collected a significant amount of qualitative and quantitative data. Meanwhile, the interest by foreign scholars also continued in this period with prestigious works (Sullivan 1988; Wieviorka 1988; Heiberg 1991; Zirakzadeh 1991; Laborde 1998). Apart from representing a highquality level in scientific terms, the importance of these scholarly works also lies in their contribution to data collected in this period that also coincides with individuals categorized under the first and second generation of the MLNV in this study. Finally, the third period of Basque studies points to a divided scientific positioning between the official truth and the group truth in which it is the value judgment of social scientists from both poles that shape the definitions and concepts. While some scholars continued producing objective analyses on the Basque politics (Tejerina 1999, 2001, 2015; Conversi 2000; Mees 2003; Lecours 2007; de la Granja & Mees 2008; Pérez-Agote 2008; Murua 2016), a biased position concerning one of two definitions of reality is noted in the Spanish and Basque academia. The complete articulation of Spanish politics to western democracies, as well as the controversial actions by ETA since the mid-1990s, seem to have deepened the polarization among Basques, including academia. Some former (Azurmendi 1998; Elorza 2005; Llera 2013) and younger generation social scientists (Reinares 1998, 2001; Casquete 2009; Fernández Soldevilla 2016; Leonisio, Molina & Muro 2017) adopted the official truth on the Basque question, which was the synonym of ‘ETA terrorism’. This scenery draws a similar picture for those former generations (Lorenzo Espinosa 1997; Letamendia 2002, 2013) as well as younger generation intellectuals (Egaña 1996, 2009, 2013, 2017; Casanova 2007, 2012) who embrace a different interpretation reproduced as the group truth among abertzale left circles. Among studies on Kurdish nationalism and the radicalization of the Kurdish movement in Turkey, however, the very same political trajectory conditions the academic literature in a quite 15 contrary manner. Foreign diplomats assigned to Kurdistan (Taylor 1868, e.g.) as well as Russian Kurdology scholars in the early 20th century produced the first systematic available sources on Kurds. The period before the 2000s witnessed the involvement of foreign scholars or those Turkish and Kurdish scholars and intellectuals who pursued their academic career out of Turkey (Bozarslan 1988, 1993, 1997; Olson 1989; Picard 1991; Van Bruinessen 1992, 1994; Barkey & Fuller 1998) with few exceptions (M.E. Bozarslan 1964, 1966, 1967; Beşikçi 1969, 1970, 1990, 1991, 1992; Bayrak 1993, 1994) as well as some notable journalistic works (Kutschera 1979, 1997; Martorell 1991). Legal challenges and difficulty in access to terrain that became especially apparent after the 1980 coup d’état and uninterruptedly continued until the late 1990s, a critical timeline for this study, made it hardly possible to collect reliable and systematic data during these periods. This situation has gradually changed beginning from the early 2000s, and there has been substantial academic interest in the subject by both Turkish and Kurdish scholars from different disciplines (N.A. Özcan 1999; Yeğen 1999, 2006; Kahraman 2003; Vali 2003; Özoğlu 2004; A.K. Özcan 2006; Çağlayan 2007; Heper 2007; Bozarslan 2009; Darıcı 2009; Keser 2010; M.S. Kaya 2011; Saraçoğlu 2011; Güneş 2012; Aydınoğlu 2014; Demir 2015; Orhan 2016; Tezcür 2019) and journalistic works (Cemal 2003; 2014; Çakır 2004). Quantitative and qualitative data collected through field research carried out by some of these scholars have made a significant contribution to the field. Along with the ongoing interest by foreign scholars (Van Bruinessen 2000; White 2000; Romano 2006; Jongerden 2007; Casier & Jongerden 2011; Grojean 2017) and experts on the subject (Kutschera 2000; Martorell 2005; 2016; Marcus 2007), there has been remarkable progress in this field. After this period, and with intervals depending on the political conjuncture in Turkey by which the field research of this study in Kurdistan has been affected, the data collection process has grabbed a significant impetus. The literature revision on both cases reveals that, however, there has not been much scholarly interest in political generations regarding the Basque and Kurdish conflicts. Except for a few available sources that concern themselves with the question of generations (Arriaga 1997 and partly Orhan 2016), the impacts of generational variables have hardly been subject to analysis. Despite a significant amount of scientific work on both Basque and Kurdish nationalisms and conflicts in general, and ETA and the PKK in particular, a systematic analysis of different generations of these movements, therefore, lacks in the literature. A comparative cohort analysis on these movements, in this sense, not only does fill this gap in each case but also helps to understand the impacts of generational variables on political violence comparatively observed in different socio-political settings. 16 Data collection process in the Basque and Kurdish fields The differentiation in data availability in each case primarily conditions the research design and methodology applied in this study. As in the case of literature revision over the secondary sources, data consultation through independent research centers results in partly satisfying data collection in each case. In the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Euskobarómetro, conducted by the Department of Political Sciences at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), which has been collecting sociological data since the Spanish Transition period, is the primary source along with Basque Statistics Office (Eustat – Euskal Estatistika Erakundea) of the Basque Government, which has been providing reliable statistical data on economic, social and linguistic areas since the mid-1980s. The availability of regularly collected scientific data since the post-Franco period offers an ideal starting point to design a cohort analysis that coincides with these periods. In Turkey, on the other hand, research initiatives over Kurds and the Kurdish conflict are quite recent, and the data collection process is mostly irregular as the trajectory of the ongoing conflict primarily conditions these practices. Prominent research centers like Diyarbakır Institute for Political and Social Research (DİSA in its initials in Turkish), Truth Justice Memory Center (Hakikat Adalet Hafıza Merkezi), and KONDA Research and Consultancy have been collecting quantitative and qualitative data on Turkey’s Kurdish question, including physical and symbolic violent practices exercised by both parts of the conflict. Nevertheless, due to the limitations as mentioned above, other relevant indicators such as electoral results and census are to be taken into consideration despite a series of variables (judicial intervention in electoral processes, electoral security, and the ban on Kurdish political parties, among others) which make their reliability questionable. Primary source consultation Official publications, communiqués, and declarations issued by the organizations constitute essential primary sources as they reflect the group truth in each period. These publications make chronological tracking possible concerning strategical changes these organizations have gone through. These sources are also relevant as they reveal the reality constructed by the group at a certain point in time and make it possible to observe the retrospective reconstruction of the same reality by individuals during indepth interviews made at the time that this study is realized. The primary sources are available and relatively easy to access through available physical and electronic archives. In both ETA and the PKK, those archives are accessible. However, the excessive amount of information obliges the researcher to carry out a selective work: the Hordago Editorial team compiles ETA’s collected publications until 1978 in an 18-volume work, available both in Foral Library of Bizkaia (Biblioteca Foral de Bizkaia) and the Basque Section of the UPV/EHU. Additionally, the collection 17 ‘Euskadi Eta Askatasuna’ by editorials Txalaparta and Aise Liburuak offer an 11-volume chronological work based on the official documents issued by ETA. For any further consultation, the complete archive of ETA is available in the library of Lazkao Benedictine Foundation (Lazkaoko Beneditarren Fundazioa) led by Father Juan José Agirre in Lazkao village (Gipuzkoa). In the case of the PKK, although there is no specific physical archive available in Turkey, the Library of İsmail Beşikçi Foundation (Istanbul) offers a modest collection. Likewise, a part of the initial source consultation of this study corresponds to the Kurdish Institute of Paris (Fondation Institut Kurde de Paris) as well as the Kurdish Cultural Centre of Ahmet Kaya (Centre Culturel Kurde Ahmet Kaya) in Paris. Additionally, the PKK offers more comfortable and faster access to the electronic archive of its official publications Serxwebûn from 1982 on (up to 2020 + special editions) and Berxwedan, published between 1983 – 1995, which can be consulted through the organization’s official web page. Likewise, other relevant publications as Şehitler Albümü (Martyrs’ Album) and important referential books of the organization and Öcalan are also available on the same web source.3 Finally, one last relevant category considered a primary source is testimonies, interviews, and autobiographic memoirs written by those individuals who have been involved in militancy in the Basque and Kurdish movements at different times. Some of the leading figures of the Basque (Beñaran Ordeñana 1978; Álvarez Enparantza 1997; Idigoras 2000; Zumalde 2004; González Katarain 2009; Otegi 2012) and Kurdish (Anter 1991, 1992; Öcalan 1995; Bayık n.d.; Kutlay 1998; Serdî 1994; Kotan 2003; Zana 2004, 2014; Büyükkaya 2008[1992]; Ekinci 2010; Yıldırım 2010; Cansız 2014; Dr. Şivan 2014 [1970]; Karayılan 2014) movements, who belong to different cohorts, provide essential information. Notwithstanding, while the above-stated data offers a significant amount of information that serves as a starting point, a comparative cohort analysis of the social reproduction and legitimacy of political violence requires designing a systematic research implementation that focuses explicitly on generational variables in both cases. For this reason, it would be convenient to go through the primary data collection process used in this study. Field research and qualitative data collection Due to the previously explained reasons in relation to the political path of both countries in question, the qualitative data collected in the Basque case is more diverse and systematized and includes all three generations analyzed in this study (Pérez-Agote 1984; Zulaika 1988; Mata 1993; Alcedo 1996; Reinares 2001) whereas the data on Kurdish case is irregular, mostly based on journalistic practices 3 Please see https://www.pkkonline.com/ or http://www.serxwebun.org 18 (Kutschera 1997; Martorell 2005; Marcus 2007) and, therefore, difficult to systematize. This distinctive character of the available data conditions the qualitative data collection design in each field. A systematic analysis of political violence from a generational perspective requires an additional process of specific data collection. In a study aiming to observe the socialization processes of the members of a particular group in a longitudinal form, beginning from family transmission to schooling and coeval relations, a life-history analysis based on selected samples provides more satisfactory outcomes than other available research techniques (Bertaux 2010: 84). To this end, two different longitudinal research designs based on in-depth interviews with actors from different generations have been conducted for comparative life-history analysis. Semi-structured questionnaires for in-depth interviews are designed for both cases and developed throughout field research (see Appendix 2.1 and 2.2). Due to the differentiation in available data and, most importantly, the variables specific to each case (e.g., social structure, ethnic/religious diversity, geographic extensiveness), each field research has been designed accordingly. The Basque field (Spain and France) consists of a total number of 24 interviews with those militants who joined ETA-m as well as others who joined later outlawed Basque youth movements of Jarrai and Segi, which exercised low-density urban violence, allegedly under ETA command. By taking the previously made studies and available data since the Spanish Transition into consideration, 18 interviews have been selected for the analysis seeking an even distribution in terms of age, sex, and geographic region in three periods. Additionally, an exclusive interview from the founding generation of EKIN/ETA, codified as B-F, is also included as considered a valuable asset. All transcripts are anonymized as agreed with the individuals who voluntarily took part in this study and codified per cohorts (B-I, B-II, and B-III, respectively), as indicated in the Summary Chart of interviews in the Basque field (see Appendix 3.1). The second group of in-depth interviews consists of PKK guerrillas and urban militias who are similarly divided into three consecutive generations, beginning from the founding period of the organization in the mid-1970s to the 1990s and 2000s. Thirty-four interviews have been selected for the cohort analysis (see Appendix 3.2) out of some 70 made in both northern (Turkey) and southern Kurdistan (Iraq). Each group (codified as K-I, K-II, and K-III) contains more interviews than those in the Basque case for several reasons. First of all, comparatively far less amount of studies and less regularly collected data obligates the researcher to fill this gap to make generalizable inferences. Secondly, social conditions and variables show a more diverse character in a bigger and more complex society, whose geographic limits overstep Kurdistan, reaching across western Turkish cities, which host a 19 considerable amount of Kurdish migrant communities. Such variables as ethnicity and religious creed in and out of Kurdistan draw a more complex social fabric than that of the Basque Country. Limitations in terms of accessibility and controlling key independent variables based on the demographic characteristics of individuals come up with essential reasons in deciding which data collection technique to implement. Focus group discussions with two representatives from each of three generations had initially been considered adequate to create a dynamic micro-universe through which it would be possible to observe interactions among different generations (Alonso 1998: 94). Nevertheless, after initial contact with both terrains, it was realized that the implementation of this technique would be problematic for two main reasons. First of all, in the case of ETA, minimal conditions of mobility that militants faced in underground and prison/exile came up as a practical difficulty to bring two representatives from all three generations together in the same physical place. This challenge was especially apparent in the case of those third-generation militants, most of whom found themselves under one of these three conditions. The impression noted in encounters with the PKK militants in guerrilla bases in southern Kurdistan (Iraq), on the other hand, drew a different picture with this respect, and implementation of focus groups among guerrillas from different generations did not seem as challenging. Here at this point, however, another challenging question came into sight. Unlike ETA militants, the relative hierarchy among PKK members from different age groups and rankings was more visible, something that casts doubt on the question of self-censure by younger guerrillas in the presence of higher-ranking members. Despite the frequently repeated emphasis on equality and ‘comradeship’ in in-group environments, field experience in southern Kurdistan occasionally demonstrated contrary examples, especially in relations between young guerrillas and those who occupy executive positions. Intergenerational interactions among militants, therefore, have remained mostly limited with notes taken during informal encounters and conversations with individuals in each field. For these reasons, semi-structured in-depth interviews were deemed adequate to collect systematic data that would make a comparative life-history analysis possible. To this end, the researcher designed questionnaires by taking the position of the individual at the time (ex-prisoners, exiled, underground) as well as socialization/militancy period conditions into consideration in each case. A sufficient amount of data has been collected to make a comparative analysis despite certain methodological deficiencies and practical challenges encountered on the ground that would be convenient to mention briefly before making a theoretical proposition for this analysis. 26 A ‘generational rupture’, that is, a break-up between elder and younger cohorts in terms of interpretation of the change and actions taken to deal with its consequences, arises under these circumstances. While the younger cohort, ‘active’ or ‘strategic generation’, makes a generative contribution to the social community and polity, the older ‘passive generations’ tend to accept the given culture (Turner 2002: 16-17). Due to their pioneering role and the significance of their activism in speeding up the renovation of cognitive bases of society (Attias-Donfut 1988: 148), ‘disruptive’ young generations are usually identified with the ‘youth movements’ (Juhem 2009: 193). These youth groups and movements are the carriers of the generation entelechy and the operators of ‘generation style’ that shape the political socialization of the following birth cohorts. At what stage of life-course this generational rupture takes place arises as an important question in understanding this process and developing a model of analysis. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (1936) suggests that although children begin to conceptualize politics and create a sense of identification with political symbols in their family environment, their interpretation of politics until the early adolescence period remain at a rudimentary level. It is only at what the scholar labels ‘formal operational stage’ (13 years and over) that children can think about abstract concepts (Peterson 1983: 271-272). Although some others (Jennings & Niemi 1981: 21-22) indicate later years of adolescence as a critical period for the development of the individual’s political ideology, referring to their empiric cohort analysis, Bartels and Jackman underline a broader age spectrum, from childhood to adolescence, during which sensibility towards politics increase (2013: 10). A generational rupture by the cohort that experiences the social change, therefore, arguably takes place in early adulthood, during which the interest in politics begins. However, the period that paves the way towards the rupture involves a broader period, beginning with early adolescence. Finally, when a generational rupture takes place and the younger cohort establishes an alternative political stance, there starts a new transgenerational socialization sequence that lasts up until the following generational break-up. Characteristics of the cohort that breaks up from the older age group are transmitted to subsequent cohorts, and the ideas and attitudes once considered ‘different’ gradually extend over the population under a certain age (Spitzer 1973: 1385). The new generation style and entelechy develop a tendency of continuity through upcoming birth cohorts. In this case, new cultural and social norms arising along with the latest cohort generation are also expected to transfer through subsequent birth cohorts. However, this does not mean that older generations are exempt from these changes and transformations in ideas and styles brought by the new generation entelechy. Unlike the ‘fresh contact’ argument of new cohorts with the social change, defended by both Mannheim (1928) and Ryder 27 (1965), Edmunds & Turner affirm that if older age groups find the ideas and attitudes promoted by the new cohort attractive enough, they end up in accepting them (2002: 50).6 Arguably, the capacity of persuasiveness and verisimilitude of new ideas and attitudes are primary factors in turning the transgenerational transmission pattern into an intergenerational one. The salience of the event that provokes generational rupture also appears to be an essential variable in the reaction by different birth cohorts (Riggs & Turner 2000: 74-75) that should be further examined. 1.1.3. Collective traumas, violence, and generational reactions In studies on generations, major-scale events that have left their marks on the formation of macro generations in this and previous century come to the forefront. Traumatogenic events like the Great Depression, world wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the September 11 attacks are frequently selected when exemplifying the magnitude of socio-political changes at a macro level (Brokaw 1998; Edmunds & Turner 2005; Alwin & McCammon 2007; White 2013). Nevertheless, the larger-scale impact and popularity of these milestone events in western societies result in underestimating the relevance of smaller-scale traumatogenic events that provoke similar generational ruptures in more local settings. Civil strifes, invasions, and rebellions potentially produce a micro-level political generation among the young cohort of a specific community or identity group. Unlike ‘psychic traumas’ that have direct devastating effects on individuals, larger-scale events have the capacity of provoking ‘collective traumas’, referring to severe consequences due to the disruption of communal networks and evanescence of ‘we sense’ among the members of a specific community. While those who suffer an individual trauma continue to exist despite severe damages, collective traumas constitute a threat to the existence of a collective identity (Erikson 1976: 153-154). Fundamental elements of social tissue (e.g., family and peer groups) give up functioning the way they do in the pre-trauma period. Catastrophic events with multiples loss of life and property and memories based on them provoke over-disrupted family dynamics (Figley & Kleber 1995: 83). Those scholars who analyze the generational effects of events provoking collective traumas (Mayer 1988; Tedeschi 1999; Edmunds & Turner 2002; Alexander et al. 2004; Hirsch 2008) include violent human interventions such as wars, revolutions, and rebellions among them. As in the case of natural disaster, these human-made violent events also threaten the collective identity of a community by provoking a sense of loss of meanings and collapse its symbolic universe (Elias 1996: 351). Additionally, unlike natural disasters with no specific perpetrator, the reaction given by victims tends 6 Using the data collected by Detroit Area Studies (1971), Dowd precisely affirms that there is no significant empiric evidence showing a relation between age factor and tolerance towards civil liberties (1980: 221-222). Fresh contact argument may be valid in the initial stage of an emerging cohort, whereas the mid and long-term generational impacts on older birth cohorts are related to qualitative variables of the change as well as forms and ideas represented by the new cohort. 28 to be different in human-originated instances in which the disaster is caused by an individual, group, or entity to whom victims collectively react in various manners. As pointed out before, such responses before traumatic episodes are observed more visibly among the young cohort who are more likely to become the entelechy of this pioneering process: “Traumatic episodes like war and revolution may become the foci of crystallization of the mentality of a cohort. The dramatic impact may mark indelibly the ‘naïve eyes and virgin senses’ of the cohort in the vanguard and change them into an entelechy with an explicit mission, a virtual community of thought and action. […] A new cohort provides a market for radical ideas and a source of followers, and they are more likely than their elders to criticize the existing order. […] The direction of change may be to the left or to the right, toward democracy or toward totalitarianism, but whatever the trend, it is most manifest in youth.” (Ryder 1965: 850-851) This affirmation, however, constitutes only the reaction by a specific birth cohort to major-scale violent events. An attempt to inquire the effects of incidents caused by major-scale violence on different birth cohorts requires a two-sided observation among the members of different age groups: a) those who have personally been subjected to traumatogenic event itself and; b) those who have not experienced the incident directly, but have to deal with its consequences. It would be convenient to dwell in both cases to understand the reaction given by both generations. a. Experienced trauma: Social change and generational silence The profound changes reflect the immediate impacts of a traumatogenic event on pre-existing patterns of beliefs, goals, identity, and interpersonal behaviors. Sztompka affirms that these social changes on axio-normative and symbolic belief systems of society happen sudden and rapid in terms of time; wide and comprehensive in terms of its scope, including a wide range of aspects of social life; and radical, deep, and fundamental in terms of its content (Alexander et al. 2004: 158-159). These impacts constitute a completely different process that is hardly correlated with the trajectory of transgenerational transmission of cultural norms and social patterns. In such cases, collective trauma itself becomes a socialization mechanism that deconstructs the pre-trauma period social reality and upon which a new collective reality is constructed. Traumatic experiences faced by a community are interpreted under the existing moral values, and overcoming trauma consequences is not limited to individuals who have been subjected to traumatic practices (e.g., torture, rape, disappearance, death). Still, it is instead a question of ‘cultural bereavement’ (Summerfield 1995: 20-22). Smelser indicates that those societies that experience largescale traumatic violence at some point in time develop two principal reactions: a) ‘we must remember’ based on collective public campaigns or; b) ‘let us forget’ resorting to deliberate mass omission (Alexander et al. 2004: 51-54). Arguably, the presence of the perpetrator and the position of the victim in the post-trauma period appear highly relevant to these reactions upon which the trauma narrative is constructed. In case the perpetrator continues to occupy an absolute power position, the generation 29 who lives through the trauma is more likely to embrace the unwillingness to remember the causes leading to the traumatogenic event, which creates a state of social silence. Scholars working on collective traumas underline two reasons when explaining the causes that lead to social silence observed right after a violent incident. While some members of the society fall into silence to assuage survivor guilt (Brende & Parson 1986: 128), some others take a similar attitude in the form of posttraumatic avoidance to prevent reoccurrence of a similar catastrophe (Elliott 1997: 812). Social silence involves the preference of those birth cohorts who experienced the traumatogenic event to confine their traumas to the ‘language of the family’, which consists of nonverbal and noncognitive acts practiced exclusively in the private sphere (Hirsch 2008: 112). Upcoming generations who do not live through the incident but instead face its severe social consequences may potentially take a somewhat different attitude by breaking the social silence through a public stand against the trauma perpetrator. Eyerman makes the following statement with this respect: "If a collective memory is rooted in a potentially traumatic event, which by definition is both painful and also open to varying sorts of evaluation, it may take a generation to move from group memory to public memory. Sometimes it may take even longer; sometimes it may never happen at all." (Eyerman 2002: 66, emphasis added) This transition from collective silence to collective emitting at the end of which the cultural trauma finds a social expression and constitutes a part of the collective memory of the community in question is also where the previously mentioned ‘generational rupture’ starts. In such cases, the younger generation takes a rather critical attitude towards the lack of reaction and silence adopted by their parents and begin to construct a completely different social reality based on trauma narrative. b. New cohort generation and the social reproduction of trauma narrative The trauma caused by violence potentially triggers a strong sense of solidarity within the community as well as a revulsion from societal arrangements that rest upon enforcement methods (Coser 1967: 88). The forms of thinking and acting adopted by the new cohort, therefore, are based on a reaction towards the social and cultural forms imposed upon society, and the passive stance, silence, and immobility by older generations are considered betrayal (Smith 1999: 218). Within the trauma narrative constructed by the generation entelechy, the new cohort is ascribed a leading role claiming that the adopted ideas and attitudes will serve best to recover trauma consequences. A generational rupture points to a social process through which the trauma narrative is objectified in the public realm. The trauma acquires a level of social recognition rather than remaining as a sum of personal experiences told by older generations in the private sphere (Olick 1999: 345). In other words, from the perspective of constructivist phenomenology, when a traumatogenic event takes place within a collectivity, the sine qua non to qualify this event as a collective trauma lies in its 30 construction by the political generation rather than the objective dimension of the crisis it provokes. The distinction between potentially traumatic experiences and the way they are represented as a narrative becomes apparent with this respect: “Traumatic status is attributed to real or imagined phenomena, not because of their actual harmfulness or their objective abruptness, but because these phenomena are believed to have abruptly, and harmfully, affected collective identity. […] Trauma is not the result of a group experiencing pain. It is the result of this acute discomfort entering into the core of the collectivity's sense of its own identity. Collective actors 'decide' to represent social pain as a fundamental threat to their sense of who they are, where they came from, and where they want to go." (Alexander et al. 2004: 9-10, emphasis added)7 Telling and re-telling those stories based on stereotyped and distorted traumatogenic events whose causes and consequences are debated through language and other symbols create a collective memory based on the trauma (Neal 1998: 202). A successfully narrated trauma acquires different spatial and temporal parameters, transcending the limitations of the original event, overflowing the individuals’ minds, and spreading over objects or cultural artifacts (Eyerman 2001: 130). Spatial traces of a tragedy and multifold practices through which its ‘sociodrama’ is reproduced re-actualize the traumatic event through new generations, alerting them about the presence of the threat that caused the tragedy (Kellerman 2007: 35-36). A successful narration of trauma, however, still depends on certain objective conditions under which the sociodrama is performed. The sociocultural context of a society determines whether it is more trauma prone than others. At this point, Smelser emphasizes that the memory remembered and made to remember must be culturally relevant for the society in question with substantial adverse effects, disgust, shame, or guilt (Alexander et al. 2004: 36-37). No historical event is automatically – and necessarilyqualified as a ‘collective trauma’ despite the magnitude of its tragic impact. It is strictly related to objective conditions under which the sociodrama functions. This process begins with the claim-making of the event and demand for the reparation of harassment that is later taken to the public via carrier groups consisting of elites, intellectuals, religious leaders, or marginalized classes who are the ‘meaning makers’ of the narrative. Finally, a broader audience internalizes the trauma narrative. From social actors to the scholarly world, legal bureaucracy and mass media offer a wide range of mechanisms for this process of ‘traumatizing’ the community (Alexander 2012: 15-24). Revisiting the principle approaches towards generations as a product of historical and social locations, it has been attempted to emphasize the emergence and politicization of generations from a 7 This argument constitutes exactly the opposite to the Mannheimian approach which prioritizes ‘personally acquired memories’ and underestimates ‘appropriated memories’, insisting that individuals only possess directly experienced memories (1952[1928]: 296). The constructivist approach towards collective trauma in generational terms does not attribute a primary role to the traumatic event itself, but rather to the degree of verisimilitude in its narration as a trauma, which is not about the personally acquired memories but rather the narration of traumatogenic event. 31 sociological perspective, with a particular accent on the role of collective traumas and the construction of the memory. In the last part of this section, it would be convenient to revise some of those studies which focus on generations and intergenerational interactions in specific cases. 1.1.4. Designing a cohort analysis: Generations as a social metric Empirical questions on the ambiguous definition and scope of generations cast a shadow on those studies that analyze specific social phenomena from a generational perspective. If generations already constitute a challenging empirical question, designing a methodology based on this concept as a temporal unit is further compelling. A considerable number of studies reveal a strict relationship between the research question and the phenomenon and the scope of generation to be applied when designing a fruitful research methodology. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish two types of scholarly work involved in the subject of generational research: the first group of scholars (e.g., Elder 1974; Wohl 1979; Schuman & Scott 1989; Roseman 1995; Arriaga 1997; Chauvel 1998; Brannen & Nilsen 2002; Eyerman 2002; Bristow 2015) choose a specific case study and implementing a cohort analysis they demonstrate why the approach towards the concept of generations they embrace is the most convenient for this particular case. The second group (Jansen 1974; Kertzer 1983; Braungart & Braungart 1986; Brannen 2003; Burnett 2010), on the other hand, focuses directly on the methodological use of generations as a temporal unit following empirical outcomes provided by the first group. Both groups provide essential insight in revealing specific characteristics of generational analysis and developing a proper research design for a particular social phenomenon. A generational analysis, no matter if it focuses on a specific or various birth cohorts, is always an intergenerational analysis as the impacts of a social change on a particular generation are only observable in comparison with the ideas and attitudes of older birth groups. In many case studies, scholars choose specific periods by taking a significant event that provokes profound social changes as a reference, which also determines the concepts to include in the analytic framework. If one carries out a longitudinal analysis on the generational impacts of the Great Depression on various birth cohorts, such parameters as the level of economic deprivation, change in income, and unemployment rates are related to the capacity of adaptation and reaction among different birth cohorts (Elder 1999[1974]). Similarly, in a cross-sectional study that aims to measure the impacts of significant events on the collective memory of several birth cohorts (Schuman & Scott 1989), the empirical data obtained on a specific cohort is meaningful only if it is comparable with that of older birth cohorts. In some other cases, intergenerational interactions are situated at the center of research interest that focuses on the transmission and reproduction of roles, norms, and forms of political 32 affiliation and engagement within a specific social structure such as family (Brannen, Moss & Mooney 2004; Jennings, Stoker & Bowers 2009) or religion (Williams & Davidson 1996; Pérez-Agote 2012). These studies pay closer attention to the socialization processes of each cohort and their impacts on transformations observed within these structures. They also provide clear insight concerning generational continuities in each period and the role of relevant independent variables in this process. In the recent period, there is a noticeable increase in studies designed to analyze the conditions under which specific macro generations come into being. Following the path opened by Wohl’s comprehensive multi-country study on the ‘lost generation’ (1979), the more recent period historians and sociologists (Carlson 2008; Monhollon 2010; Henger & Henger 2012; Bristow 2015) examine the socio-political variables that impact the ideas and forms of actions that new cohort generations develop in other cases. As previously mentioned, these studies focus on the profound economic and social changes experienced in the western world, particularly North America, following major-scale events with catastrophic results, such as world wars and economic depressions. The later period generations, namely generations X, Y, and Z, are rather associated with consumption tendency in marketing strategies and research (Meredith & Schewe 2002). Finally, some scholars show interest in the role of generational variables in affiliation and disaffiliation to concrete groups that represent a specific generation unit. Ideological influences of a period on the socialization of a cohort whose members get involved in youth/student movements (Whalen & Flacks 1984; Braungart & Braungart 1991; Cohen 1994) and engagement/disengagement in an organization (Elias 1996: 229-299; Arriaga 1997) provide essential insight regarding the perception of external variables and in-group loyalty. This last group is especially crucial as they scrutinize the impacts of generational variables on transformations in a particular group and the relationship between objective conditions and subjective interpretations. Some remarks on the methodology of generational analysis After having briefly revised various case studies based on generational analysis, it would be convenient to cast an eye on some remarks concerning the implementation of generations as a social metric. Although it is difficult to draw a typology of generational analysis applicable in any case8, based on the previous empirical research in different fields, some scholars point out certain aspects that need consideration when designing a research model. 8 A rare example to establish a typology towards the patterns of change and continuity in intergenerational family transmission has been attempted by Brannen and her colleagues (2004: Ch. 7), who limit themselves to two structural factors (occupational and geographic mobility) that they have found to shape intergenerational relations within families. 33 First and foremost, the difficulty in distinguishing three referential factors, that are age, period, and cohort effects as independent variables, constitute the core problem in the analytical use of generations. The tendency to separate ontogenetic change (biological maturation), period, and cohort effects (Juhem 2009: 190) has been a problematic issue, and a comprehensive explanation of a lifecycle phenomenon is related to all three factors (Dowd 1980: 214). Major-scale events that potentially create new cohort generations affect individuals’ everyday life and habitus by developing a strong sense of own culture (Edmunds & Turner 2002: 15-16), and life-course elements form part of this process. Underlining the same question, Braungart and Braungart suggest conducting a combined qualitative model in which aging, period, and cohort effects are included, linking the life-course development of individuals to historical experiences based on societal and global cycles (1986: 225). As previously noted, the sociological significance of a generation goes beyond the concept of aging. Although age groups still constitute a fundamental parameter used in cohort analysis, understood as a location of an individual or a social group in time, a cohort puts the emphasis on the impacts of historical events on human development (Alwin & McCammon 2007: 234). The researcher identifies boundaries demarcating a cohort as a social unit by including only specific age groups based on his or her knowledge and expertise on the historicity of the research subject (Burnett 2010: 47-48). This characteristic of cohort analysis, therefore, comes in for criticism as cohort identification is considered highly arbitrary and difficult to justify (Spitzer 1973: 1357; Kertzer 1983: 138), which makes a cohort come into prominence as long as it catches scholarly attention. Notwithstanding, the identification of a cohort is not a random practice. Formative events and the magnitude of changes related to the research subject are taken into consideration when delimitating the age groups of a generation cohort, assuming that individuals within the selected age category have gone through similar experiences. At this stage, which methodological design to apply depends on the research question and objectives. If, for example, the research aims to measure the impact of one or more events at one point in time on different birth cohorts (e.g., Payne et al. 1973; Taveggia & Ross 1978; Schuman & Scott 1989), cross-sectional research design provides a sufficient amount of data to obtain fruitful results. However, if it seeks to measure a social group at various points in time, a longitudinal design best suits this end (Buss 1974: 56). Depending on the specific interests of the researcher, these designs include various research techniques (panel study, life-history analysis, e.g.) to obtain desired outcomes (Braungart & Braungart 1986: 222-224). Finally, an analysis focusing on the relationship between significant social events and specific age groups who share similar life experiences depends on the availability and accessibility of data. Any event-based cohort analysis addresses a series of conceptual questions regarding the measurement of 34 a definable event. The temporal location of the formative event in question (far past, past, near present or present), and the duration of its impacts, lead the researcher to recast the relevant retrospective and prospective data (Elder & Pellerin 1998: 272-273) in designing a research strategy. A research project based on comprehensive cohort analysis, for this reason, requires a thorough literature revision on the research subject. Those studies based on an extensive survey data set systematically collected by research centers in different periods (e.g., Drouin 1995; Jennings, Stoker & Bowers 2009; Bartels & Jackman 2013) enjoy the opportunity to formulate a wide range of research questions and hypothesis that are possible to test through available data. Having revised the main aspects of generations as well as primary questions regarding the generational methodology, now it is time to focus on two social phenomena, nationalism and political violence, for which this study suggests a comparative cohort analysis model. In the light of theoretical approaches towards generations explained so far, the emergence and ethnic revival of nationalisms and the radicalization of ethnonational movements will be discussed from a generational perspective. 1.2. A generational approach towards nationalism and political violence This section focuses on the political radicalization of ethnonational movements that lead to the use of violence seeking to achieve political objectives. As analyzed through the following chapters of this study, two specific cases corresponding to this phenomenon, self-proclaimed Basque and Kurdish national liberation movements, derive from a generation entelechy based on an almost identical political discourse at the beginning of the 1960s and follow similar forms of action in a later period. Two fundamental questions need addressing in quest of a reasonable theoretical explanation: a) why do some ethnic groups resist assimilation by the nation-states, whereas others end up adopting the official definition of the nation? b) Why does a small portion of ethnic groups resort to violence, whereas most others pursue non-violent repertoires for similar demands? The modernist theories on nationalisms based on the relation between capitalist development and nation-state formation and nation-building processes only provide partial explanations to these questions. There are cases where capitalist development pursues similar patterns, and national revivals take somehow different forms. Some specific situations, like Catalans and Basques that experienced an ethnic revival in a repressive environment in two industrial regions of the same country but somehow developed two different trajectories regarding the use of violence, also rule out the role of authoritarian regimes as the sole independent variable of collective violence (Laitin 1995: 6). Inferences made out of structural differences in capitalist development and the divergence in the orientation of nationalist elites (Linz 1973, 1985; Medrano 1999) or the references to different components of a national identity (Guibernau 2007) need to attend in this quest for convincing answers. 35 To this end, the first step is to revisit some theoretical approaches towards the phenomenon of emergence, survival, and reawakening of nationalisms among stateless nations from a generational perspective. The second and more compelling phase is to examine some approaches towards the phenomenon of political violence that emerge out of ethnonational movements. Finally, the third and last part suggests an analytical design through which a comparative cohort analysis between Basque and Kurdish cases will be carried out through the upcoming chapters of this study. 1.2.1. Nationalism and nation-building in the stateless nations The term ‘stateless nations’ (McCrone 1992; Keating 1997) refers to those communities which have not attained statehood but possess a certain degree of national awareness and seek to accomplish specific national objectives (Guibernau 1996: 100).9 The emergence of stateless nations is intrinsically due to two main factors that have to see both with those ethnically different communities as well as the nation-building process of those states in which ethnic communities survive. A theoretical quest for a comprehensive explanation of this phenomenon, therefore, must lean on both factors. When Gellner raises the critical question of why some ethnic groups do not enter into national formation and opt for splitting up and forming their nation-state, he concerns himself with only one side of the coin. Leaving the motivations of refusal by ethnic groups with strong loyalties to their traditions and symbolic universe aside, the scholar focuses on the failure of the dominant nation in homogenizing the targeted population as a result of poorly organized nation-building (1994a: 60). A successful centralization over the national territory aims to accomplish a ‘cultural control’ based on the creation of a single linguistic, historical and artistic tradition by establishing a nation-wide educational system, imposing national languages, building museums, inventing national flags, anthems, holidays, and rituals that serve to make this ‘homeland’ less heterogeneous and create a unified nation out of a population (Tilly 1994: 140). A partial failure in this complex process ends up forming various nationalist projects under the same nation-state (Breuilly 1993: 367). In those states with multi-ethnic imperial heritage, the failure of nation-building results in lumps where the core components of national identity find it challenging to penetrate to the population. The premise lying behind this argument derives from the modernist approaches towards nationalism based on the uneven character of the spread of wealth due to antagonist growth and expansionist tendencies of capitalism. The uneven growth of capitalism provokes what Kohn (1946) conceptualizes as western-style ‘territorial nations’ with clear-cut boundaries and robust institutions. 9 In a later study specifically dedicated to these national groups, Guibernau uses the term ‘nations without states’ (1999), referring to national minorities living within the administrative borders of one or more nation-states. Although the minority position of these communities includes demographic facts in terms of population, it is primarily related to the position of the community in terms of access to power (Ritzer 1986: 292) that varies in the case of each nation without a state. 42 "The characteristics of one's group as a whole (such as its status, its richness or poverty, its skin colour or its ability to reach it aims) achieve most of their significance in relation to perceived differences from other groups and the value connotation of these differences. [...] the definition of a group (national, racial or any other) makes no sense unless there are other groups around. A group becomes a group in the sense of being perceived as having common characteristics or a common faith mainly because other groups are present in the environment." (Tajfel 1981: 258, emphasis added) In this new social composition, encounters between different definitions of each identity group cause a perception of threat in the mind of social actors provoking a national self-awareness among the circles who have not realized the difference between the imposed cultural and symbolic codes and their own (Staub 2012: 206).13 The political socialization of a new cohort is related to this decisive historical process. The new entelechy socialized under these conditions breaks with the kinship cycle of the previous-generation ethnic group members coming up with such ideas as self-determination and independence, the means guaranteeing their survival and development as a nation. The state of conflict in these identity encounters becomes a question of preserving an imaginary homeland constructed through a mythical past, shared traditions, and memories. Maintaining cultural boundaries and boundedness towards the ‘others’ considered foreigners threatening the security and integrity of the homeland becomes an essential element of conserving culture and identity (Morley & Robins 1995: 89-90). Nationalist elites of stateless nations put a set of mechanisms into practice to mobilize the masses in favor of the idea of the defense/preservation of the homeland as their success is strictly related to their capacity of mass mobilization for common nationhood (Connor 1990: 99). To this end, historical myths towards which the previous generations developed strong emotional ties are elaborated selectively to create an ethno-history based on the idea of ‘chosen people’ to be internalized through the following generations (Smith 1999: Ch.4). Nevertheless, attempts to diffuse national identity in the absence of fundamental nationbuilding mechanisms, i.e., institutions controlled by a nation-state, is a challenging task, and the states seeking their national consolidation usually are not tolerant towards such aspirations considered a direct threat to their integrity (Guibernau 1996: 103). Furthermore, as Kedourie emphasizes, the established national system of the world order does not lead to peace and stability as expected, but conflicts and tensions with frequent catastrophic consequences (1960: 138) that impact those ethnonational movements negatively in their ambitions towards an own national project. The emergence of a new entelechy with new ideas and forms of action in the early 1960s constitutes another historical location worth analyzing from the same generational perspective. 13 The instrumentalist approach attributes a further positive vibration to the conflict as an effective social mechanism of identity reproduction. Hostilities between two groups serve to prevent the boundaries separating them from disappearing (Simmel 1955: 18), and thanks to patterned enmities and reciprocal antagonisms, these boundary lines are constantly reaffirmed as long as the conflict continues (Coser 1956: 38). For this reason, once the conflictive social relation between different national identity definitions is established, it is unlikely that it comes to an end unless the co-existence is over. 43 1.3. Ethnic revival, generations, and collective violence The term ethnic revival employed by the leading scholars who have made critical contributions to the study of nationalisms (Connor 1970; Smith 1981; Hutchinson 1987; Hobsbawm 1990; Gellner 1994) refers to a resurgence of ethnonational movements in plurinational states with ambitions for an own national project based on the right for self-determination. Like their emerging phase in the late 19th century, these movements from the 1960s onwards also arise as a result of a generational rupture followed by collective traumas and silence experienced among previous cohorts. Resorting to violent repertoires to achieve the political project of national liberation that goes accompanied by a social plan for the future regime comes up as a specific generation style defended by a generation unit. Therefore, the previously formulated question about why some stateless nations (e.g., Basques, Corsicans, Kurds) adopted the use of violence whereas most others (e.g., Catalans, Galicians, Flanders, Quebecois) embraced non-violent repertoires must be reformulated from a generational perspective. Why, among some ethnic communities, does the use of violence as a specific generation style find social grounds and support whereas others fail to do so? Indeed, these movements such as Exèrcit Popular Català (Catalan People’s Army), Front d'Alliberament Catalâ (Catalan Liberation Front) and later Terra Lliure (Free Land) in Catalonia or several armed organizations that later formed Resistência Galega (Galician Resistance), Front de Libération de la Bretagne (Breton Liberation Front) or Front de Libération du Québec (Quebec Liberation Front) came up in the same period as other consistent examples. Still, they failed to find grounds to become strong politico-military actors convincing a part of their respective societies of the necessity of the use of coercion. As underlined by some scholars who have realized comparative analyses on specific cases of national revivals, more concretely, Basque and Catalan nationalisms that offer a compelling example of two different routes regarding the use of arms under the same regime (Payne 1971; Laitin 1995; Conversi 1997, Medrano 1999), it is hard to propose a general explanation for this phenomenon. The inconsistency among different cases emerging under similar socio-political conditions encourages social scientists to incline towards micro-level analyses focusing more on case-specific historical, structural, and cultural factors. A generational perspective based on cohort and period effects potentially offers a helpful tool in analyzing ethnic revivals and their armed radicalization. 1.3.1. Generation of ethnic revivals: Revolutionarism out of silence The emergence of a cohort generation that led to ethnic revivals in the early 1960s has to see with consecutive traumatogenic events that the nation-state system provoked through the first half of the 20th century. Anticolonial struggles erupted during the post-World War II, and the waves of leftlibertarian social movements in the 1960s shaped the ideological components of generation entelechy 44 of ethnic mobilizations. New ideas and forms introduced by this new entelechy refer to another generational rupture from the previous cohort of ‘silent generation’ (Burnett 2010) that had emerged as a result of the post-war period crises, traumas, and depressions. 14 Tilly quite rightly confirms that since the initial stages of nation-state formation in Europe, dating back to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), wars and war settlements have played a determining role in establishing the nation-state system (1975: 74-75). Nevertheless, the consolidation of the nation-state system in the western world has also produced more wars and conflicts based on the political and economic interests of these states. The 20th century undoubtedly witnessed the most extreme cases of these traumatic experiences. As Conversi underlines, the modernist framework and discourse on which nationalism depends produced two world wars, the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide of 1915, as well as other atrocities. Ethnic minorities have often been the victims of ‘ethnic Westernization’ tendency based on the obsession with national purity and eliminationist attitudes (2012: 15). The impacts of these collective traumas, as well as their profound social consequences, also determined the political trajectory of ethnonational movements. The ethnic revivals observed from the 1960s onwards are based upon the previously mentioned ethnonational movements that emerged by the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Smith points out that despite their distinctive forms, the resurgence of these movements is considered a continuation of earlier ethnonational political and cultural organizations as observed through a broad range of examples, including initial political and cultural mobilizations in Breton, Basque, Catalan, Corsican and Kurdish cases (1981: 21-22). Indeed, considering the presence of commonly shared fundamental ethno-symbolic elements, the affirmation leaves no room for doubts. Notwithstanding, when the period before western national revivals are analyzed, there appears a historical location of ‘discontinuity’ in terms of the development of national project among these previously founded cultural and political organizations. As noted by those scholars who analyze Breton (Nicolas 1982), Flemish (Nielsen 1980), and Corsican (Dominici 2004) nationalisms, in the European context, Nazi occupation during World War II and the aftermath of the devastating effects of the war conditioned a period of silence during which ethnonational political activities diminished drastically. A similar state of generational silence is also noted in Basque (Pérez-Agote 1984) and Catalan (Guibernau 2004) cases due to post-civil war dictatorship in Spain, and in the case of Kurds (Bozarslan 2009) after the suppression of consecutive revolts between 1925 and 1938. The lack of 14 It is surprising to note that besides Burnett, who directly refers to the Silent Generation of post-WW-II, only a few scholars cited in this study (Roseman 1995; Chauvel 1998; Brannen, Moss & Mooney 2004) ever mention generational silence in their approach towards the generational conflict. It may well be affirmed that generational studies are more interested in those birth cohorts who later get involved in activism than the previous birth cohort that adopted a position of inactivity. 45 political activism and mobilization beginning by the late 1930s involve a two-decade silence through which the new generation entelechy of ethnic revivals socialized. Silence as the main component of the period effects on the socialization of the new cohort appears to be a product of directly experienced traumas to prevent similar consequences.15 Older generations experiencing the ‘enemy’ violence tend to believe that their oppressors are infinitely powerful, and, as a result, they opt for a more passive stance (Gurr 1970: 206). This ‘collective selfdoubt’ fed by experiences of shared trauma, suffering, and humiliation, on the other hand, reveals the extraordinary capacity of nationalism in conflictive situations through loyalty and 'self-sacrifice' (Staub 1989: 252). Historical memory based on the idea of a past golden age and a nation that had survived countless disasters, no matter constructed on facts or fiction, appears as an inspiring tool for the new entelechy to take the lead and call to action for the national cause (Hutchinson 2005: 53). This attitude is also a refusal of the passive position taken by the previous generations. The generation style introduced by the new nationalist leadership is a result of the influence of major-scale coetaneous movements and events that have a profound impact on the emergence of the new cohort generation. Evolution and development of ‘left-libertarian movement family’ starting from the 1960s on (Della Porta 1995: 85), as well as archetypal national liberation movements as the leading actors of decolonization and anti-imperialist resistance in various parts of the world, come up with such ideas as liberation, equality, and justice, influencing the ideological orientation of young generation nationalists (Hobsbawm 1992: 149-150). In those cases where the ethnonational mobilization resurges under authoritarian rules with no or little tolerance, the young nationalist leaders find it relatively easier to identify their position with that of the colonized peoples and embrace the idea and forms of anticolonial liberation. The intensified social conflict between distinctive identity definitions also serves to embody the narrative of colonization. Dislocations, strains, grievances produced by the rapid social change play a triggering role in escalating the existing social conflict among the members of different nationalist groups (Oberschall 1993: 152-153). The perception of large-scale Protestant emigration as ‘England’s garrison in Ireland’ in the eyes of Irish Catholic nationalists (Hutchinson 2005: 100) or unwelcomed Spanish-speaking labor migration to the industrial Basque Country in the 1950s embodying the claims of ‘Spanish occupation’ (Linz 1985: 232-234) constitute noteworthy examples in this regard. These 15 Elias explains the impacts of collective traumatic experiences in the attitude of what he labels as the ‘transitional generation’ that seized power after the defeat of National Socialism and opted for an attitude of forgetting the Nazi interlude. The scholar underlines that the emergence of the Baader-Meinhof group (RAF) is nothing but a long-term after-effect of National Socialist trauma as a result of this mass forgetting by the previous generation (1996: 431-432). 46 encounters make the ethno-symbolic elements of each identity group interact more closely and consolidate the hostility towards the outsider. Finally, various ‘concrete groups’ considered essential for the formation of generation units (Mannheim 1952[1928]: 307) develop different responses to particular events and traumas (Edmunds & Turner 2002: 98-99) by opting for different forms of action as generation ‘sub-styles’. The idea of the use of violence for the national liberation and social revolution constitutes one of these sub-styles that emerges out of ethnonational mobilizations. 1.3.2. New generation entelechy: Construction of trauma, war, and enemy The new cohort considers that generational silence as a reaction to traumatogenic events by the previous generations threatens ethnic survival. Collective trauma and its consequences are incorporated into the national narrative based on an ‘anticolonial war’ against the ‘enemy’ in which the leadership is attributed to the new entelechy. The destiny of this war depends on the grade of internalization of this national narrative by the broader public among the community. Although nationalist ideology follows a similar pattern of diffusion of a specific social reality (Guibernau 1999: 93; Pérez-Agote 2008: 13), unlike social movements, nationalism in its essence distinguishes itself as a rather historic-political movement born out of antagonism against a defined enemy rather than a social opponent (Touraine 1985: 167). National liberation movements, in this sense, oversteps the limits of social movements as they construct a narrative based on a ‘state of war’ against a nation-state rather than protesting due to social indignation (Letamendia 1997: 287-288). In this narrative, the enemy constitutes a central figure often depicted in a configuration in which a colonial or imperial power symbolized with the name of its capital city, and an identity group that does not regard itself as part of the larger state are present (Barker 2007: 105). National liberation is considered possible only with the overthrown of the colonial power out of ‘national homeland’ by using force as in the case of archetypal anticolonial struggles in other parts of the world. Reconstruction and reconfiguration of the national narrative by the new entelechy may significantly differ from the previously existing ones. Still, it is usually based on the replacement of the subject who undertakes the historical responsibility for ethnic survival and accomplishment of the long-desired national project. The presence of the enemy arises as a sine qua non against whom heroic figures had achieved glorious victories in the ‘golden age’ (Smith 1991: 127-128). The name of the hero who lit the fire by confronting the enemy becomes a synonym for ‘rebellion’ (Barker 2001: 97-98). In the historiography of the stateless nations, however, the golden age is over with the invasion of the enemy, and glorious victories are replaced by ‘glorious sufferings’, which are usually real or invented traumas provoked by the same enemy who iniquitously continues to occupy the claimed homeland. 47 Leaders and avant-garde organizations formed among the members of new entelechy identify themselves with this heroic figure and take a similarly historical role. The success of the construction of trauma narrative based on suffering is related to the degree that the collective group identifies itself with putative trauma victims. Objectification of the story based on the victimization has to see with the persuasiveness of meanings to the community rather than its accuracy (Alexander 2012: 120). Once the community recognizes the narrative as real, it becomes part of the collective memory and functions as an essential form of myth-making (Neal 1998: 215). The ability of ethnic survival from genocidal attempts, massacres, deportations, and expulsions from ‘homeland’ throughout the entire history of ‘nation’ that goes back to thousands of years consolidates the quality of being a ‘chosen people’. Appreciation of life even more after surviving from a life-threatening trauma becomes an existential issue (Tedeschi 1999: 322-324), which is still at stake because the source of the trauma, the enemy, continues to threaten the ethnic survival. The young cohort assumes the historical ‘national duty’ based on devotion and sacrifice that their ancestors had allegedly exercised in the past. 1.3.3. Political violence in ethnonational movements The use of violent repertoires by particular youth groups for political ends arises as one of the forms of contention that become considerably popular in the period of ethnic revivals and adopted by some ethnonational movements. Political violence as a form of action appears as one of the distinctive elements of generational rupture, a generation style introduced by a specific generation unit. Resorting to violent repertoires for national and social ambitions is backed by a considerable amount of people within some communities, whereas among some others finds no social grounds, making these groups exercising such practices remain vastly marginal. Resorting to violence among ethnonational movements is not a widespread phenomenon. It is instead an exceptional means observed only in a few cases compared to a high number of peaceful groups with similar objectives. National identity is less salient, nationalist politics is less central, and ethnonational violence is less prevalent than it is assumed (Brubaker 1998: 273). Despite the empirical outcomes that underestimate the alleged link between national aspirations and collective violence, the overemphasis of these cases by scholars and journalists creates a contrary image (Laitin 2007: 23). Although the use of coercion for political ends becomes popular among some youth groups of the 1960s and, consequently, catches scholarly attention16, it persists among a tiny percentage of resurging ethnonational movements. 16 It is of no coincidence that pioneering scholarly work that specifically handle the question of political violence (Feierabend et al. 1966, 1969; Smelser 1968; Nieburg 1969; Graham & Gurr 1969; Davies 1969, 1971; Gurr 1970; Huntington 1971; Snyder 48 The fact that organizations resorting to violence are few in numbers among ethnonational movements also has to see with the grade of their acceptance among the community members in question. As pointed out before, even the most pacifist cases of ethnonational mobilizations under democratic (e.g., Quebec and Bretagne) and undemocratic regimes (e.g., Catalonia, Galicia) experience the emergence of armed national liberation organizations in this period. Their lack of persistence, therefore, should be sought in their capacity to convince a considerable part of the nationalist segments of the necessity of the use of violence for national liberation. This quest requires distinguishing the justification of coercion by the group members and the legitimacy attributed to the group by the community it claims to represent. a. Group truth and justifications of violence Instrumental approaches towards collective violence based on cost-benefit calculations regarding the political objectives and the characteristics of the political regime assume that groups compete for scarce goods rationally (Kaufman 2001: 17). Stemming from the rational choice theory17, these approaches base on the opinion of the social actor about the effectiveness of the use of violence in relation to benefits and the conviction about the achievement of ultimate goals through violent practices. In the case of national liberation movements led by a particular group, the ‘rational’ on which the national struggle is constructed has a set of parameters objectified and reproduced as the group truth in which emotional elements weigh significantly. In his pioneering study on the involvement in violent groups, Gurr puts a socio-psychological emphasis on individuals’ moral judgment over the perceived deprivation through which violence is justified.18 According to the scholar, groups resorting to violence justify their actions via a) normative justifications, that are the “attitudes and beliefs men hold about the intrinsic desirability of taking or threatening such action” and; b) utilitarian justifications that are about the “beliefs men hold about the extent to which the threat or use of violence in politics will enhance their overall value position and that of the community with which they identify” (Gurr 1970: 157). While the first category is about the core sources of frustration that determine the level of commitment to political violence, the & Tilly 1972; Grundy & Weinstein 1974; Tilly 1976, 1978) correspond to a period during which the use of violent repertoires by anti-colonial and revolutionary movements in the world impacted a specific cohort in western Europe. 17 Initially put forward by neoclassical economists, the rational choice theory is later extended to the field of sociology and political sciences (Homans, 1961; Coleman 1973; Friedman & Hechter 1988) by focusing on the social actor’s preference hierarchy (values, utilities) instead of the social sources behind their formation (Ritzer 2011: 417). 18 Deriving from ‘frustration-aggression’ theory (Dollard et al. 1939) which argues that aggressive behavior presupposes a source of frustration that produces counter aggression (Berkowitz 1989), Gurr’s relative deprivation model explains the likelihood of violence in cases in which the politicization of discontent and deprivation based on actors’ perception of discrepancy between value expectations, which consist of conditions that people consider they are rightfully entitled, and value capabilities, that is about what people are actually able to get. The intensity and scope of relative deprivation among the members of a collectivity arise as principal variables that determine the potential of collective violence (1970: 24-29). 49 utilitarian justifications have to see with the degree of utility people attribute to violent strategy in getting what they wish to. This latter is more related to cost/benefit calculation and, therefore, linked with the persistence of commitment (Klandermans 1997: 97). Although Gurr underlines the role that the socialization of extra-punitive attitudes and the existence of cultural traditions play in shaping people’s collective memory concerning the violent past (1970: 168-171), he does not get into further details on what influences over the social actor’s value expectations and value capabilities as well as moral judgments. These are directly related to the actor’s subjective perception of social reality in a given cultural and political context beyond the rational evaluation of the facts. The emotional state of individuals in a group is related to the more or less commonly shared biographic experience of each social actor who lives in self-constructed subjective worlds (Ritzer 2011: 272). Everyday life encounters and intersubjective interactions through socialization create what Collins labels as a ‘ritual chain’ in which individuals take part and look at the world through a common hole.19 The overall level of long-term emotional energy accumulated through everyday interaction rituals plays a decisive role in individuals’ subsequent functioning in their dealings with episodes of extreme anger, fear, or shame (Collins 2004: 130). Accumulated emotional energy among the members of a disadvantaged group contributes to the construction of group rationale. In stateless nations, the perception of deprivation regarding the national identity is based on an emotional attachment with a constructed narrative of past sufferings and traumas. Historical traditions of violent conflict and the present loyalty to the national identity lead to a positive evaluation of the use of violence in the cognitive construal of the nationalist sectors (Bandura 1998: 163; ContehMorgan 2004: 74). Past rebellions by the ethnic group and the violent response given by the ‘enemy’ set a culture of violence in the group’s collective memory that create a socially permissive precondition for the use of coercion by the future generations (M. Crenshaw 1981: 381-382). The emotional seal based on love for the homeland and the idea of the recovery of the lost past, idealized and narrated as the golden age, therefore occupies the center of rationale on whether the use of violence is necessary and beneficial to achieve the ultimate objective of national liberation. The redefinition of the enemy following the new ideological parameters and concepts to the group truth arises as another feature of ethnic revivals. Young generation entelechy articulates these components of a culture of opposition against the ‘colonial ruler’ with such ethno-symbolic elements as local myths, legends, epic stories, folk beliefs, and historical memories of struggle that further 19 These interactions and ritual chains correspond to the process of knowledge production through externalization and objectification of subjective meanings that are followed by the internalization of the objectified social reality by individuals through socialization processes (Berger & Luckmann 1991[1966]: 69-74, 149). Rituals as objectified truths are constructed as a result of intersubjective interactions and internalized by the following generations. 50 strengthen this culture of opposition (Foran 1997: 229-236). Apart from being an oppressive power seeking to exterminate the ethnic group, the enemy is now also qualified as a ‘colonial force’ backed by local collaborators/traitors that exploit the colonized national community. 20 Ethnic cleavage in the society is extended over other identity definitions such as class and gender that constitute the new components of ‘ethnopolitical rebellion’ (Gurr & Moore 1997), which expand the influence of the movement on other social groups, including them in the struggle against a common enemy. 21 Whether this new definition of national reality based on a narrative of a colonized nation that faces the threat of assimilation and extermination is adopted by the broader sectors of the society in question determines the future trajectory of the movement. b. The legitimacy of political violence: Regime, group, and community Studies on the theory of the state frequently refer to the concepts of legitimacy and legitimation. Whether a political entity or organization is qualified as legitimate depends on the effectiveness of legitimation, which is the process of ascribing legitimacy (Barker 2001: 22). Specific duties attributed to the modern state, ranging from tax collection to ordering governmental affairs (Dunleavy 2012: 793), result from its recognition and acceptance as a legitimate authority by people. When non-state groups imitate this authority by performing similar interventions and control with the threat of use of coercion (Letamendia 1997: 232), the state is challenged in terms of legitimacy. The use of coercion constitutes a fundamental component of legitimate political authority. In the Weberian understanding, the state is defined as a human community that ‘successfully’ 22 claim to be the sole source having the right for ‘the legitimate use of physical coercion’ in a demarcated territory (Weber 1946: 78). The monopolistic character as the key qualification attributed to the state, however, is not delimitated with the use of physical coercion but also includes other functions and competencies. In his referential work Economy and Society, the scholar also attributes to the state holding the monopoly of control over the land for the fiscal obligations (Weber 1978[1922]: 145), regulating the monetary system for monetary transactions (Ibid. 166-167), creation of the rules to define the limits of authority, granting the necessary means for administrative function (Ibid. 271-272) 20 Della Porta argues that such definitions are due to the estrangements of armed activists in underground conditions that provoke an “unreal image of the external world” (1995: 180). This ‘unreal image’, however, refers to the group truth objectified as ‘real’ by the group and adopted by a considerable part of the community. This definition of reality is therefore independent of any scholarly judgment as its realness or falsehood does not necessarily correspond to the objective facts. 21 When there is a conflict among different groups seeking the same objective (e.g. toppling a regime), objectification of the conflict plays a unifying role by creating new interaction opportunities (Coser 1956: 117-119, 128). Simmel precisely affirms that conflict against a common enemy sticks groups together which have otherwise nothing to do with each other (1955: 99). 22 Morris’s interpretation over the ambiguous use of the adverb is to distinguish the state from gangs and protective agencies who use ‘ordinary’ violence (1998: 44). These potential challengers to the authority in the form of bandits, marauders, and pirates in traditional states with an insecure hold of the power center over the means of violence (Giddens 1987: 182) continue as the state-sponsored bandit groups (Hobsbawm 1959: 13) in modern societies as long as the state consents them. 51 and, finally, the monopoly of the citizenship through the transgenerational flow of the socio-economic privileges (Ibid. 690). The state guarantees its legitimate position as the sole actor ultimately eligible to comply with these duties and competencies. The monopoly of the use of coercion plays a primarily functional role in forcing any other potential actors to obey this order. Nevertheless, in some cases, the state fails to establish this monopoly due to several reasons: geographic obstacles, challenging terrains, poverty (Laitin 2007) and intrastate contentions and warfare (Horowitz 1985; Hutchinson 2017) may prevent the state from eliminating non-state actors as alternative power centers with significant capacity of coercive power. When other groups claim this monopoly out of consent, it supposes a threat to the absolute control of the state over the core functions and competencies on the national territory. Although there is no empirical evidence that ethnic fractionalizations and discriminative policies lead to violent confrontations (Fearon & Laitin 2003: 83-85), regime type and tolerance constitute two variables that condition the transfer of legitimacy between the state and rival group. Tilly suggests that the grade of tolerance towards non-state group demands is directly linked with these variables. Repressive and totalitarian regimes show limited tolerance towards group demands. In contrast, tolerant and weak regimes facilitate the emergence of solid groups showing a wide range of tolerance towards their activities (Tilly 1978: 109-110). In regimes with inclusive policies towards ethnic minorities, the state accepts ethnic distinctions through cultural recognition or even concede a further degree of decentralization through political autonomy and federalism. Contrariwise, in regimes defining the nation as a homogeneous unity, exclusionist policies towards ethnic minorities are based on denial and repression through cultural and institutional imposition (Guibernau 1999: 35-64). Intervening in alternative nationalist claims considered deviant by regimes is part of ‘internal pacification’, in which the limits of tolerance depend highly upon the definition of ‘deviance’ in a given country (Giddens 1987: 327).23 The perception of deviance determines the character of policing, which may be: a) repressive versus tolerant; b) selective versus diffuse in terms of the range of groups subject to repression; c) preventive versus reactive in terms of timing of police intervention; d) hard versus soft in terms of the degree of force involved and; e) dirty versus lawful in terms of legal and democratic procedures (Della Porta 1996: 66). Indiscriminate and disproportionate counterinsurgency tactics and violence by governments are perceived as unjustified sanctions alienating the civilian population and making the grounds more suitable for broader support to insurgent groups (Oberschall 1993: 172-173). 23 Tilly roughly classifies types of public performances according to the degree of tolerance by the authority: a) Prescribed performances include typical ceremonies of allegiance and transfer of resources to state control; b) tolerated performances have to see with legal claims and organized responses to moral offenders and; c) forbidden performances include physical violence on governmental resources (Tilly 2003: 47). In this sense, the question of whether an activity/demand is considered deviant has to see with the limits of tolerated performances in any regime. 58 and period effects on each case. Systematic integration of a time dimension in analysing a social phenomenon is believed to serve a better understanding of changes and transformations in the social reproduction and legitimacy of political violence in a multiple-case study. Eventually, such an attempt also constitutes another example of a recently growing number of analyses that encourage the use of generations as a social metric in explaining complex social phenomena, paving the way for future studies to be conducted by next-generation scholars. 59 2. Generational Development of Basque Nationalism 2.1. Emergence and early periods of the traditional Basque nationalism The emergence period of the modern Basque nationalism corresponds to the industrialization process during the mid and late 19th century characterized with the uneven triumph of the liberal state in Spain, abolition of the Basque foral regime, and rapid industrial growth, as well as the subsequent drastic social transformations (Beltza 1974: 68). The idea of creating a Basque state on a defined patria (to be named Euskadi or Euzkadi) and the formation of its institutional driving force, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV/EAJ - Partido Nacionalista Vasco/Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea), are the two major historic points when it comes to the emergence of the Basque nationalist doctrine. This historical period shaped by the political context of the state-building process in Spain throughout the 19th century and its sociopolitical consequences in the Basque Country and Navarre is, therefore, essential to understanding the generational development of Basque nationalism(s). 2.1.1. State-building and the question of centralization in Spain and the Basque Country a. The centralization issue in the formation of the Spanish state The thesis of ‘weak nationalism’ refers to the lack of bureaucratic capacity and efficiency of social channels as fundamental tools to expand the nationalist doctrine throughout the 19th century in Spain despite the enthusiastic launching of nation-state building through the Cádiz Constitution, which equally lacked a potent constitutive power (Villacañas 2015: 387)26. This argument claims that the state-building process in Spain launched before having accomplished the territorial integration of nation-building provoked a lack of legitimacy of the state in some regions where local powers manifested their opposition to the idea of centralization to preserve their privileges (Linz 1973: 33, 99). The first signs of early centralization attempts in Spain focus on the formation of a stable symbolic universe: making the Castilian language the official language of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as that of remote colonies, the introduction of the national flag (rojigualda) in 1785 during the reign of Carlos III, the creation of the Royal March (Marcha de Granaderos), as well as the foundation of the Real Academias of language and history, are considered long-delayed steps in the centralization process of the Spanish State (Pastor 2012: 70-71). The invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by the Napoleonic Army constituted a turning point in the construction of the idea of Spanish nationalism 26 The thesis of a ‘weak state’ in the Spanish context was first employed by Linz in his Early state-building and late peripheral nationalism against the State: The case of Spain (1973) in which the scholar explains the problematic state-building process in Spain. This approach was later reformulated by the following scholars: de Riquer, B. (1994) "La faiblesse du processus de construction nationale en Espagne au XIXe siècle" in Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, nº 41(2), April - June, pp. 353-366; Fusi, J. P. (2000) España. La evolución de la identidad nacional, Madrid: Temas de Hoy; and in the most comprehensive manner by Álvarez Junco, J. (2001) Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX, Madrid: Taurus. 60 (Álvarez Junco 1996: 91-93); the posterior symbolic reproduction of the resistance deemed as Guerra de Independencia (Independence War) is commonly recognized by Spanish historiography. Nevertheless, the lack of efficiency in fundamental mechanisms, most importantly, an efficient educational system, resulted in only limited effects over the predominant lordship regimes at a local level. Having lacked a genuine Enlightenment revolution in the 18th century, Spain entered the period of industrialization without an efficient state apparatus in a context of archaic inequalities and hostile approaches towards the idea of modernity (Giner 1986: 440).27 Moreover, the existence of clientelism in politics, the indifferent attitude of political elites towards any radical change, and the dispersion of cultural, political, and financial centers were among the main factors for the failure in achieving a substantial national project and cultural homogeneity (Lecours 2007: 20). Weak governmental and territorial articulation eventually provoked a low level of legitimacy of the state in those regions where the primitive accumulation of symbolic capital (Pérez-Agote 1984: 11) for other ethnic identities had developed a certain degree of loyalty. Having failed in playing an integrating role with strong national cohesion and far from preparing feasible grounds for indoctrinating the popular masses with the ethno-symbolic elements of Spanish identity, Spanish nationalism largely remained at a rhetorical level reproducing the myths of glory from disastrous and exhaustive wars (Álvarez Junco 1997: 46). The consequence of this failure made it possible for the emergence of rival ethnic movements in some regions, including the Basque Country, which was incompatible with the social cohesion imposed by the state. b. Resistance, loss, and trauma in the Basque Country: Carlist wars and the abolition of the Fueros The imposition of liberal measures dictated from a political center upon remote territories was a challenging issue in Spain for two reasons. The local authorities had long been administratively disconnected from the center, and the highly religious and traditional social fabric was in no way responsive to such modern and secular steps. These were also the main reasons for the collision between liberals, who sought to establish a centralized and uniform modern Spain, and conservative and traditionalist Carlista sectors, who defended a monarchic and Catholic Spain (Esteban de Vega 27 This situation is due to impossibilities rather than an awkwardness in policymaking by the Spanish elites. Following an important phase of cultural development throughout the 18th century through which the national symbolic universe had made considerable progress, the devastating effects of the Napoleonic invasion; additionally, the territorial loss of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and its severe effects on the colonial economy, the incapacity and inability of governance due to the ultra-reactionary character of the regime of Fernando VII liquidated the state structures. The long-lasting financial incapacity during the 19th century, from which Spanish Monarchy had been suffering, inevitably affected its capacity to provide decent public services, especially in the field of education, which had been controlled by Catholic Church hierarchies, which provoked a lack of coherence in a weak public education system with local and provincial deficiencies (Fusi 1989, 2001: 97-102). 61 2003: 127). Within a few decades, this collision provoked the eruption of a series of civil strife and violence in the 19th century, named as Carlist Wars (Guerras Carlistas) between 1833 - 1876. The Carlist ideology received the most significant support in the Basque Country and Navarre, where the Second Carlist War exclusively took place. The fiscal system created by Fueros28 in the Basque Country suited the interests of the Basque peasantry, as well as autonomous jauntxos (rural seigniors) while causing devastating effects on the economic benefits of the Basque bourgeoisie and small industrial facilities (Ortzi 1975: 74-76). This social division facilitated none other than to choose one of two conflictive sides. The newly emerging Basque bourgeoisie (after losing colonial trade, more eager to resort to commercial activities inside Spain) and the urban working class in the developing metallurgy industry, as well as the upper Basque aristocracy, were in favor of modernization and, therefore, supported liberal ideas. The low-ranking Basque clergy and rural peasantry, along with small rural gentry, on the other hand, were sharing a convergence of interests due to a high level of religiosity among those social circles and opposing the centralization of the state. Liberal and secular policies such as the concession of religious freedoms, access to civil marriage, and the abolition of mandatory tithing were far beyond their conservative limits (Díez Medrano 1999: 69-79). Under the conditions of such visible social divisions based on tensions between the urban and the rural, the liberal and the traditional, the rich and the poor, and finally, centralists and absolutists, the achievement of the modernization of the state with a robust national cohesion was a challenging attempt. The inevitable social and political consequences of this division also shaped the mentality of the first generation of Basque nationalism that emerged once the foral regime was abolished.29 c. The period of post-Carlist Wars and the social grounds of the early Basque nationalism The Second Carlist War that concluded with the victory of the modernizers brought the definitive abolition of Fueros, generating different reactions in Basque society. For the general population, the foral regime meant relatively less fiscal contributions and exemptions from compulsory military service. In contrast, for upper-class sectors such as manufacturers and traders, the abolition of Fueros brought certain economic advantages. Traditional political institutions now were substituted with modern ones, and the proclamation of Economic Agreements (Conciertos Económicos) in 1882 changed their attitude towards the foral regime and increased their loyalty to Spanish political parties. 28 The term Fueros, or foral regime, refers to a peculiar system of autonomy in terms of fiscal, military, administrative, and legislative means within a political organization based on a federation-like system consisting of local municipalities (de Pablo, de la Granja & Rubio 2011). For the history and structural analysis of Basque foral regime in Spain, please see Díez Medrano, J. (1999) Naciones Divididas. Clase, Política y Nacionalismo en el País Vasco y Cataluña, Madrid: CIS. 29 The abolition of Fueros is a milestone as it constitutes one of the main pillars of the Basque nationalist historiography in which the Law dated 25 October 1839 recognizing the constitutional unity over Fueros is depicted as the loss of Basque sovereignty by the founding generation of Basque nationalists whose ultimate goal was to get back to the situation prior to this ‘unfortunate date’, recovering the privileges of Fueros (Ortzi 1975: 82-83). 62 The support for Spanish nationalism this way became the main characteristic of the local Basque bourgeoisie (Díez Medrano 1999: 85-87). The lower-class sectors, particularly the Basque peasantry who had lost their privileges, on the other hand, produced a great sense of resentment towards capitalism and urban centers where the new elites were living. The rapid and uneven industrialization that accelerated after the abolition of Fueros provoked a significant workforce flow from other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, more specifically towards the municipality of Bilbao, the cradle of Basque industrialization (Payne: 1975: 61). With the new industrial progress and consequent urbanization, the cities in the Basque Country became areas where the population came to experience the social changes derived from the industrialization directly. New forms of life were becoming apparent in those cities, whereas the old ways began to suffer erosion (Pérez-Agote 1984: 60). The exportation of sources from the iron-rich Bizkaia region, and the accumulation of capital as a consequence, not only allowed for the creation of an iron and steel industry but also determined a peculiar industrialization model in Bizkaia through an increasing percentage of manufacturing concentration in a specific part of the capital Bilbao. The left bank of the Nervión river became known as the industrial territory. In contrast, the right bank converted itself into a residential space and the capital city, Grand Bilbao, became an organizational and administrative center, provoking a notable physical gap between the new industrial proletariat living in socially isolated neighborhoods and the rapidly enriching bourgeoisie in Bilbao (Gurrutxaga 1996: 59-60). In a society where the population doubled between 1877 and 1900, the sense of defeat after the Carlist Wars extended to many segments of society, manifesting itself as a direct threat to the autochthonous ethnic characteristics. Table 1: Demographic growth in Bizkaia between 1779 - 1900 The sense of ‘invasion’ had already been visible in the eyes of Basques during the Carlist Wars. Most troops fighting in liberal armies in the Basque Country had to be recruited in other parts of Spain due to the high level of support to Carlist ideology in Basque provinces (Coverdale 2014: 238-240). The Year Bizkaia Mining and River Nervion area Bizkaia (agricultural areas) 1779 111,603 24,995 96,608 1810 112,92 26,138 86,782 1826 112,275 27,566 84,709 1843 143,012 31,631 111,381 1857 160,579 40,159 120,42 1877 189,954 62,437 127,517 1887 235,659 105,728 129,931 1900 311,361 167,68 143,681 Source: González Portilla 1981: 104 63 post-war generations sensed a similar perception in everyday life among newly emerging cross-identity environments such as industrial production installations. Spanish immigrants, with their symbolic universe and language, were in constant contact with traditional Basques. The latter had already had hostile feelings towards capitalism as well as its representatives, the ever-growing commercial and industrial Basque bourgeoisie. Unsurprisingly, the first generation of Basque nationalism took a reactionary and racist shape as a response to massive migrant communities ‘invading’ Basque land. Being another rapidly industrializing region, Gipuzkoa showed a distinctive character in terms of industrial development with its widely dispersed manufacturing facilities in comparison with Bizkaia, where the industrial production was heaped around the capital Bilbao. As a result, the region saw a multi-polar immigration and urbanization process as the dispersed character of industry did not permit the creation of large production centers but instead developed a diversity of production through mostly small and medium businesses (Gurrutxaga 1996: 55-56). As a consequence, different social groups were in constant interaction with one another in a reduced physical space. As a result of this distinctive industrial growth model and expansion, the nationalist bourgeoisie in Gipuzkoa adopted a lifestyle widely determined and shared by other existing social groups, overwhelmingly consisting of working-class people. The consumption level and fashion that the Gipuzkoan bourgeoisie followed, in this sense, did not necessarily correspond to its economic potential. Consequently, unlike the Bizkaia, social interactions among different classes were not confined to isolated spaces (Pérez-Agote 1984: 65-66). This spatial differentiation in interclass interactions also appeared as one of the key factors for the different positions taken by the Basque bourgeoisie towards nationalism in different regions of southern Basque Country. 2.1.2. The emergence of Basque nationalism: Doctrine, characteristics and social components The briefly described social transformations following consecutive wars and economic developments constitute the primary grounds on which the first generation of traditional Basque nationalism emerged. Basque nationalism arose as a reaction to social transformations due to massive workingclass Spanish immigration perceived as a destructive threat against Basque identity and culture and an expression of disenchanted middle-class Catholic Basques facing labor tensions and disputes (Arriaga 1997: 29). The latter is especially relevant in Bizkaia, where the Basque bourgeoisie failed to show interest and capacity when it came to penetrating the emerging Basque nationalism as a result of closer commercial ties with the Spanish national market with continuous demands in heavy-industry products (Díez Medrano 1999: 51). These two fundamental motivations are also significant for analyzing the main characteristics of the doctrine introduced by the founding father of traditional Basque nationalism Sabino Arana Goiri and his Basque Nationalist Party (PNV/EAJ). 64 a. The founding generation of the PNV and the early period Basque nationalist doctrine Being the first political organization promoting and defending the Basque identity, the PNV has had an almost uninterrupted pioneering role in representing and reproducing Basque nationalism. Sabino Arana, who shaped the party’s politics in this early period, also became the inventor of core elements of the Basque national symbolic universe. The Basque flag, Ikurriña, the national day, Aberri Eguna, as well as the PNV’s party anthem were also adopted by all Basque nationalist movements and inherited until today. He also conceptualized the independence and territoriality of the Basque nation, which initially focused on Bizkaia and, over time, extended through other remaining six provinces labeled Euzkadi or Euskadi (Conversi 2000: 53-54). As emphasized before, Arana’s nationalist doctrine arose as a reaction to the Spanish immigrant community in the Basque urban areas where the social encounters between autochthonous Basques and Spanish immigrant workers were far more visible than any other parts of the Basque Country (Pérez-Agote 1984: 60). Referring to the increasing presence of Spanish immigrants pejoratively denominated as maketos (Arana Goiri 1980: 627-628), Sabino Arana also became the first Basque nationalist who defined the situation in his native Bizkaia as ‘colonial’ and suggested the separation of the Basque community from Spaniards: “It is essential to isolate ourselves from maketos in all walks of life. […] We can say that in these times of slavery, we have a large number of Spanish colonies in Bizkaia, but let’s never get confused with maketos” (Sabino Arana quoted from De la Granja 2006: 197) The frequent interactions with Spanish immigrants and their cultural universe, both perceived as a threat against Basque racial pureness, emphasized the defense of genuine Basque based on ancestral descendants as the most remarkable component of Arana’s nationalist doctrine. He stressed the authenticity of surnames inherited from ancestral lines, a feature aimed at differentiating ‘us’ from ‘them’ in his nationalist code (Gurrutxaga 1985: 422). He reflected this racist component in a hostile discourse towards Spanish immigrants, invaders of an inferior race who would destroy superior Basque values and traditions of Old Law (Vieja Ley). Although Arana was clearly in favor of territorial unity and independence of Euskadi, the preservation of Basque racial purity was a priority: “...Ley Vieja (Old Law), the main defining element of the nation because: Is the soil on which we walk the only thing which constitutes the Homeland? Is it important for us to have a free Bizkaia here in these mountains, like having it elsewhere? If it happens to occur to have a Bizkaia, yes, free, but constituted by the Spanish race, would it really be Bizkaia?” (Sabino Arana quoted from Corcuera 1980: 384) Arana depicted the Basque race as a divine cause; religion, the love that one feels for God and Jesus Christ, appeared to be the primary requirement to be called a patriot (Larronde 1990: 94). Basque religious salvation through independence combined the above-quoted ‘Old Law’ with ‘God’ (Arana Goiri 1980: 192) as synthesized in harmony in the famous motto of Jaungoikoa eta Lege-Zarra (God 65 and the Old Law) pronounced in the foundation of the PNV. Independence of the Basque homeland (Euzkadi/Euskadi), considered functional for the divine glory, would also mean independence from maketos who had already lost their genuinely Catholic moral values (De la Granja 2006: 193). Profound feelings for Catholicism in Arana seemed even more critical than the Basque national freedom: “Between witnessing a free Euzkadi but away from Christ and seeing it enslaved but faithful to Christ, the Basque Nationalist Party would opt for the latter.” (Sabino Arana, quoted from Corcuera 1980: 324) This approach also becomes apparent in the affirmations by prominent figures of the following generation of Basque nationalists, like Fray Evangelista de Ibero (Ramón de Goicoechea y Oroquieta, alias Iber), the first ideologist of the Basque nationalism in Navarre. Describing himself as a loyal student of Arana, whom he titles as ‘the martyr of God and Euzkadi’ in his famous work Ami Vasco, he emphasizes the central place that religion occupies among Basques: “The Basque people love their religion more than the land they live on, more than their freedom, more than their fueros, more than their language. [...] the Basque put the faith in Christ as the basis for the restoration of their homeland, and if, miraculously, there is a Basque who denies the faith in Christ, soon, thank God, he would not also be late in denying his homeland. [...] In conclusion, even though it is something more than for the sake of our race, we must fight for God. Do not forget that I am [only] talking to Basques.” (Fray Evangelista, quoted from Garralda 2001: 169-170) The contradictive political positioning between the Episcopal hierarchies and the popular Basque clergy refers to a breaking point in explaining the role of religion as a driving force of Aranist nationalism. While the former opposed any form of nationalism except that of the official church doctrine, the latter positioned closer to Basque nationalism with its critical stance against ‘liberalist sins’ (Delgado 2007: 188). Increasing support by the popular church through subsequent generations, especially after the first electoral success of Basque nationalism in 1917, illustrated the growing integration of the low-ranking Basque clergy into Aranist nationalism. Finally, the Basque language, Euskera, which is the most significant element of the Basque ethno-symbolic universe by a wide margin, appeared as a component serving to differentiate recently arrived Spanish migrant communities and the autochthonous Basque. It was mostly the case among those peasants who emigrated from the rural parts towards growing industrial centers, leaving their traditional baserri culture30 behind and experiencing new identity encounters in big cities. In these new urban areas, the arrival of Spanish immigrants consolidated the long-continuing decline in the use of Euskera among Basques (Tejerina 1992: 87). This situation also explains the hostile attitude of first30 In her comprehensive study on baserri (hamlet, rural house), Etxezarreta puts special emphasis on the issue of language and the difficulty that baserritarrak (rural Basques) have in articulating into Spanish-dominated cultural environment. The scholar confirms cases where the euskalduns (Euskera-speakers) do not feel comfortable in understanding and expressing themselves in Spanish and, therefore, feel a certain degree of ‘inferiority’ in Spanish-dominated urban culture (1977: 169). 66 generation Basque nationalists towards mostly erdaldun (Spanish-speaking) Basque bourgeoisie qualified as ‘domestic enemy’ (Corcuera 1980: 144). The positioning of early Basque nationalists towards Euskera is best observed in the mythical construction of this language as the most ancient in the Iberian Peninsula, an approach inherited by Fuerist theorists, who considered Euskera ‘the language of Paradise’ (Letamendia 1997: 94). Arana’s concern for the transmission of the Basque symbolic universe to upcoming generations (Corcuera 1980: 398) and his overrating of Euskera as an element of differentiation (Gurrutxaga 1996: 73) by characterizing it as ‘the seal of the Basque race’ (Arana 1980: 1713) also affirm the place conceded to the linguistic question. Notwithstanding, Arana’s positive approach towards the language never underestimates race and religion as the key components. Arana himself clearly expresses that a maketo speaking Euskera is far less welcome than a Spanish-speaking Bizkaian (1980: 404). The importance of Euskera in traditional nationalism constitutes a significant element despite some of Arana’s statements that might be considered contradictory with this respect.31 The linguistic particularity of the Aranist viewpoint is more likely to be a mechanism of integration, differentiation, and, finally, an essential reference for social cohesion (Tejerina 1999: 82) rather than a central doctrinal element. b. Other Basque nationalist fractions before the Spanish Civil War The PNV’s entry into politics arose an alternative project to the idea of a unified Spanish nation-state, which had faced serious –and violentresistance by Carlist sectors in the Basque Country and Navarre, the latter being a disputed territorial question even today.32 This project was based on a clear expression demanding the recovery of the ‘historical state of reality’ before the abolition of the Fueros in 1876 (Arregi 2000: 106-107), which simultaneously constituted the mythical construction of Arana’s Basque nationalist historiography. Nevertheless, the political project that seeks to achieve this recovery and the continuity of this ‘historical reality’ within the same PNV divided the party into two lines. The traditionalist sectors led by the Arana brothers (Sabino and Luis) maintained their pro-independence, extremely Catholic, and 31 Considering Arana’s writings on the Basque language such as Etimologias Euskéricas (1980[1887]: 31-42), Lecciones de Ortografía del Euskera Bizkaino (1980[1897]: 810-982), Pliegos euskeráfilos (1980[1888]: 43-68) and Pliegos euskeralógicos (1980[1892]: 91-106), it is out of doubt that Arana put emphasis on the linguistic question. However, Arana's erratic comparative style on what he considered essential to be a ‘Basque’, in this sense, might be the cause of confusion with respect to his positioning towards the language. In the final analysis, it is understood that for Arana, Euskera's paramount consideration had to do with its strengthening role for the most fundamental component of his nationalism, race. 32 Among Basque nationalists from both the right and left-wing, the region of Navarre is considered one of four regions of the Basque Country under Spanish rule, namely Hegoalde or Hego Euskal Herria (‘Southern Country’ or ‘Southern Basque Country’). As a separated autonomous community, Navarre enjoys economic and fiscal privileges due to ‘historic rights’ in accordance with the Navarre Economic Convention of 1990: http://www.lexnavarra.navarra.es/detalle.asp?r=88 67 anti-modernization position. In contrast, the bourgeois sectors led by Ramón de la Sota followed a rather capitalist, moderately religious, and pro-autonomist line (Lecours 2007: 56). Although the ideological discrepancies between those sectors, which would provoke intra-party disputes and a consequent separation, were difficult to reconcile, the far-fetched unity strengthened the electoral capacity of Basque nationalism, which yielded remarkable results in the post-Arana period. Table 2: Electoral results in the Basque Country in general elections before the Spanish Civil War After the founding generation of traditional Basque nationalism, plenty of different nationalist approaches with quite limited electoral margin also came into being thanks to the political and social conjuncture of the first decades of the 20th century. In an era of increasingly growing Basque capitalism, now more connected with the Spanish economy than ever, Arana’s anti-modernity discourse did not seem sustainable for the Basque nationalist capitalists affiliated with the PNV (Totoricagüena 2004: 37). A more moderate regionalist perspective received considerable support, creating a new political organization in favor of autonomy status, Basque Nationalist Communion (CNV - Comunión Nacionalista Vasca). The CNV defended the integrity of an autonomous Basque region in a confederal Spain, avoiding intra-Basque separatism (de la Granja 2008: 20). Specific ideas defended by the party significantly differed from the second generation of traditional Aranist nationalists (the Aberri group) concerning the linguistic issue and control mechanisms for the nationalist press in Euskadi. An exceptional figure was the leader of the Aberri group, Elias Gallastegui, who represented the second generation of Aranist tradition with a broader perspective towards issues such as social justice and class struggle. Gallastegui caught the attention of Bilbao’s proletariat sectors with his explicit support for violent acts and breaking laws against oppressive economic conditions, which led 1907 1931 June 1936 February Right-wing Conservative parties 64.07 12.40 16.23 Traditionalists 23.51 10.32 12.31 Nationalists PNV 2.15 28.48 35.06 ANV 6.27 Center and Left-wing Republican 4.27 22.56 13.24 Socialist 6.00 16.79 14.73 Communists and POUM 3.18 8.44 Abstentions 37.93 19.19 22.37 Parties and political tendencies Percentage of votes in favor of specific parties over the total distribution of votes Source: Díez Medrano 1999: 105 74 “In 1936, those from my generation were seven, ten, or fifteen years old. To put it another way, we were born, and we were born in the Basque world, therefore, in the middle of a war and oppression. Because when we could begin to make sense of things, everywhere in our streets, we came across militiamen, red-hat Moors, and Nazis wearing combat boots. As the years passed by and Franco died in 1975, we were 45, 50, 60 years old. Then our entire life had flown by. Those from my generation were born and grew up in that historic environment. And this, undoubtedly, shaped and conditioned us forever.” (Álvarez Enparantza 1997: 7) Under such conditions, regime violence itself seems to have become a social mechanism determining the grade of Basqueness; the more individuals were subjected to state repression, the more affiliation to the Basque identity they felt. The following example cited from one of the discussion groups (G-I, PNV affiliates) that Pérez-Agote conducted in the mid-1970s corresponds to the generation that experienced the Civil War and socialized under the Franco regime: “The repression is very important. During Franco’s times, it reached extreme dimensions. Many people became Basque when they experienced repression. Yes, the repression has been very important. Many of us have had children, relatives, or children of friends in jail, police stations, etc. Many times, it seemed that if they repressed us, we were Basques, and if not, we were not.” (Discussion group G-I in Pérez-Agote 1987: 78) Regime violence, in this sense, came up with the principal element of daily life, politicizing the Basque youth who began to question the ongoing repressive climate (Reinares 2001: 87-88). The silence adopted by those generations who experienced the Civil War and the new order imposed during the post-war period also played a determining role in the socialization processes of the following generation. Indiscriminate regime repression against any expression considered deviant from the official truth and severe punishment by the authorities as a consequence pushed many young Basques with no clearly defined ideological stance towards different forms of militancy (Zumalde 2004: 66-68). In the absence of PNV, then leading the Basque Government in exile with limited political influence and a lack of mechanisms to resist the state’s monopoly of symbolic and physical violence, the new generation of Basques came up with a new form of resistance. This mobilization initially emerged in the cultural field and, within a short period, evolved into a politico-military movement which played a significant role in the following decades of Basque and Spanish politics. 2.2.2. The generational rupture within the Basque nationalist universe Under the Francoist rule, the new socio-political context provoked a reaction by the generation born and socialized under the conditions of dictatorship. This roughly two-decade period, as in the case of the emergence of traditional Basque nationalism in the late 19th century, once again witnessed significant social changes whose character and consequences primarily affected the emergence and development of other political developments. The emergence of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA - Basque Homeland and Freedom) in the late 1950s was not only the reappearance of Basque nationalism in the 75 public sphere, something exclusively confined to the private realm for two decades but also the beginning of an ideological break-up from the formerly established Basque nationalist code. 37 a. The birth of EKIN/ETA and the initial period of Basque neo-nationalism Having emerged out of the PNV’s youth organization Euzko Gaztedia (EGI), EKIN was born as a cultural movement, with a specific concern on the linguistic question under the strict conditions of dictatorship. The movement symbolized an intra-nationalist secession based on a clear sense of frustration among young generation intellectuals in disagreement with their parent’s silence and immobility in the face of the imposed ‘official truth’ (Arriaga 1997: 36-38). Discontent with the PNV’s inefficient diplomacy and limited activism in exile (Unzueta 1988: 95) and disappointment with Western powers’ permissive stance towards the Franco regime (Zirakzadeh 1991: 147) motivated the new generation to advance in ideological and practical terms. ETA summarizes this frustration and passive position of the older generations in the form of social silence in an official document published in 1970 for the first anniversary of the loss of one of its early ideologists, Txabi Etxebarrieta: “For decades, there was nothing except silence. We belong to a generation born in parentheses, and only now we have begun to wake up and understand. […] …it all was about breaking the vicious circle: nothing is done because there are no conditions, and there are no conditions because nothing is done so that the conditions come to light and the people become aware of their revolutionary oppressed condition. It was about, in a word, waking the people up. In a situation in which everything was to be done (organization and agitation, propaganda and consciousness-raising, theory, and practice), we have chosen the action and bet on the people.” (Document released by ETA on 7 June 1970 cited from Euskadi Eta Askatasuna 1993, Vol. 3: 32-33) Reformist demands on a more active positioning of the PNV against state repression faced firm disagreement by the party members, which concluded in the expulsion of Benito del Valle, a leading figure of the EKIN group. Similar actions by older generation nationalists who controlled the party’s discipline mechanism also accelerated the new impulse of young nationalists backed by the party's youth (Jáuregui 1981: 75-80). The recruits of Euzko Gaztedia, who gathered in restricted social environments available (folkloric groups, scouts, and intellectual circles), showed evident proximity towards the EKIN group (San Sebastián: 1984: 89). In the absence of the PNV’s executive, the newly emerged generation entelechy under EKIN/ETA offered an immature but decisive alternative, becoming the only active anti-Francoist Basque nationalist group in the Basque Country: “At that time, you did not have many things where you could integrate. There was very little. The PNV was practically unseen. That is to say, the only nationalist force with military possibilities and possibilities of doing things in those years was ETA. The PNV existed, but it did not really attract us, the younger generations [...] In 37 Scholars in Basque and Spanish academia remain divided over whether the ethno-nationalist wave that emerged in the late 1950s can be considered a rupture from the PNV. Some claim that the new leftist abertzale Basque movement led by ETA is similar to the PNV’s racist nationalism based on the exclusion and hatred of Spain and anything Spanish (Juaristi 1984, 1997; Azurmendi 1998; Llera 2003; Elorza 2005; Reinares 2001, Casquete 2009, Fernñandez Soldevilla 2016). Other abertzale left-affiliated scholars (Ortzi 1979; Beltza 1974, 1977; Apalategi 1979; Ibarra 1987), however, claim that the patterns, ideology and practices carried out by abertzale left circles indicate a clear rupture from traditional race-based components. 76 those years, young people needed something more. We needed somewhere where we could express our feelings and carry them out.” (Interview Nº 26 quoted from Reinares 2001: 175) Notwithstanding, the PNV had an overwhelmingly solid reputation due to its mythical role; it was the founding organization of Basque nationalism that accomplished the Basque political autonomy under the conditions of the Civil War and enjoyed an absolute ideological and emotional monopoly over the Basque nationalist movement (Alcedo 1996: 57). The Basque scholar Beltza, whose militancy in ETA coincided with this period, makes the following statement with this regard: “In a situation of ambiguity concerning the ‘old’, Ekin was unified with the Euzko Gaztedia, the youth organization of the PNV, creating Euzko Gaztedi that year. On the one hand, there was an expressed desire to break with the type of action taken by the PNV or, instead, its lack of action; while on the other, those of Ekin did not want to break with that old nationalism that was still full of prestige from the War and the 1940s.” (Beltza 1977: 94) Despite the shared political ambitions between the PNV and EKIN/ETA concerning the future of the Basque people, the approach adopted by new generations for the social project provided the first signs of cleavages. Resembling the ANV’s approach to the identity question of Spanish immigrants, the perspective adopted by EKIN/ETA, at least theoretically, was more inclusive and tolerant. This approach was articulated with linguistic and cultural concerns, given the multi-ethnic character of Basque society in this period (Sullivan 2015[1988]: 38). The generational rupture with the PNV was considered an obligation, as underlined by Txillardegi later on: “The same way that Sabino Arana ceased with the Carlist Party, or Lenin with the II International, we considered that we also had to do the same with the Basque Nationalist Party, of which we could not be part.” (Txillardegi cited from Euskadi Eta Askatasuna, Vol.1: 19) Ideological cleavages between the dominant actor of Basque nationalism and the new generation Basque nationalists widened over time and, in the absence of the former’s active political involvement and with the developing strategy of the latter, Basque neo-nationalism led by ETA soon became the primary challenger to both the PNV jeltzalism as well as the Francoist regime. b. Theorization of the revolutionary war and the use of violence by the new generation entelechy Ambiguity concerning political violence among the first generation of ETA members was between those who opted for the Gandhian style non-violent resistance and those anti-colonialists who favored the calculated use of defensive violence against the ‘occupying enemy’ (Zirakzadeh 1991: 152). 38 The initial priority, in any case, was not necessarily given to high-impact military actions but rather creating a reaction to what was considered Basque cultural extermination under the Francoist rule. 38 The debate on whether to use violent means appears in ETA’s official publication Zutik nº 7 and 8 dated 1962. While those who were under the Gandhian influence defended non-violent struggle by showing clear sensibility towards the common values of Christianity, others led by Madariaga were defending and justifying the use of coercive actions with the following affirmation: “Let us be clear: we are not the ones who provoke violence. While we are an anvil, we will endure; but as soon as we become the hammer, we will hit.” (ETA 1979, Vol.2: 295, 301) 77 Although ETA openly declared the adoption of physical resistance in its famous Libro Blanco (White Book) published in the organization’s official monthly Zutik Nº 6, April 1961 (ETA 1979, Vol.1), the concept of ‘political violence’ in ETA’s repertoire until 1964 was based on merely symbolic actions. Scholars who have studied the political strategy of ETA’s initial period also affirm that even the early high-risk actions were a response to the symbolic imposition of the Spanish nationalism in the Basque Country (Jaúregui 1981: 87; Ibarra 1987: 57), as the founding members emphasize: “Burning of a [Spanish] flag in an official building, in broad daylight in San Sebastian where the summer holiday gathered the most distinguished figures of the Regime and the fascist system was then considered a matured and calculated operation with a certain risk.” (Jon Nicolás in ETA 1979) “We were making graffitis with the motto ‘Gora Euskadi Askatuta’ [Long-live free Basque Country] or ‘Gora ETA’ [Long-live ETA] or simply ‘ETA’. Another important action was to make an ikurriña and place it on walls or windows. We were making them here in Iparralde [Northern Basque Country, France], and after bringing them across the border, we were hanging them. […] We were also carrying out some more risky actions. We placed a big ikurriña on power cables on the river Nervión.” (Julen Madariaga in Punto y Hora, 13 July 1984) The state’s response against those mentioned above, however, was in the form of excessive physical coercion that served the reproduction of Basque neo-nationalism in two ways. First, such a reaction by the state’s security forces against symbolic actions taken by ETA showed Basque society the seriousness of the national question. Secondly, the qualitative character of this coercive reaction, mostly indiscriminate against the entire population, provoked the initial steps of politicization through the use of political violence. The early-period militant José Luis Zalbide expresses his observations with this respect in his famous analysis titled ‘Hacia una estrategia revolucionaria vasca’ (Towards a Basque revolutionary strategy), written under the pseudonym of K. de Zunbeltz: “The insistence on filling walls with the acronym ETA is significant in that first period until 1964. Certainly, acronyms mean nothing when they are not associated with something that is in itself important. In those early years, few people knew that the acronym of ETA corresponded to an underground political organization. Even though people, in general, would not have noticed such type of activism, repressive forces took charge of filling those signs with their first content. When a certain sign appeared on a wall, there was a spectacular mobilization of the Civil Guard and Police forces to cover it, first, and then to find the author; there was no doubt that the sign had some significance. In case that the significance of that sign was difficult to understand, the same repression also took place to explain it to whoever wanted to understand. Leaflets and flags had the same effects as the mural signs; it was the immediate repression that confirmed the popular content of resistance in those murals, leaflets, and flags.” (Zunbeltz 1975[1968]: 123-124) ETA’s first politico-military strategy, in strictly theoretical terms rather than any notable signs of physical harassment (Ibarra 1987: 63-65), began to develop with the adoption of the concept of ‘revolutionary war’, promoted in one of ETA’s first ideologue Federico Krutwig’s book titled Vasconia written under the pseudonym of Fernando Sarrailh de Ihartza in 1962. Apart from occupying a central place in the early history of ETA 39 , the book made explicit references to the national resistance and 39 Vasconia is frequently labeled as the ‘Bible of ETA’, an argument which is both affirmed (M. Azurmendi 1998: 53) and denied by some early-generation ETA militants like José Félix Azurmendi, who wrote the preface of the edition of the book consulted in this study (see Sarrailh de Ihartza 2006[1962]: 7-11). While the question of Krutwig’s influence during the initial 78 decolonization processes in Algeria, Tunisia, Cyprus, as well as the Cuban revolution (Ortzi 1975: 300301, 309). In a socio-political context in which the relation between the regime and Basque people was based on violence (see Interview Nº 14 in Reinares 2001: 89), the idea of armed struggle as a result of the cohort effect was embraced by the young generation Basques with relative ease. Early period ETA militant Xabier Zumalde (alias El Cabra) narrates his personal experience with this respect: “Despite the systematic repression of the dictatorship, student movements and youth, in general, launched an unstoppable march towards freedom, influenced by liberal and anti-imperialist currents fighting in Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. The mythical figure of Ernesto Che Guevara was infecting the young rebels with revolutionary ardor. […] I felt trapped by that revolutionary current. The strong disappointment suffered in the labor struggle, and Catholic movements had created in me a frustration caused by impotence. Besides, we could do nothing with non-existent or ‘castrated’ underground unions. Eventually, I decided to take up arms.” (Zumalde 2004: 69). ETA gradually took a firmer stance towards the leftist revolutionary struggle as a result of its 4th and 5th Assemblies with the introduction of key concepts from Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Gramsci, forging the national question with a social one.40 Introducing his new text titled ‘Nacionalismo revolucionario’ (Revolutionary nationalism, 1966), Krutwig distinguished between bourgeoisie nationalism and the revolutionary one defended by ETA. According to the latter, leading figures of the Basque middle-class bourgeoisie were the members of the Spanish bourgeoisie and, therefore, servants of a Spanish project regardless of their surnames or place of birth (Euskadi Eta Askatasuna 1993, Vol. 2: 84). The adoption of armed struggle as the primary strategy for the national liberation began to have reflections through early ekintzas (armed actions) carried out by the following generation militants who went through almost the same political socialization as the founding generation intellectuals under the conditions of dictatorship. Jokin Gorostidi, a member of ETA’s Executive Board after the 5th Assembly, affirms that the use of political violence was in a transitory phase from symbolic actions to the use of physical coercion in the late 1960s, as he details the following on the matter: “The procedures were rudimentary, particularly when we acted against fascist monuments and plaques dedicated to the dead on Franco’s side located in all the towns of Euskadi. [...] I also remember that there were ekintzas against informants, some of whom are in the PNV today, like burning their cars, etc.” (Jokin Gorostidi in Punto y Hora de Euskal Herria, 13 July 1984) The tendency towards a more systematic use of political violence grew stronger after the nomination of Xavier Zumalde as the head of ETA’s military branch. Zumalde opted for the establishment of a mountain guerrilla (Las Cabras) in the Basque Country and officially adopted the spiral of ‘ActionRepression-Action’ as the new military strategy of the organization (Ortzi 1975: 311). Zunbeltz explains the logic behind this strategy and the objective sought through its implementation: phase of theoretical strategic development of ETA is debatable, Vasconia constitutes one of the earliest examples of Basque leftist abertzale historiography whose main pillars remain up until today. 40 For more detailed information on internal debates during the initial assemblies of ETA, see Madariaga, Julen “Las cinco primeras Asambleas” in Punto y Hora de Euskal Herria, 18-24 August 1977. 79 “Repression and revolutionary activity grow together and condition each other. Under certain conditions such as those seen immediately after the war of ’36, repression produced mostly terror among the masses. As of certain new conditions, the measures of repression engender greater revolutionary actions; and as the revolutionary actions are in turn answered with even more spectacular measures of repression, a process is produced in the form of a spiral where revolutionary activity and repression are pushed to higher levels each time. In this process, action-repression-action, the main adversely affected is the oppressor state, that is, the ruling class behind it. In effect, the means available to a state to repress the masses, although big, are limited. When the state represses the action of the people employing batons and water hoses, it may well boast of keeping its battle tanks in reserve; but when the state takes the tanks to the streets, it has nothing more to oppose to the revolutionary action of the people.” (Zunbeltz 1975[1968]: 82) While the spiral of action-repression-action did not seek large-scale physical damage by weakening the ‘invading enemy’, it brought the rise of political consciousness of ordinary Basques, a vast majority of whom had been suppressed by the social silence. As the highest-ranking military commander of ETA after the 4th Assembly, Zumalde emphasizes this crucial function of action-repression-action: “I believed in it [the armed struggle], and I thought that the best thing about our youth was that they were ready to fight for that cause. Soon I realized that idealists, dreamers, and guerrillas [like us], we were alone. The people, our people, were lethargic, and only when we practiced the revolutionary war, through the strategy of actionrepression-action, did we managed to awaken them.” (Zumalde 2004: 19) In this generation, ETA began to obtain its first firearms contributing to the escalation of violence. Txabi Extebarrieta, who carried out the organization’s first fatal action, also became the ‘first revolutionary martyr’ of ETA (Euskadi Eta Askatasuna 1993, Vol.2: 101, 109). ETA’s first planned ekintza, the Sagarra Operation, in which the organization executed police inspector Melitón Manzanas in August 1968, was the vengeance of Txabi (Gudari Nº 48, 13 October 1968) and ETA officially announced that the execution of Manzanas was carried out in the name of the Basque People (ETA 1979, Vol. 7: 532-533). From this moment, the action-repression-action spiral extended to the entire Basque Country, provoking more detentions and trials, eventually turning social silence into a mass mobilization in the late years of the Franco regime. c. Social conditions during the emergence period of Basque neo-nationalism Socio-economic developments observed in Franco’s Spain since the early 1950s contributed to the conflict on identity in Basque society. From this decade onwards, the Spanish economy began an integration process into the European economic system, showing a high-rate economic growth, around 7% between 1961 and 1974. This development, once again, gave way to more immigration to the industrialized regions of the country, mainly the Basque provinces of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, in a period of increasing labor movements and strikes (Cruz 1977: 61, 130). Consequent structural transformations also played a determining role in shaping the main characteristics of Basque neo-nationalism. The rapid socio-economic transformations and their social consequences appear as the primary causes of radicalization in the Basque Country in this period. The massive migration flow from other parts of Spain towards the local labor zones in these regions created new conflictive identity 80 encounters (Gurrutxaga 1985: 435; Hobsbawm 1992: 140-141). What made these encounters more visible had to see with transformations in the traditional mode of production in rural areas. The crisis in the traditional baserri production system fell far behind the new technologies and, as a consequence, brought rural sectors to work in the newly-developing industries, gradually eliminating the rural mode of production and its socio-cultural characteristics (Etxezarreta 1977: 173). This transformation significantly affected domestic migration by pushing the young Basque population from rural surroundings towards industrial towns and cities where the core elements of their native Basque symbolic universe came to collide with the new urban demographic reality. Table 3: Net immigration flows to the Basque Country between 1920 - 1981 These developments made the disadvantaged position of Basque national symbols even more visible in the public sphere, provoking an immense sense of discontent, anxiety, and, finally, a reaction by the new generation who found themselves fearing their cultural extermination. Initially, this reproduced a hostile attitude towards Spaniard maketos, who had long been depicted as a severe threat violating the essential distinctive ethnic characteristics of Basques: “Especially at the beginning, when we were in EGI, we were pretty racist. We were racist because they inculcated us racism in some way. Then yes, we felt uncomfortable with these people because, sure, on the one hand, these were the very same people that you saw that they were coming here and stepping on what we thought were our things, right? Our land, our language, and such, right?” (Interview Nº9 quoted from Reinares 2001: 164) In a social environment where class struggle became visible, ethnic identity encounters among working-class people made relations even more conflictive. This conflictive environment also brought about a challenge for Basque nationalists who sought to funnel their energy for the national struggle. As such, the younger generation entelechy began to consider the relationship between class and nation (Linz 1985: 232-233). Unlike the PNV’s exclusionist approach towards Spanish immigrants, the Basque neo-nationalists gradually adopted a different policy towards people of non-Basque origin. The repression and resistance during labor strikes had significant impacts on ETA developing the question of how to handle the working-class issue, which eventually embraced an inclusive approach towards Years 1921 - 1930 1931 - 1940 1941 - 1950 1951 - 1960 1961 - 1970 1971 - 1981 Net immigration flows (expressed in thousands) Basque Country 31.1 12.2 25.6 174.0 159.6 21.0 Source: Elaborated from Díez Medrano 1999: 149 81 non-Basque workers (Jaúregui, 1981: 170; Garmendia 1995, Vol. 1: 185). B-F, a historic foundinggeneration EKIN/ETA member, explains their initial perspectives on national and social questions: “In those early years, we had a clear national consciousness among us; the social conscience was just waking up. And among us, there were differences in terms of the knowledge on class struggle. Some of us, they were -or we were, sure, it depends on who with respect to whom, people like Txillardegi or like Barandiaran had already had concerns on this matter before others. Benito del Valle or Albisu, Larramendi, Aguirre, and I myself, we would realize later the new dimension of society, from the perspective of social struggles.” (B-F) This new approach, along with the further integrationist attitude of Basque capitalist elites towards the Francoist central state and the Spanish market, also points to the progressive adoption of leftist ideas reflected in the organization’s political discourse (Pérez-Agote 1984: 82). The rising domestic and foreign demand for capital goods, provoked by both the Civil War and World War II, benefited the Basque heavy industry based on metallurgy production in the hands of the Basque bourgeoisie (González Portilla & Garmendia 1988: 46). The Basque racial pureness, a utopic dream of Arana, under the existing socio-political context, was gradually abandoned in this period. ETA explains the new attitude towards the definition of Basque identity in its first interview with Enbata, the monthly abertzale publication in the French Basque Country, through the following affirmation: “ETA does not define the condition of being Basque according to birth criteria; being Basque is to live in the Basque, that is, defending the Basque culture and Basque people. Bearing this in mind, we see Basque capitalists who speak Basque and who, in 1936, positioned themselves along with the reactionary forces which took sides against the Basque people. Those are the same people who occupy executive positions in the Spanish State and practice genocide in southern Euskadi.” (Euskadi Eta Askatasuna 1993, Vol. 2: 148-149) The adoption of this new perspective towards the national question resulted from a social reality in which defining the Basque through racial elements fell short in achieving a realistic objective of national unity. Although it would take a longer time for ETA militancy to internalize this political perspective41, it continued to evolve throughout the following generations. d. Socialization mechanisms of the generational transmission of the Basque nationalism The social silence during the post-war period did not necessarily mean that the ‘Basque nationalist code’ was completely dissolved or disappeared but instead confined to limited space. These limits established specific relation forms of communal life: us, those who shared the code of the nationalist functioning, and others who followed the official regime doctrine. (Gurrutxaga 1985: 130). In a social context based on constant repression to which responses to this repression began to flourish, those relations also acquired a conflictive character consolidating the limits between us and others. 41 There is hardly any reliable information on the general profile of first-generation EKIN/ETA members except a rarely available booklet titled Euskadi ala hil (Euskadi or death), allegedly written by Zumalde and published in the French Basque town Saint-Jean de Luz in 1976. The first part of the booklet provides limited data on early losses, according to which the general profile of early ETA members appeared to be male and ethnically Basque (except for Juan Paredes Manot [alias Txiki]), and in terms of social class, they were mostly students and working-class people (Euskadi ala hil 1976: 9-48). 82 Being the smallest social group in which primary socialization begins, the Basque nationalist family has a significant influence on the transmission of the nationalist code through generations (Mata 1993: 237; Garmendia 1995, Vol.1: 48, 298). During the period of social silence, the Basque nationalist family, on the one hand, limited its functioning to a significantly reduced environment and, on the other, took a skeptical attitude in reproducing this code transgenerationally. The emergence and radicalization that new nationalist entelechy went through was not only a reaction to the Francoist politics based on repression up until the end of the 1950s but also to their respective families due to the silence and stagnation they adopted in response to repression (Pérez-Agote 2008: 116). From this perspective, it may well be argued that the emergence of EKIN/ETA as an initially cultural resistance movement is a question of generational rupture rather than continuity. In the absence and passiveness of the founding institution of the Basque nationalism, the PNV, and with ambiguous attitudes by Basque nationalist families, the new generation entelechy concerned about the Basque cultural extermination embraced a more active form of resistance which, shortly after, evolved into armed struggle under the cohort effects of anticolonial movements. B-F, one of the fervent defenders of the Basque anticolonial struggle among the founders of EKIN/ETA against the Spanish and French states, makes the following statement with this respect: “[Under the conditions of dictatorship, did your family talk much about what they had experienced?] In our house, yes. But, in general, the immense majority of families did not dare to do so. Once the Spanish troops entered and occupied all of Gipuzkoa, all of Navarre, all that we call Hegoaldea, [southern Basque Country], Basque families did not dare to speak about the matter. The Spaniards had scared them that much. […] I think we can describe the struggle and the break-up we had with the PNV as an internal struggle within the Basque world. I’m going to put it like that, right? It was a rupture that we could call ‘generational’. They belonged to the generation of War, and we were the children of a different generation, different people. They had the political and social ideas of a generation older than ours. These people of the PNV were stunned, detained in a particular phase of national liberation, which was the Statute.” (B-F) The analysis of the in-family transmission of the Basque symbolic universe illustrates the impacts of the post-war policies implemented in the Basque Country. The new political order converted the perception of the historical decline of the Basque symbolic elements into a sense of total loss, a concern for the extermination of anything related to the Basque. EKIN/ETA’s appearance as a cultural resistance movement coincided with this primary concern of the new generation. Being one of the leading members of ETA’s Branka group (culturalistas), who dedicated his entire life to the Basque philology, Txillardegi narrates his childhood memories within a Basque nationalist family environment right after the end of the war in the Basque Country: “The Basque world –Basque songs, maps of Euskal Herria, Zabalo, the posters of Txiki, the lauburus, mendigoizale trousers, not to mention ikurriñas, disappeared from us. A few years later, when our parents went to San Sebastian, my brother and I were nosing around the drawers of our mother and... We found a thick and elegant book: ‘Look, look! Look at this precious book! What cover! What sheets!’ On that leather cover, we could read El Libro de la Patria (The Book of the Homeland). It appeared from underneath all the clothes. When it was dinner time, a big scolding came: ‘Who gave you permission to stir those drawers?’ We did not even know that book 83 ever existed. And it disappeared again during the following weeks and years. That subject was prohibited, even within our house. [...] Along with that wicked sense of prohibition, and also from a very young age, I internalized the painful and deep feeling of being the son of a people in decline. In addition to having our own country prohibited to us, from the beginning, we realized that it headed towards disappearance. […] One did not need to be very smart to realize the situation. Looking around, as I have just said, we came across the same attitudes. My parents, for example, knew Basque, although they never spoke it. I heard my mother saying a couple of words from time to time and with a single purpose, leaving aside something that should not be said: ‘Federico, umiak aurrian!’ [Federico, the children are in front!] And they changed the conversation. That is the functional limitation of our language. In the mornings, it was used with the milkman; every single day, this is true. And that is all. No more signs in conversations at home.” (Álvarez Enparantza 1997: 10-11) Previous-generation family members deliberately hid the Basque national symbolic references belonging to the ‘history’ to prevent their children from being the victims of the same ‘sin’ that their parents had committed (Lorenzo Espinosa 1993: 19). Only small things such as the Gernika painting by Picasso, Basque nationalist songs like eusko gudariak (Basque soldiers), or an ikurriña (flag) accidentally found hidden somewhere constituted the symbolic elements that the following generation Basques remembered. The silence dominating the public sphere also affected the private life of post-war generations, as described by an early generation ETA militant: “My father had an ikurriña, a flag… He had it there upstairs. There were times when some of his friends would gather up there to talk. I guess they were talking about those issues, right? Well, at that time, my father belonged to the Basque Nationalist Party. […] And they would send us to watch out, to see if anyone was coming up, if everything was alright. In short, you saw that there was something taking place at the time there that you were unable to understand. It was during those times, sure.” (Interview Nº 28 quoted from Reinares 2001: 56)42 This ‘intra-family silence’ (Pérez-Agote 1984: 88-89) continued through the following generations. Although ETA had already taken initial steps of resistance against the imposed silence, the passive attitude of previous generations did not change significantly up until the early 1970s, more concretely until the cause celebre Burgos Trial. Analyzing memoirs written by leading abertzale left figures, one notes that social silence before the Burgos Trial continued in the public sphere where the symbolic imposition of Spanish nationalism was overwhelming. Being a leading figure of the Basque abertzale labor movement during the Franco period, Jon Idigoras narrates the impacts of unilateral silence: “Those post-war years were hard: hunger, fear, persecutions and reprisals, rationing, and silence, great silence... […] The fascists of the town campaigned at ease, and they were absolute owners of lives and fortunes. They were roaming around carrying pistols in a cocky and provocative way. They made us answer the shouting of ‘Viva España!’ with another ‘Viva!’ With disgust and pain, we had to raise our arms, making the fascist salute under threat, in case we did not do so, we would be denounced as ‘separatist reds’ and suffer harsh consequences of rebellion along with the family.” (Idigoras 2000: 22) 42 Other interviews quoted by Reinares (Nº 15 and 20), however, affirm that their parents made a particular effort to speak and make their children speak in Euskera (2001: 58). Focusing on the same subject, Arriaga similarly emphasizes that the transmission of language had a wide range of modalities, mostly manifested through two opposite reactions, ranging from not teaching the language to children as a result of fear from the regime (Interview 10) to a dramatization of love for the language and absolute imposition of the language in the private sphere (Interviews 10 and 11) (1997: 40-41). In a comprehensive ethnographic study with later period ETA militants, Alcedo explains these opposite attitudes of Basque nationalist families by distinguishing two types of ‘messengers’; while active messengers tend to maintain the tradition by transferring it to the following generations; passive messengers tend to possess the tradition but make no effort to diffuse it (1996: 48). The scholar confirms that those who lived through the war were more likely to behave as passive messengers. 90 power struggles and dynastic territorial disputes (Bozarslan 2009: 26). This autonomous system, however, was a well-calculated and designed project, which prevented Kurdish mirs from establishing a united power center, which had always been a chronic problem for Kurds. Having maintained this chronic lack of political unity that created constant conflicts, divisions, and rivalries among ashirets struggling for the leadership of a chieftain, as noted in the case of Bedirhan of the Botan Emirate (Van Bruinessen 1992: 178-179), this system made it quite challenging for Kurds to form a significant political and military power in the presence of stronger actors. The relative power-sharing of the central authority with Kurdish mirs and the autonomous status conceded to this latter gradually diminished beginning from the late 18th century as a result of the initial steps of Ottoman modernization and the centralization project of the Ottoman government. The restoration of central Ottoman rule in distant territories and suppression of corresponding notables, among whom Anatolian, as well as Arab and Balkan notables in incipient stages of their national liberation movements, were the main concern at the beginning of the 19th Century (Hroch 2013: 175). The lack of unity among Kurdish emirates gave Ottoman authorities an advantageous position to rule out a possible tribal insurgency among Kurds. Ottoman central authority and governors who had already been cautious of the possibility that local Kurdish forces would have constituted one dominant military and political actor and had maintained a certain degree of division between leading Kurdish emirates, knew well that it was unlikely that local Kurdish forces would be able to confront strong and modernized Ottoman army (Eppel 2008: 240). Despite the three major rebellions launched by leading Kurdish mirs through the 19th century (Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz, Bedirhan Beg, and Sheikh Ubeydullah) in the form of ‘ethnopolitical resistance’ (Yeğen 1999: 226-232), the Ottoman centralization process achieved the elimination of those peripheral foci of power in Kurdistan. These first attempts and failure of leading Kurdish tribes changed the direction of the early seeds of Kurdish national awakening towards diaspora activities in the capital of the Ottoman state.52 b. The emergence of Kurdish nationalist entelechy and early activities Paradoxically, the political organization and activities of early Kurdish nationalism did not emerge in Kurdistan but in Istanbul, where the gathering of two nuclei had prepared the grounds. The young generation members of Kurdish tribes, which had unsuccessfully revolted against the Ottoman centralization and, consequently, exiled to the Ottoman capital, and intellectual members of Kurdish tribal families who had been educated in Europe and occupied high-ranking positions within the 52 Despite their definitive military failure, these major rebellions occupy a significant place in the modern Kurdish historiography (Hassanpour 1992; Bender 1995; Jwaideh 1999[1961]) as they are deemed the first expressions of the distinctive character of Kurdish national identity. Their significance, however, is rather based on the way they are narrated within the nationalist historiography and the impacts they had, as observed on the future generations of Bedirhan Beg who played a leading role in Kurdish national organization (Özoğlu 2004: 72), on shaping the future of Kurdish movements. 91 Ottoman administration. Although they were far from forming a unified nationalist movement, the active involvement of this young entelechy in publishing and association activities was the first concrete step taken in the linguistic and cultural fields. Notwithstanding, previously mentioned tribal loyalties and antagonistic stances, which had been the most crucial reason for the lack of unity and loss in the military field during the rebellions of the 18th century, were also a typical character of these urban elite circles, constituting a challenge to establish a political and organizational unity. These rivalries among leading Kurdish tribal aristocrat families such as Bedirhan and Shemdinan, who were among the founders of Kürt Teavün ve Terakki Cemiyeti (The Society for the Mutual Aid and Progress of the Kurds), were based on separated interests and goals under the Ottoman constitution regime despite their undeniable efforts on cultural and linguistic matters as well as Kurdish history (Van Burinessen 1992: 276; Klein 2007: 135-138). In a period of internal turmoil among Ottoman millets53 due to the strong desire for national independence under the influence of the nationalism wave, Kurdish national elites advocated the idea of Ottomanism. Nevertheless, this period also coincided with the progressive influence of Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress), which had fortified their monopoly on power through the Young Turk revolution of 1908 (Kansu 1997). In this political atmosphere and tensions between these independence movements and the growing monopolistic imposition of Turkish nationalism in response had a significant impact on younger generation Kurdish intellectuals. Nuri Dersimi, a young student in Istanbul who later became one of the most prominent figures of Kurdish nationalism, defines the perspective taken among young generation Kurdish intellectuals who were subjected to this symbolic imposition of the Turkish nationalist universe under the Young Turk regime: “[Due to Young Turk policies] there emerged an atmosphere of hatred and mistrust against the Turkish state among those millets which were not Turk. Pursuing such [Turkish nationalist] policies also provoked serious reactions among us, Kurdish youth [in Istanbul]. Even those young Kurds who had manifested a non-Kurdist position until then began to qualify Turks as ‘enemy’ as a result of such big excitement. Among the university students in Istanbul henceforth, there emerged a quarrel and fights on nationalism. At school, when we went to the classroom after the break, we saw that it was written on the blackboard in capital letters ‘how happy the one who says I am a Turk’ and ‘Long-live Turks’. Before this situation, we too felt obligated to enter the classroom during break time and write on the same board ‘Long-live Kurds, and Kurdistan’ and ‘how happy is the one who says I am a Kurd’ […] We, Kurdish youth, began to gather in Diyarbekir coffeehouse in Çemberlitaş [district] in Istanbul and hold discussions on this subject. Undoubtedly, the goal of Kurdishness and Kurdism had its impact entirely among our environment day and night.” (Dersimi 1992: 38) While admitting that Dersimi’s claims were the early seeds of future full-fledged Kurdish nationalist movements, Özoğlu points out that existing Kurdish associations, including the student society Hevi 53 During the Ottoman period, the term millet was used on a religious basis, according to which only Rums, Armenians, and Jews are considered separate millet in the Ottoman social structure. After the proclamation of the Republic in 1923, the concept emphasized a clearly defined national identity in a modern sense, Turkishness, including Muslim Kurds and Arabs, and recognizing only non-Muslim minorities as different millets. (Aydın 1998: 108-109). 92 (Hope), were far from being nationalist organizations seeking for Kurdish national independence or autonomy (2004: 80-81). However, in the presence of a growing sense of Turkish nationalism and its impositions by the Young Turk regime, those Kurds who once advocated Ottomanism began to change their minds. Having spent most of his life in exile for resistance against the oppressive national unity policies by Young Turks, Mevlânzâde Rıfat, a leading Kurdish intellectual of the period who had once embraced Ottomanism, expresses his generational predictions for the fate of the ‘East’: “Il-fated East! Do not be downhearted! You have got children who will work to purify you for your exaltation, who would cut off your arrogance from the beginning. Be well aware that these [children] swore only for your liberty and independence. They never get exhausted; they do not abstain from anything; surely, one day, they will appear on battlefields for you, for their homeland. They know very well that beyond the darkness there is rejuvenation, there is light.” (Mevlânzâde Rıfat 2009[1912]: 94) This young generation entelechy, then grouped under Hevi student organization, pioneered the foundation of Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti (Society for the Rise of Kurdistan) in Istanbul and parallel organizations in some towns in Kurdistan during the last moments of World War I in 1918, opening a new period in Kurdish national mobilization. Direct political interventions like demanding the concession of autonomy status to Kurds and the release of Kurdish prisoners (Van Bruinessen 1992: 278) emphasized a more determined political stance of Kurds in this period in comparison with former cultural associations. Monopolized by the same aristocrat families with the same old rivalries, Kurdish elites took a direction towards the construction of Kurdish national identity, separating it from the idea of Ottomanism as clearly seen through various numbers of Kurdish nationalist Jîn magazine (Bozarslan 2005b: 46). Addressing the Kurdish youth through an article in this magazine, Siverekli Hilmi reveals the dedication of the Kurdish elites of the time to making nationalist propaganda in favor of Kurdish vernacular mobilization and national project: “The time of following others is passed […] Work only for your own people. Do not forget that we have a language of our own, however neglected, and a rich history. Here you have a formula for independence: action and initiative.” (Jîn, 19 November 1918, transcribed into Latin alphabet by M.E. Bozarslan 1985 Vol. 2: 401, quoted from Özğolu 2004: 82) Political developments following the end of World War I and the official policy adopted towards the Kurdish national question by the founding cadres of the new republic in Turkey commenced a new cycle in Kurdish nationalism. This new cycle, whose traces had already been observed in the form of Turkish – Kurdish alliance during World War I, manifested itself during the war of 19191923, denominated as the War of Independence in the Turkish official historiography, and shortly after evolved into a state of violent antagonism. Major traumatogenic events of this period also shaped Kurdish collective memory to be reproduced through the following generations in different forms. 93 3.1.2. Violence and trauma in Kurdish collective memory Different forms and practices of violence have always been at the center of Kurdish society throughout the contemporary history of Kurdistan and have been objectified as national traumas in the Kurdish national historiography. In the course of these violent practices, Kurds have mostly been victims, although there are also cases in which they come to the forefront as perpetrators, as seen in the case of the Armenian Genocide. The violence exercised by the Turkish – Kurdish alliance on the Armenian community changed the demographic structure of the region later to be claimed by Kurds and, therefore, shaped Kurdish collective memory. a. Ethnic challenges and violence in the late Ottoman period: The Armenian question The eruption of national rebellions against the long-standing Ottoman reign at the beginning of the 20th century showed that the centralization of the state through modernization policies was not sufficient to reconfigure the center-periphery relations of the plurinational empire. In the presence of national movements among Greek, Slavic, and Armenian peoples backed by western powers (Ergil 1975: 40), Ottoman intellectuals began to look for different ideas to maintain the empire’s unity. Ottoman reformists sought to keep together the old millets through a liberal constitutional parliamentary system, which would open the doors to pluralist political participation for the sake of a common vatan (homeland). The failure of this initial approach led the increasingly Turkish nationalist cadres to implement repressive measures against these communities (Mardin 1991: 94). 54 Reforms aimed at yielding western-style liberal modernization policies were bogged down due to inefficient advances. As a result, an iron rule was brought back through despotic centralization for the sustainability of the state amid ethnic-religious cleavages that had sprung up throughout the Empire (Lewis 1968: 178-179). The effects of this political turn came to shape numerous aspects of social and economic life during the three-decade rule of Sultan Abdulhamid II, labeled as Istibdat (Period of Autocracy). Sultan-Caliph’s autocratic intervention embraced Pan-Islamism to end the empire’s decline. Possessing the most significant title in the Muslim world, the Caliph had legitimate authority over a vast majority of religious communities except Shi’a and non-Muslim groups like Jews and Armenians. (Deringil 1991: 346-348). The inefficiency of Pan-Islamism on these non-Muslim groups pushed the regime to resort to repressive measures where these were dominant, as seen in the case of the Sunni Muslim Hamidian light cavalry regiments, the vast majority of whom consisted of Kurdish tribal groups, carrying out violent acts on non-Muslim communities, particularly Armenians. The relationship between Kurds and Armenians who shared the same geographic territory, Eastern Turkey, 54 For a revised edition of Mardin’s work on Turkish modernization, see Mardin, Ş. (2006) Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey, NY: Syracuse University Press. 94 under the rule of Ottoman Turks, would determine the characteristics of political violence that would take its most extreme form in the genocide of 1915 in the hands of Young Turks. 55 The Hamidian massacres and especially the Armenian Genocide are particularly important for the northern Kurds and Kurdistan for two fundamental reasons: first of all, in demographic terms, after the extermination of the Armenian population in Eastern Turkey, the Kurds remained as the sole significant ethnic community whose potential nationalist demands supposed a threat to immature Turkish nationalism and its ambitions to construct a resilient national unity. As Van Bruinessen points out, the extermination of the Armenian people, in this sense, made a potential Kurdish state more feasible than ever (1992: 269, 277) as the ethnically heterogeneous demographic structure of the land was converted into the land of Kurds. Secondly, while the Kurdish – Armenian demographic co-existence was over, vestiges in the form of memories caused by violence committed during massacres by Kurdish tribal bejiks (militias) continued until today. The role that Kurds played during the Armenian massacres would be difficult to erase from the Kurdish collective memory for generations. When early 20th-century Kurdish national revolts erupted, Kurds vividly remembered the tragic fate of non-Muslim ethnic Armenians against whom they had collaborated with Turkish nationalists about a decade ago. Due to the trauma of the Armenian Genocide in Kurdish collective memory, Kurds feared being exterminated like the Armenians (Bozarslan 2005a: 219-221). The first concrete event of exemplary character for such a possibility was the Koçgiri revolt, which helped Kurds refresh their interiorized collective memory on the Armenian question and made them seriously consider the possibility of a similar fate. 56 b. Traces of the Armenian Genocide in Kurdistan and Kurdish collective memory The earlier Armenian massacres and the genocidal practices of 1915 have created two types of references among northern Kurds. The first type consists of spatial references, which are observed where mass killings of the civilian population took place. In their comprehensive ethnographic study 55 The question of Hamidian violence and the 1915 Genocide has always been controversial questions in both political and academic debates in Turkey. These questions manifest themselves within a dichotomic system of thoughts concerning recognition on one part and the denial on the other. While most western and Armenian authoritative voices on the subject explicitly define the crimes as genocide (See Hovannisian 1986; Dadrian 1995; Lewy 2005, Akçam 2006, 2012; Kévorkian 2011; de Waal 2015), most Turkish scholars adopt the official history of the Republic of Turkey, in which the killings are presented as a result of a massive Armenian tehcir (Ottoman Turkish for deportation-relocation), a defensive action during World War I (see Uras 1987; Halaçoğlu 2001; Hikmet et al. 2004; Süslü 2011; Çiçek 2016). Despite his firm stance against genocide claims, Kazım Karabekir Pasha, one of the top commanders of the Ottoman army during World War I, recognizes the deterioration of relations between Kurds and Armenians starting 1895 (Karabekir 1994: 136, 141). 56 This vision is also manifested by Hasan Hişyar Serdî, one of the participants of the Sheikh Said revolt in 1925, as he recalls the post-Koçgiri revolt scene as - “[It] was not less disastrous than what had happened to the Armenians. Once villagers were killed and villages were burnt down, barn animals were culled too” (1994: 149). As a rare study on this subject based on comprehensive ethnographic research in the province of Mardin, Biner presents qualitative evidence that supports Bozarslan’s arguments on traces of the Armenian Genocide in Kurdish collective memory (2010: 72). 95 on the social memory of Diyarbakır’s Kurds, Çelik and Dinç highlight the impacts of violent practices committed during the Armenian Genocide. Researchers point out that a total of 60 individuals interviewed mention 30 places where mass killings reportedly took place and share stories of violent practices as well as the spatial memory of those places whose Kurdish names reflect the genocidal experiences: Newala Kuştiya (Stream of the dead), Çala Filehan (Armenian well), Korta Filehan (Armenian pit), Şikefta Xwînî (Bloody cave), Zanga Filehan (Armenian cliff), Zindana Qelecuxê (Qelecûx dungeon) and Newala Qetlê (Stream of the massacre) among many others (2015: 189-190). Apart from spatial memory, which is transmitted to younger generations, atrocities committed are also taken as temporal references. Anecdotal evidence shows that this continues to be the case for the post-genocide generation. Tarık Ziya Ekinci (Lîce, 1926), one of the leading figures of Kurdish ethnic revival in Turkey in the early 1960s, points out that the Hamidian massacres against Armenians in the late 19th century and the 1915 Genocide were commonly used as temporal references among locals in his native Lice, a remote district of the Kurdish capital of Diyarbakır (Amed): “Those years, during which Armenians were massacred, are referred to among those from Lice as a kind of historical milestone. Two separate Armenian massacres are mentioned. When any incident from the past is recalled, they say it took place during the periods of First Armenian Massacre (Vırguna Fılan a ewili) or Second Armenian Massacre (Vırguna Fılan a paşîn).” (Ekinci 2010: 44)57 Violent practices and memories are also reconstructed as collective trauma through recently conducted in-depth interviews.58 The following is an example of how the subjectively constructed narration of violence is transmitted from individuals belonging to older generations. Serhat, a 58-yearold Kurd from a village of Dicle, another district of Diyarbakır, constitutes a clear example of this transmission as he narrates a story told by his late father who had witnessed the events as a teenager: “There are things that my father had experienced when he was around 15-years-old, things that he witnessed and told us. My father told us that Armenians were huddled together and carried to where we call Verli Talay, where they were massacred altogether. This took place in April of 1915. Having passed some two-three months, as the weather got warm and bodies of those Armenians killed in Verli Talay fell apart, their fat begun to melt down. The fat pouring out of their bodies was streaming down the rocks like a flood. My father told us he witnessed that.” (Interview cited from Çelik & Dinç 2015: 201) 57 Ekinci’s personal account of his native Lice is only one example of this temporal reference. Being one of the most influential figures of the Kurdish cultural revival, Musa Anter (Nusaybin, 1920 - 1992) similarly tells of his illiterate mother, who played a crucial role in the formation of his national consciousness. When Anter asked about his real date of birth, reportedly her answer was: “Piştî Fermanê Fileya tu hatî dinyayê” (You were born right after the Armenian Genocide) (Anter 1991: 30). For another genocide-related memoir from Kurdish activists and intellectuals and members of Anter’s generation, also see Miroğlu, Orhan (2010) Hevsel Bahçesinde Bir Dut Ağacı. Canip Yıldırım’la Söyleşi, Istanbul: Everest Yayınları, pp. 52-55. 58 Basing on his own field research, Üngör notes the unwillingness to speak of a taboo, feeling shame and guilt along with the comfort of ignorance and denial commonly observed among potential interviewees (2014: 158), whereas contrary examples make it possible to conduct fruitful field research. Biner also exemplifies similar experiences among Muslim Kurds and Arabs, alleged perpetrators of violence against Armenians and other Christian communities cohabiting with them, in an earlier ethnographic study conducted in Mardin (2010). Evaluating such material in sociological terms, the interpenetration of myths and ideology, manipulation or exaggeration of facts, or even silence itself is of utmost significance as they provide a considerable amount of information on how and why these narratives are (or not) reproduced in such a manner and what the social consequences of these interpretations are in Kurdish society. 96 The narration of the degree of violence exercised during the Genocide, no matter to what extent it corresponds to the objective facts, is depicted by the eyewitness generation and orally reproduced by the upcoming. While Turkish gendarmeries are held responsible for atrocities committed, some other narrators explicitly point to local Kurdish involvement in these practices. Born in 1907 as a member of the leading Kurdish nationalist Jirki tribe, Hasan Hişyar Serdî, who participated in the Sheikh Said revolt (1925), acknowledges that attitudes among Kurds towards Armenians consisted of two opposite poles: those who attempted to prevent Armenians from being massacred and those who collaborated with authorities in the name of a religious compensation to be given in the after-life. Serdî further depicts Kurdish involvement he witnessed as a child in his native Nûzerg village (Diyarbakır): “Our village was located between Lice and Hanê. Near the village, on the higher side, there was a 5000-year-old dungeon, inherited from the period of Hurîs. The dungeon had been made by carving through a natural cave. Armenians were brought together, taken to the edge of the cliff near this dungeon, and killed by being thrown down. Corpses were being carried to the dungeon and thrown there, one on the top of the other. As the dungeon was deep enough, it did not give off an odor.“ (Serdî 1994: 124)59 While attitudes and reactions such as shame, guilt, fear, denial, or legitimizing discourses concerning Armenian massacres vary depending on ethnic (Arabs, Kurds, and Turks) and religious groups (Sunni Muslims, Alevis, Yazidis, and Christians) living in Kurdistan (Biner 2010: 71), the narration of violent practices committed towards a specific ethnoreligious group illustrates the burden of these massacres in Kurdistan and Kurdish collective memory. The fear and anxiety provoked by the collective memory also become one of the main motivations of Kurdish nationalist mobilization. 3.1.3. Kurdish resistance against Turkish nation-building: From revolt to surrender After the abolishment of the Caliphate by the Kemalist republic in 1924, traditional Kurdish elites, tribal chieftains, and religious sheikhs in Kurdistan, who had been underestimated by Kurdish nationalists entelechy in Istanbul, played a more prominent role in Kurdish nationalism (Bozarslan 2005a: 228). Possessing a far more substantial capacity of resource mobilization and a more autonomous position than those secular Kurdish elites in Istanbul, influential and respected religious figures led the national struggle. The subsequent closure of madrassas (religious schools), highly appreciated sources of education for most Kurds, as well as strict penal consequences for discussing the late caliphate and religion in the new political scene, changed the mind of those Kurds who had helped Kemalist cadres between 1919-1921 (McDowall 2004: 192), during the war of Turkish-Kurdish Muslim unity led by the 59 Üngör exemplifies a similar sequence in an interview with Erdal, an 18-year-old male from the Garzan region, who narrates what his grandfather as an eyewitness had told him when he was a child (2014: 159), which is further support for Serdî’s claim on two different attitudes of Kurds (protective or co-participant) during the Armenian Genocide. The silence of genocide survivors and resistance to speaking out in detail about experiences appear to be a commonly observed occurrence, unlike the willingness of their grandchildren to tell the story of their elders. 97 Caliph against ‘infidels’.60 The eruption of the Sheikh Said revolt in 1925, a year after the abolishment of the caliphate, and the unusual response of the new regime was a turning point and an end of the long-lasting deliberative relation between Turks and Kurds. a. The Sheikh Said revolt: The end of the ‘tacit contract’ The importance of the 1925 revolt led by Sheikh Said, an influential cleric from the Naqshbandi religious order, stems from its distinctive character in comparison with previous rebellions. Previously experienced Kurdish rebellions in the Ottoman periphery were a way of demanding certain rights from the state, a peculiar form of a power relation observed under Ottoman reign. Defining this relationship with the term of ‘tacit contract’ (zımni sözleşme) (Mardin 1991: 106-120) between the Kurds and the state, Bozarslan argues that despite Sheikh Said’s nationalist discourse in favor of an independent Kurdish state, the majority of participants in the revolt indeed sought to renew this contract. Nevertheless, the reaction shown by the new Republic to the revolt significantly differed from the reactions shown by the Ottoman authorities. The new state’s policy was not seeking a balance between the central state and the periphery (i.e., Kurds), but rather the systematic marginalization and assimilation of the latter (Bozarslan 2005a: 224-226). The unilateral termination of the longexisting ‘tacit contract’ by the Kemalist regime also gave a new impetus to the Turkish–Kurdish conflict. Additionally, the Sheikh Said revolt was orchestrated by the political organization Azadi (Freedom in Kurdish Kurmanji)61 that brought Kurdish nationalism to the hands of traditional figures of Turkey’s northern Kurdistan, which until then had been confined to Kurdish elites in Istanbul. (McDowall 2004: 192). While the leadership of highly respected religious figures had positive effects in organizational terms, it also provoked debilitating impacts due to long-existing inter-religious discrepancies among Kurds. In sociological terms, it would be convenient to analyze the revolt in two 60 A. K. Özcan points out that the purpose of both sides in this cooperation was apparently different from the beginning: While Kurds fought for the salvation of the Ümmet (Muslim unity), the Ottoman Turkish elites’ main concern was the salvation of the state. There was a clear contrast in the attitude of Turks before and after the proclamation of the Republic in 1923: The idea of Muslim unity against infidels was fused into a single-bodied structure based on the ‘Turkish nation’ in a modern sense, in which there was no room for religious brotherhood (2006: 79-81). From this point of view, it would be convenient to affirm that early Kurdish resistance towards this new policy was also a confrontation between the authoritarian and ‘modernizing’ state, on the one hand, and a traditional society based on certain values on the other (Bozarslan 1988: 133). This characteristic of early Kurdish mobilization against the state offered a pretext to Turkish nationalists to characterize them as merely reactionary rebellions led by fanatic fundamentalists against the modern secular republic. 61 During its first congress in which Sheikh Said also participated, Azadi agreed on two fundamental actions: a) the need for a well-organized and planned uprising to be launched in May 1925 and; b) the need for foreign assistance, possibly from France, Great Britain or the Soviet Union among other options (Van Bruinessen 1992: 280). Being one of the actors who participated in the revolt and having suffered from its consequences, Hasan Hişyar Serdî quotes Sheikh Said on the objections to a possible Russian alliance due to the ‘atheist’ nature of the latter during a meeting: “Some said France, some said England, and none gets angry. Once Russia is mentioned, the majority of you lash out to oppose, and some of you want to have a say. We are looking for a political ally and someone who backs us. What business do you have with the religion of the states?” (1994: 194) While religion was a strong determinant among Kurdish national elites for making political decisions, Sheikh Said’s rationale appears to have given priority to national interests over religion. 98 aspects: a) a failure in the military and political sense due to organizational deficiencies and; b) success in terms of national consolidation and construction of collective memory among Kurds. As a highly disputed matter, some scholars claim that religious elements, more precisely a reestablishment of the Caliphate, override national concerns for the Kurdish ethnic identity (McDowall ibid. 197-198). Religious motivation played a fundamental role both in the organization as well as the mobilization of the revolt, and, most probably, it would have had certain political weight if the revolt had been successful. The Caliphate’s symbolic value was also reflected by Sheikh Said himself: “Previously, we had a common Caliph, and this gave our religious people a deep sense of being in a community with the Turks. Since the Caliphate is abolished, all we have left is the feeling of Turkish repression” (Bagdad Times, 7 April 1925, quoted from Bozarslan 1988: 130) Nonetheless, it would be erroneous to ignore the nationalist aspects of the revolt, as the Kurds were equally worried about assimilation through population exchange policies and linguistic restrictions, discrimination of Kurds in official positions and during compulsory military service, frequent and deliberate interventions in political and social issues, and eventually, the exploitation of natural resources in Kurdistan, all of which reflected the ambivalent character of Kurdish nationalism at the time (Olson 1989: 155). There was a certain degree of mistrust among Kurdish leading elites towards the new regime in Turkey, not only because of the abolishment of the Caliphate but also, as underlined before, Kurds remembered well the tragic fate of ethnic Armenians. Serdî quotes Sheikh Said’s reflections shared with Kurdish militia commanders, tribal chieftains, and intellectuals in a congress held right before the revolt that illustrate his nationalist sentiments: “…If we move such half-heartedly, it will not be Turks who will end up in disappointment, but us. You can be sure that these [Turks] will do the same to us as they did to Armenian children and women, who were slaughtered with the bayonets of Turkish soldiers. So, do you really want this cruelty to happen to the Kurdish nation too? […] I am older than 70, holding a tasbih [rosary] in my hand. Now I have also thrown the tasbih away and grabbed my rifle. My wealth, properties, and children are more than yours. I am ready to sacrifice all for the rights of my nation.” (Sheikh Said quoted from Serdî 1994: 197) The religious factor in this context is essential as it directly conditioned the organization, mobilization, and, eventually, the fate of the revolt itself. Bringing in a strategically religious cause to a planned nationalistic revolt was logical as some religious Turks also opposed the secular policies of Mustafa Kemal’s government. By injecting a religious character, one could attract those Kurds whose main preoccupation was Islam. Furthermore, a rebellion pioneered by a charismatic sheikh would favor success as the sheikhs had significant influence over Kurds and, thanks to their traditional reconciliation roles, they were capable of bringing together tribes in conflict (Van Bruinessen 1992: 99 281-282; Olson 1989: xvi).62 The political authority and social prestige of sheikhdom among Kurdish tribes and society, in general, were considered a unifying factor for national aspirations. Nevertheless, Kurdistan’s multi-religious structure, most evidently observed in the historical Sunni – Alevi conflict63, was also a serious obstacle. The mistrust was not only between Kurds and Turks but also between Sunni and Alevi Kurds; the Sunni sheikhdom factor did not contribute to strengthening confidence between Sunni and Alevi Kurdish tribes. Despite a strong political organization led by influential Naqshbandi personalities who managed to mobilize their murids (devoted followers) (Bozarslan 1988: 130), profound religious discrepancies provoked a discordant effect on the mobilization capacity and the definitive outcome of the revolt. Having been subjected to discriminating treatment at the hands of both Sunni Turks and Kurds during the Ottoman reign, a call for mobilization to Alevi Kurds by a Sunni Naqshbandi sheikh constituted a somewhat counterproductive effect. Their preference between two options determined the attitude of prominent Alevi tribes: an independent Kurdistan to be led by Sunni sheikhs or a secular Turkey, in which, at first glance, all people would be treated as equal citizens (Van Bruinessen 1992: 294). Most Alevi Kurds opted for the second, which sounded more beneficial for their community. An analysis of the consequences of Sheikh Said revolt in Kurdish collective memory Despite its military failure, the importance of the Sheikh Said revolt is linked with the following policies implemented once the revolt had been quelled and the social construction of their narrative. Unlike the barbaric and reactionary depiction as a sign of Islamic fanaticism in Turkey’s official historiography (Lewis 1968: 268), Kurdish historiography glorifies the revolt by creating continuity between Sheikh Said’s revolt and today’s ongoing resistance against the authority of the state (Kahraman 2003: 19: Tezcür 2009). Consequently, the revolt as a large-scale violent event has successfully become a cultural trauma in Kurdish collective memory. The degree of aggression during and after the Sheikh Said revolt is brought forth the construction of Kurdish collective memory based on three forms of violence exercised by both sides. The first one corresponds to the organized physical violence led by Sheikh Said, which in the final 62 The affirmation made by scholars is crucial as it highlights a long-established historical state of social and political organization in Kurdistan. In eastern Turkey (i.e. northern Kurdistan), the sheikdom and aghadom (landlordship) are fused together in one practical title and directly related to land ownership. In this sense, those who possess most properties and land also obtain sheikh status in due course and exercise a great deal of authority (M.E. Bozarslan 1964: 125). Also, traditionally in Kurdish society, those sectors who are primary candidates to be the governing class are begs (Kurdish seigneurs) and tribal and religious leaders (sheikhs). Any Kurdish leader who seeks to exhibit influence over Kurdish masses unexceptionally belongs to one of these sectors (Jwaideh 1999[1961]: 502), of which Sheikh Said was not an exception. 63 Discrepancies between Sunni and Alevi communities go back to the 16th century’s political atmosphere in northern Kurdistan, divided between the Shi’a Shah Ismail of Persia and Sunni Ottoman reign under Selim I (Yavuz). Those Alevi Kurdish communities who were more sympathetic towards the Shah were harshly punished by Yavuz as well as Sunni Kurdish tribes. (Beşikçi 2014[1969]361-362; Gezik 2012: 48). 106 156). The concern for social status would eventually provoke the alienation of the remaining young generations in Dersim from their own culture.79 3.2. The ethnonational revival of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey Kurdish ethnonational revival in the late 1950s and the early 1960s took place after the long period of generational silence observed as a result of traumatogenic experiences that Kurds lived through during the period of consecutive national revolts and their aftermaths. In this period, there were two incidents concerning the revival of Kurdish nationalism: the 49ers incident and trial in Turkey, which was a result of the state’s Kurdism phobia rather than an organized political movement, and the resurgence of the Kurdish national liberation movement led by Mullah Mustafa Barzani in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both the success and collapse of this latter had a significant generational impact on the later development of the Kurdish national liberation movement(s) in Turkey through the following decades. 3.2.1. The generational resurgence of Kurdish nationalism a. The post-revolts period and reproduction of Kurdish identity in generational silence The suppression following the Dersim revolt ended the newly emerged Kurdish national movement in Turkey, imprisoning it into a two-decade generational silence, during which there was hardly any Kurdish nationalist activity. After a long period of revolts of varying dimensions and a high cost in human life, northern Kurdistan was finally pacified (Van Bruinessen 1992: 291), and Kurdish nationalism fell into silence. Apart from political and military measures taken during and right after the revolts, previously mentioned cultural and symbolic impositions appear to have extended the political silence in the social sphere. Anter depicts this aspect of Turkish Kurdistan of the 1930s (Mardin) as well as the 1950s (Diyarbakır) in his memoirs as follows: “Outside, I mean in the city center, it was prohibited to speak in Kurdish. If they overheard you speaking the language, they would fine one lira per word. It is for this reason that Mardin was converted into a camp of mutes. As people were not able to speak in public, they were trying to understand one another by using hand gestures. […] Turkish Kurdistan and its heart Diyarbakir were sleeping. Fascist governments had cooled them out; there was not even the slightest wiggling out there. I sensed this and headed to Diyarbakir from Istanbul right away.” (Anter 1991: 29; 1992: 34-35)80 79 As a consequence of this social transformation, Gezik mentions the emergence of a new ‘upper group’ (üst grup) starting from the mid-1950s who favored speaking Turkish instead of their own mother tongue and remained distant from their own history as well as all those elements of the ‘traditional seyit culture’ whose rejection became a key for individual success (2012: 157). Apparently, past collectivist loyalties and their system of symbolic values have been replaced by individual aspirations within the peculiar political and social history of Dersim. 80 Yıldırım portrays his childhood in Diyarbakır through complementary anecdotes that help further understand Anter’s memoirs. Referring to the “Vatandaş Türkçe Konuş!” (Citizen, speak Turkish!) campaign sponsored by the state, he narrates that even elderly villagers were forced to learn Turkish, those refusing to do so were fined by the municipal police and decided not to venture to the city anymore (Miroğlu 2010: 45). Ekinci also narrates the same pattern of symbolic violence in the public sphere that Kurdish villagers suffered at Lice’s local market. As someone with first-hand experience on the matter, Ekinci would personally translate and assist the villagers in understanding their new language (2010: 79). 107 As a result of the collective trauma produced by the Kurdish revolts on the generation who witnessed and survived them, fear and anxiety found their manifestation in the form of silence. The state’s assimilation policy on the upcoming generations was also coherent with symbolic violence systematically exercised throughout Kurdistan. Turkish national historiography was placed as the official truth and reproduced through the national education system. As a result, Kurdish identity and the core elements of its symbolic universe, above all Kurdish language and national history, failed to penetrate the public sphere. Likewise, due to the consequences of cultural traumas, the older generation showed no eagerness to reproduce these elements of the Kurdish symbolic universe in their private sphere. Ekinci’s early childhood observations are highly significant with this respect: “According to the history education we received at school and the Sun-Language Theory 81 , despite the fact that we spoke Kurdish, all Kurds in Lice and the surrounding villages must have been Turks too, just like everyone else in the world. Therefore, we considered ourselves Turkish. […] Not much time had passed since the Kurdish revolt of 1925. In the memory of generations before me, the remembrances of mass slaughter, tortures, repressions, and cruelties of the post-revolt years were still fresh. Those intellectuals harboring ideas of Kurdish nationalism were killed or exiled. […] In my family, the idea of belonging to an ethnic origin different from Turkish was not discussed. Before graduating from high school, I had not witnessed any stimulating event that would drive me towards scrutinizing or discussing the very essence of this distinctness. I was not able to perceive what I had experienced through the frame of distinctness.” (Ekinci 2010: 124) During the period of generational silence that continued until the beginning of the 1960s, Kurdish intellectuals in exile took charge of maintaining the ‘memory’ and transmitting it to the upcoming generations (Bozarslan 2005b: 54). After Martial Law came into force during the suppression of revolts, activities related to Kurdish nationalism were extremely dangerous in Turkey. Intellectuals who had fled to neighboring countries took up this task. Osman Sebrî, who had been jailed when he was a teenager due to his family’s sympathetic stance in favor of the Sheikh Said revolt, later actively participated in the Ararat revolt of 1930. Being a member of the Hoybûn party, Sebrî tells of his experience fleeing to Syrian Kurdistan and his contact with other party members: “I was going to Syria hoping that there I would see many patriots. I had heard from a nephew of mine of the existence of a political organization named Xoybun [Hoybûn] that was seeking the independence of Kurdistan. I had heard that Bedirxan, Cemîl Pasha, the Ibrahim Pasha families, two sons of Sahîn Beg and Hacoyê Haco were part of this organization. All of them were working toward enlightening the people and their liberation [...] When I asked Celadet [Bedirxan] about this [being a member of Hoybûn], did I know anything about parties and their objectives, their national and global policies or Kurdish revolts and the reasons that they had failed? Let me say it this way: I did not know any of these issues at that time. The only thing I wanted was to comply with the 81 The Sun-Language Theory (or Güneş-Dil Teorisi as it is originally termed in Turkish) was a pseudoscientific linguistic hypothesis claiming that all civilizations and languages in the world derived from Turks and their language, Turkish. It was promoted in order to justify the existence of western-originated loanwords in the Turkish language. All the while, many words of Arabic and Persian origin were gradually abandoned in an attempt to linguistically purify the Turkish language as part of the Kemalist reforms (Lewis 1968: 434-435). Such pseudoscientific activities basing on pan-Turkist ambitions aimed at inventing a solid and secular nation out of a highly complex social structure inherited from the former imperial regime. By extending the historical boundaries of the ‘Turkish nation’ beyond the history of Islam, Turkish historiography, linguists, and anthropologists were commissioned to reveal and justify the existence of ‘Turkish’ in pre-Islamic periods (Aydın 1998: 109). For a more detailed and critical revision on the Sun-Language Theory and its implementation, see Beşikçi, İ. (2013[1977b) Türk Tarih Tezi, ‘Güneş-Dil Teorisi’ ve Kürt Sorunu, Istanbul: İBV Yayınları, Chapters 2, 3 & 4. 108 rigorous desire I felt to serve my homeland. I had no other goal than this. I learned everything I should have learned from these high-ranking members of Xoybun.” (Sebrî 2012: 125, 128)82 Smuggling along the border served to open a gateway between those Kurdish intellectuals living in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava or Western Kurdistan) and Kurdish intellectual youth in the north. Ekinci narrates the experience he had on this matter during his youth: “[Smugglers] were bringing in a variety of goods from Syria, a French colony then, which could not be found in Turkey, and commercializing them in Lice and the areas surrounding it. In their commutes, they were also in touch with those Kurdish intellectuals who had settled down in Syria as well as the Kurdish organizations led by those very intellectuals. They were both receiving their support and, at the same time, were bringing information and documents on Kurdish political movements. For example, the book named Dersim İsyanı [The Dersim Revolt], written by veterinarian Nuri Dersimi, who had played a key role in the Dersim revolt and [later] settled in Syria, was brought by smugglers and distributed discreetly among the Kurdish intellectual youth. When I was on a summer holiday in 1944, this book of Dersimi reached me via the same source. As it was extremely dangerous to possess literature in those days, after having read the book, I did not dare to carry it to Istanbul and gave it back to the source who had brought it to be preserved.” (Ekinci 2010: 55-56)83 By defining this period as the ‘period of silence and intimidation’, Kutlay points out that there were only a few tenuous initiatives concerning Kurdishness. In such a restricted environment, those attempts were limited to sporadic folkloric events and cultural activities among intellectuals studying in Turkish metropolises (Kutlay 2012: 29).84 Testimonies by the generation of Kurdish ethnonational revival in Turkey (Anter 1991; 55-57; Kutlay 1998: 49; Ekinci 2010: 153-156) confirm that student dormitories in big Turkish cities such as Istanbul and Ankara in which Kurdish university students from different towns and villages of northern Kurdistan were accommodated as one of few social mechanisms available through which the symbolic elements of Kurdishness were reproduced. Those also served as a melting pot where Kurdish youth from different geographic and cultural backgrounds gathered and interacted with one another, as Yıldırım narrates: “The Dicle student dormitory had a nice aspect: It had brought Van, Hakkari, Urfa, Mardin, and Diyarbakır together. People who were not aware of each other came there and were acquainted with one another in this dormitory. People who were even unaware of where the city of Van was located discovered each other in this dormitory, so to speak. Family structures were already favorable. In most houses, they were speaking Kurdish or Zaza. This being the case, a nationalist movement began to emerge here.” (Yıldırım in Miroğlu 2010: 80) 82 Pervin Cemil, a member of the leading Kurdish intellectual and nationalist Cemil Pasha family, also describes how her family members had to flee to Syria after being released from prison following the Sheikh Said revolt, and how they immediately became members of Hoybûn, continuing their Kurdist activities (Kurij 2015: 116-117). Despite his bad experiences and disappointment later with Hoybûn party members (2012: 143-144), the importance of Sebrî’s testimony is that it illustrates the connection between the Sheikh Said and Ararat revolts in organizational terms and national goals. Admitting this fact, Hasan Hişyar Serdî, who participated in both, defines the latter as the continuity of the former (1994: 360). 83 Kutlay refers to the same book by Dersimi as well, pointing out that he probably obtained it from Syrian Kurds in 1953 (1998: 44). Economic and political activities such as contraband trade or smuggling through the Iraqi and Syrian border appear to have been one of the consequences emerging from the difference between the social reality and artificial separation of frontiers (Bozarslan, M.E. 2002[1966]: 48; Beşikçi 2014[1967]: 291-292). 84 Orhan indicates that there were only a few journals in this period: Dicle Kaynağı (Source of Tigris, 1948) was one of the short-lived journals published bi-weekly in the 1940s. Even a decade later, the panorama was not different with the exception of other short-lived journals such as Şark Mecmuası (Journal of Orient), Şarkın Sesi (The Voice of Orient), and Şark Postası (The Orient Post) (2016: 47), which come to be yet further evidence of social silence on Kurdish matters in this period. 109 The same student dormitories, where Turkish and Kurdish students stayed together, also provided an atmosphere for identity encounters and positioning due to conflicts between different groups. Having been subjected to discriminatory attitudes from their Turkish colleagues, most students coming from Kurdistan acquired the early seeds of a Kurdish national consciousness while staying in those dormitories. Ekinci speaks of how he got familiarized with the ‘Kurdish problem’, of which he had not been aware before, during his visits to the Dicle Student Dormitory: “At the Dicle student dormitory, I came across the Kurdish problem, something which I was not quite aware of; I had not been conscious of it until then. The primary reason for which I found myself in this situation emerged from tense speeches made by my Turkist-Turancı colleagues at the Medicine Institute’s student dormitory. While having a conversation with my Turkish friend Niyazi Demirkol, with whom I was sharing the same study room, I told him that my aunts, their children, my uncle’s children, and my younger brothers did not even know a word in Turkish. Thereupon, turning towards me, he responded, ‘Those who do not know Turkish are not Turks, and they have no right to live in Turkey.’ I was in shock. I realized that in the country where we were, our right to live was not bestowed, that we were not treated as citizens. My thoughts grew stronger in explicit or implicit conversations with my friends with whom I was in touch at the Dicle student dormitory. Now I was conscious that we were living in an environment where we were not treated as citizens; our fundamental rights were denied; speaking in our mother tongue was not respected. From that day on, I contacted my friends at the Dicle student dormitory more frequently.” (Ekinci 2010: 164-165) It was not a coincidence that the most fervent defendants of the first macro-judicial case against ‘Kurdism’ (Kürtçülük), a concept used for those who defend Kurdish national demands, emerged after the two-decade silence among those young Kurdish intellectuals whose national consciousness flaggingly awakened in this limited environment they interacted with one another in western metropolises of Turkey. These initial activities were also the early seeds of the Kurdish ethnic revival in Turkey, led by this new generation entelechy. b. The 49ers: A political generation? The 49ers incident and the subsequent trial took place as a result of the state’s concern over the growing Kurdish consciousness among the gradually flourishing Kurdish intellectuals and university students. The latter was accused of allegedly having formed an organization backed by foreign powers that aimed to bring down the national unity of the Republic of Turkey. Public and media attention on the 49ers Trial, which lasted for several years, was considered the first Kurdish-related public incident after the Dersim massacre of 1938 (Güneş 2012: 52), through which the generational silence gradually began to loosen after two decades. Describing the 49ers as an organized political-nationalist movement and the defendants of the trial as a political generation would be an assertive argument to claim. Testimonies by those individuals who were prosecuted in the trial tend to refute such claims in their later published memoirs. As emphasized before, undoubtedly among those young intellectuals, there was a growing sense of mission for the Kurdish national identity that was sporadically manifested through cultural activities; 110 however, there is no qualitative evidence that such tendencies were visible among people in Kurdistan and the ideological level and willingness to form an organized movement was in no way mature enough at the time. One of the defendants of the trial and a leading Kurdish political figure in later years, Canip Yıldırım, depicts the situation among young Kurdish intellectuals then and the general atmosphere of fear among his social surroundings when it came to Kurdism activities: “[It was] an affection of ‘we are Kurds’. But that was all, nothing more than this. [It was] A sense of belonging to Kurdishness. I mean, nobody said ‘let’s get organized and so forth’. It was only on an ideal basis, the emergence of a utopia, an idea, getting to know Kurdish history, and understanding it. We were quite far away from those things. […] For example, our first nationalist movement emerged after the 27 May [1960 coup d’état]. Only when 27 May happened, we began to give Kurdish names to our children. Most of those names were rejected. […] Kurdish movements existed in thoughts, in minds, you hear and think about them. You have an idea as you are an intellectual. You go to Istanbul, to Ankara, and people there regard you as Kurd. Then you head back to your hometown, and this time your father scolds you, ‘What the hell are you doing, bub? Son, they’ll ruin us, they’ll screw us up!’ It means the people did not associate themselves with the movement; apparently, they failed to make people affiliate of it.” (in Miroğlu 2010: 65-66, 81) Collective activities and initiatives organized by those who showed more sensitivity towards the Kurdish culture and language were irregular 85 due to the legal and practical impossibilities in political terms for exercising and organizing such thoughts. Such cultural activities as were the Dicle Gecesi (Tigris Night), organized by Musa Anter, during which Kurdish dancers in national dresses were performing folkloric events for the Kurdish audience, played a pioneering role in this realm (1991: 60). Kutlay also draws a similar enthusiastic picture among Kurds during the Doğu Geceleri (Eastern Nights) in Ankara in the early 1950s, during which the silence imposed on Kurdishness in the social sphere developed into an atmosphere of relative ease: “The Doğulular [Easterners] 86 , essentially Kurds, in Ankara were flooding into those fun nights. Having experienced long-lasting oppression, we were gathering in a relatively democratic environment. People were fearful, but they were finding one another. […] In those years, what made us feel excited and look more for one another were folkloric and cultural festivals in local settings in the evenings celebrated after years of silence. We were singing our folk songs and performing folk dances. Folk songs were in Turkish, but those who listened to them knew that they were ours; they were from our region. Every other element of those songs except its language (!) was Kurdish. With all of their elements, their spirit, their rhythm, they were Kurdish folk songs. […] We did not consider ourselves as if we were from an outland city; in these types of gatherings and those of some big towns of the East and Southeast, we showed interest and participated as if they were our own ‘nights’. The Davul [drum] and zurna were taking our breath away as if they were the symbols of being a Kurd. Iraqi Kurds studying in Ankara were also participating in those nights.” (Kutlay 1998: 49) 85 A limited attempt of forming a group with a specific objective took place at the Dicle student dormitory that Musa Anter names as the ‘Kürtleri Kurtarma Cemiyeti’ (Rescue Society for Kurds), established informally by Anter and few others in order to help those assimilated Kurdish students in the dormitory recover their Kurdish identity. Anter notes that he and his friends within this group swore on a ‘Kurdish flag and a gun’ for loyalty to the cause of this group (1991: 58-59). While it was a unique example that lacked a social reflection at the time, the initiative led by Anter and his friends illustrates concerns by some intellectuals of the period for the ethnic survival of Kurds. Ekinci also stresses that it was known that there were some demands on the recognition of democratic rights, Kurdish language and culture, but there was no concrete attempts or initiatives to address those issues explicitly. The only thing he witnessed was some numbers of the journal Hawar published in Syria, which made him and his friends feel excited as it was written in the Kurdish language (2010: 157-158). 86 In the following pages of his memoirs, Kutlay explains the significance of the word ‘Easterners’: “We could not introduce ourselves as Kurd explicitly, we were saying ‘Easterner’, but it was obvious what it meant” (1998: 62). The expression is still commonly used today, particularly among those who prefer not to employ the word ‘Kurd’ or ‘Kurdish’. 111 ‘Kurdism’ activities in the early years of Kurdish revival were limited to those sporadic cultural events that took a while to evolve into a political movement led by a new generation entelechy. Although this evolution mainly had to see with the developments of Turkish politics, there was an evident influence of developments taking place in other parts of divided Kurdistan that need to be addressed. While the Kurdish revival was experiencing its initial phases in Turkey through these loosely organized social activities by young intellectuals, political progress made in a much more organized manner in Iraqi Kurdistan also impacted those young Kurdish nationalists. c. The influences of Mustafa Barzani’s upheaval among Turkey’s Kurds One significant occurrence that influenced Kurdish intellectuals in Turkey in this period was the coup d’état in Iraq and Mullah Mustafa Barzani’s return to Iraqi Kurdistan. After the short-lived Republic of Mahabad led by Qazi Muhammad in the mid-1940s, Kurdish nationalism had also fallen into silence in Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan (Bozarslan 2009: 44). Mustafa Barzani’s political and military success converted Kurdish nationalism into a mass movement among southern Kurds. The admiration and loyalty towards his heroic personality, his traditionally appreciated position as a son of a sheikh, and a chieftain consequently strengthened the idea of Kurdistan as a nation that soon acquired a strong emotional attachment, independent from Barzani’s idolism (Van Bruinessen 1992: 316). After long years of silence, Barzani’s stance was also perceived as a flourishing hope among Turkey’s Kurdish intellectuals, who accelerated their efforts under the relative atmosphere of freedom following 27 May 1960. 87 As the leading figure of Kurdish national revival in Turkey, Anter describes the enthusiasm and excitement upon Barzani’s advancement that made him decide to publish İleri Yurt (Advanced Country) in the northern Kurdish capital of Diyarbakır: “There had been a coup d’état in Iraq, and Barzani had returned. Happy days were expected for Kurds there. The Iraqi state recognized the Kurdish flag; the fact that Iraqi people consisted of Arabs and Kurds was stated in the constitution. All Kurdish cultural activities were permitted. Newspapers in Kurdish were being published, and there was an education in Kurdish at schools. Naturally, this situation influenced the situation in Turkish Kurdistan as well. At this time, I decided to go to Diyarbakır again to publish a newspaper.” (Anter 1991: 140) The impacts of Mullah Mustafa Barzani’s movement was not an instantaneous light, but rather a continuing fire affecting the young generation entelechy of Kurds in Turkey. Having been a member of this new generation at the time, Mehdi Zana, a future influential Kurdish politician, affirms that new 87 Although Qazi Muhammad’s Republic of Mahabad had a certain impact on Turkey’s young Kurdish intellectuals, its short life also provoked disillusion. Mustafa Barzani’s movement, on the other hand, was perceived as a total and continuing struggle that had concrete reverberations in the north (Aydın & Taşkın 2017: 172). Ekinci also exemplifies this influence through the foundation of T-KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party-Turkey/North), initially led by Kurdish lawyer Faik Bucak, and subsequently by Sait Elçi of the 49’ers circle (2010: 620-621). The political dimensions of Barzani’s influence are also underlined and affirmed by scholars (Barkey & Fuller 1998: 49; McDowall 2004: 408; Bozarslan 2009: 51) as well as other testimonies (Kutlay 1998: 64, 126; Miroğlu 2010: 127) analyzed in this work. Advances and consequent failures of Barzani in Iraqi Kurdistan continued to have a significant impact on Kurdish movements in Turkey through the following decade. 112 mediums like radio transmission ‘Kürdistan’ın Sesi’ (The Voice of Kurdistan) were serving the young Kurds in Turkey who were interested in following the latest developments and nationalist progress in the south (2014[1991]: 34-35), something which emotionally impacted him to such a degree that he finally came up with a symbolic action plan against anti-Barzani propaganda in Turkey. His enthusiasm was also the early signs of the desire for taking more concrete actions among youth: “The fact that there was a Kurdish movement had caught my attention, and I adopted a tendency towards Kurdishness. I could not take my eyes off it. I was wondering what would happen. [As If] I was dying with each peshmerga who died and was fighting alongside each peshmerga. My heart accompanied them. I was thinking to myself, ‘wish I were with them right now’. […] Upon hearing these nefarious comments on our people, I thought that it was necessary to do something. I came up with the idea to prepare a banner and hang it up somewhere over the main street. I got rolling immediately. Along with my friends, we prepared a banner and hung it on the wall of the office of the Mufti located on the main street. We did this along with M. Güllü and N. Derman at around midnight. On the banner, one could read ‘Long-live Barzani, damn with those who do not like him!’ This was a manifestation of the reaction we had, the smoldering anger we had deep inside. I had no fear in my heart. Doing something, a desire to look after the people, overcame the sense of cowardliness. I was ready to do anything for my people.” (Zana 2014[1991]: 32) Nevertheless, developments in Iraqi Kurdistan and their echoes in Turkey equally worried the Turkish authorities and fueled their fear of the potential Kurdish awakening in Turkey, which ended up with the imprisonment of 50 Kurdish students and intellectuals. After the death of one of the detainees, Emin Batu, the trial was termed the 49ers trial. Confinement in prison served to consolidate the ideas they had concerning their future political activities, as well as drew the line that came to separate different generation units between left-wing revolutionary and right-wing conservative Kurds.88 3.2.2. The political socialization of the Kurdish left towards autonomy a. The TİP experience and Eastern Rallies The 49ers incident and trial marked the first step towards a revitalization process of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, which grew stronger throughout the following decades due to several period and cohort effects. In the beginning, leading figures of the Kurdish movement in this generation followed a pragmatic and ultimately pacifist political line, in which the attitude taken by Turkish political parties towards the Kurdish issue played the paramount role: “It was not possible to go to the people merely based on the Kurdish issue. Had we said something like that, in some places, we would have even been lynched. For this reason, we calculated what legal parties in Turkey could have offered to Kurds. The idea of an independent Kurdish organization was not anything we were discussing. […] We kept an eye on Iraq, being curious about what Barzani would do. However, nobody was thinking about an armed struggle in Turkey. We looked around, when a new political party was established, if they were sympathetic to Kurds, we went and joined this party.” (Yıldırım in Miroğlu 2010: 127) 88 This separation is described by all three activists (Anter 1991: 164-165; Kutlay 1998: 84; Yıldırım in Miroğlu 2010: 141-142) who were leading figures within the leftist nucleus and later showed their support for future Kurdish revolutionary movements. Political radicalization or tendencies towards violence was unlikely to emerge during this period except for Sait Kırmızıtoprak (alias Dr. Şivan), who was also among those in the leftist group of the 49ers and later joined Mulla Mustafa Barzani’s armed movement in Iraqi Kurdistan. 113 Throughout the 1960s, significant figures among those who had been prosecuted in the 49ers trial got involved in political activities in a much active and organized way. The Türkiye İşçi Partisi (TİP – Workers’ Party of Turkey) was the first political initiative in which Kurds were present. Its organizational activities were first launched in Diyarbakır and extended throughout other Kurdish cities and towns over time. They had relative success in gaining the support of some Kurdish nationalist religious mullahs (Muslim preachers) after the local elections in 1963 (Ekinci 2010: 339-365). The party’s official program was considering the eastern and south-eastern problem as a question of chronic economic underdevelopment whose solution was underlined as a priority within the framework of Turkey’s national and territorial unity as explicitly underlined: “Eastern development would be among the services to be implemented immediately and rigorously by the Workers’ Party of Turkey while carrying into effect the development of the country. […] In parallel with the economic backwardness of the region, our citizens here are also in a backward position in social and cultural terms. Furthermore, those who speak Kurdish or Arabic or those who belong to the Alevism creed are subjected to discrimination for their status. As indicated under the Art. 3 of the Constitution, the Workers’ Party of Turkey expresses the indivisibility of Turkey as a whole with its people and territory and categorically refuses any kind of separatism and regionalism.” (TİP Party Program 1965: 110-111)89 The Doğu Mitingleri (Eastern Rallies) organized by Kurdish representatives of TİP, principally Mehdi Zana, Naci Kutlay, Kemal Burkay, and M. Ali Aslan, between 1967-1969 were the first social reflections of a political organization of those experienced intellectuals from the 49ers generation.90 These developments also brought about the first introduction of Kurdish nationalism in the social sphere of northern Kurdistan after the two-decade silence following the cultural traumas of the last revolts. As a social scientist and political activist in this period who actively observed Eastern Rallies, İsmail Beşikçi makes the following analysis on the widespread participation of Kurds in those rallies: “Consciousness and participation of wide popular masses are the most important feature and consequence of the Eastern Rallies. The fundamental point here is that the Eastern Rallies have accomplished a social goal and focused in this direction. Individuals from different social classes participated in meetings and socialized. Alongside those who have no or little land or those who have nothing at all are people who control feuds such as aghas and sheikhs. All participated and shared their thoughts.” (2014 [1969]: 197) In his structural analysis on the Eastern Rallies, Beşikçi affirms that those rallies directed much attention to the question of underdevelopment of the ‘East’, provoked by factors such as rapid population growth and a lack of agrarian reform (strong presence of sheikhdom and aghadom), regarded as the fundamental problems of the region (2014[1969]: 81-90). While this was the general perspective of those who organized the rallies, most of whom were TİP members, the slogans on 89 The political program of TİP can be consulted at the library of the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s Open Access Collection: https://acikerisim.tbmm.gov.tr/xmlui/handle/11543/628 90 As pointed out earlier, whether the 49’ers were a political generation remains a debatable issue. Here the term generation refers to those activists and intellectuals belonging to a specific birth cohort. It is understood from their testimonies that the Eastern Rallies signaled the emergence of a new cohort in Kurdish society, consisting of several generation units made up of both left-wing and right-wing Kurds for the equal rights of Kurds in general (Kutlay 1998: 177). 114 banners carried throughout those rallies reflected more than chronic sociopolitical problems, urging a direct demand for citizenship rights and expressing disenchantment due to the excessive presence of the state’s coercive forces in Kurdistan: “Easterners! Make an effort and struggle for your legal rights! Demanding your rights does not harm the unity”, “The Easterner will surely make you recognize their humanness and citizenship”, “We do not want gendarmeries, we want teachers”, “We do not want police stations, we want schools”, “In the West factories and roadways, in the East commandos and police stations”, “We do not want butt strokes, we ask for a hand” (Beşikçi ibid. 25-26). Being from the younger generation of the ‘Easterners’ within TİP at the time, Mehdi Zana describes the atmosphere he observed during an Eastern Rally organized in his native Silvan, a remote district of Diyarbakır. Zana’s observations illustrate the awakening of Kurdish youth, the background of the participants in rallies, and the growing reaction of Kurdish nationalistic youth towards Turkish leftists who reduced the ‘Eastern problem’ to merely structural issues and underdevelopment: “Two days later, there were waves of people heading to the rally. People were coming from all regions. Among those who came, university students and mullahs constituted the majority. Some university youth of nationalist tendencies had expressed their objection to the rally. As we were organizing the rally, they were constantly repeating, ‘This is a rally of Kurds; we do not want the leftists to come and leave their mark on the rally.’” (Zana 2004 [1991]: 92) 91 Those were the initial signs of the future divorce between Turkish leftists and Kurdish nationalists. This tendency among the younger generation Kurdish nationalists under the TİP structure would gradually take them in a new direction, giving way to the first autonomous movement of Kurds in Turkey. b. The emergence of autonomous Kurdish political activism in Turkey The enthusiasm and encouragement during the Eastern Rallies among the younger generation of Kurds bolstered the idea of forming an autonomous Kurdish political movement focusing on the Kurdish national question. The disappointment and lack of trust towards TİP’s Turkish socialists were followed by the formation of the Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları (DDKO - Revolutionary Eastern Cultural Hearths). The initiative was taken by young Kurdish members within TİP’s ‘Eastern Group’, and after having debated the idea, older generation intellectuals also offered their support (Miroğlu 2010: 192). One of the founding members of DDKO, Mümtaz Kotan, explains how the young generation decided to leave the Turkish socialists as two sub-groups within TİP tried to abuse the ‘Easterners’: 91 Zana adds that he firmly refused this approach of young Kurdish nationalists at that moment. At a later time, after being transferred from the Eskişehir Prison to the Aydın Prison, Zana seems to have adopted a view of imprisonment of the Kurdish national identity by the Turkish socialist movement as understood from the following lines he wrote in a letter addressed to his wife Leyla: “All the time they [Turks] spoke, we applauded, we ran behind them, they talked, wrote and we memorized. Was not that for this reason, we contradicted our own Kurdish reality, and in the name of socialism, revolutionism, we unwittingly betrayed our own people with such an attitude of denial?” (Zana 1995: 56). Mehdi Zana later became one of the founders of Diyarbakır DDKO, and his wife, Leyla Zana, became one of the leading Kurdish politicians in the Turkish National Assembly in the early 1990s. Both also faced long jail terms for their political stance in later periods of their life. 115 “Extreme level of actions were marketed in incredibly unbelievable ways in order to gain the support of the ‘Eastern Youth’ by using such slogans as ‘We are brothers, this country is for all of us’, ‘We are an indivisible whole’. […] We were not blind; we could read, see, and listen. We had opened the pages of history. The memories and remembrances inherited from our grandparents and parents were right in front of our eyes. Within the general framework of socialism or in the works of Lenin, presumably, it would be possible to find a remedy for our situation too! We would not work for others all the time. We decided to have meetings among us and create an organization. We would split up from the Turkish ‘Left’. It was a divorce; our separation was both legitimate and necessary. It is not necessary to discuss the gossip and accusations beyond this. In fact, after the 1967 Eastern Rallies, our duty had separated a bit from them; we had focused on the specific demands of our region and our nation and our own problems.” (Kotan 2003: 271, emphasis in the original)92 University dormitories and associations located in big Turkish cities, such as Istanbul and Ankara, continued being common places for political debates and meetings in this period as well. Nevertheless, referring to Kotan’s narrative, the progress made in terms of organization and structuring was also attention-worthy. DDKO aspired to bring right-wing and leftist Kurds together to accomplish further organization of Kurdish youth in northern Kurdistan, and both leftist and conservative Kurds from previous generations were contacted and actively participated in meetings. Apart from universities and dormitories, private homes where activists of older generations resided as well as the famouslyknown coffee houses, like the Dinçer coffeehouse in Ankara’s Cebeci district, where plenty of meetings were held, were reportedly in use (Kotan 2003: 273-275).93 The atmosphere of the early 1970s marked the birth of a political generation in northern Kurdistan: DDKO had been created, and Kurdish national activism had drawn a vivid portrait through this newly born organization. As previously mentioned, Mullah Mustafa Barzani’s armed struggle in Iraqi Kurdistan inevitably influenced young Kurdish intellectuals in the north, whose ideas and aspirations would later be developed by upcoming generations. The direct impact of this influence was best reflected with the foundation of T-KDP in the mid-1960s, the most influential Kurdish movement in Turkey during the second half of the decade (Jongerden & Akkaya 2011: 125; Güneş & Zeydanlıoğlu 2014: 265).94 Notwithstanding, before the 1971 Memorandum, the implementation of violent repertoires did not seem to have been considered as a means of accomplishing the goal of national liberation. An earlier defendant and prisoner of the 49ers, and one of the leading militants of T-KDP in 92 Mümtaz and Orhan Kotan along with Ruşen Arslan, İbrahim Güçlü, and Hatice Yaşar founded the Rızgarî (Liberation) organization in 1975 that defended the struggle against Turkish, Iranian, and Arab colonialisms over the four parts of a divided Kurdistan (Orhan 2016: 54-55). 93 The use of such places continued during the following years among Kurdish youth in the urban areas in Kurdistan as well. Canip Yıldırım brings an example of this tendency mentioning the Abide teahouse in Diyarbakır, where future Kurdish organizations held meetings overnight (2010: 206). Generational continuity is observed in two founding meetings: the first one was held in Tarık Ziya Ekinci’s house in Ankara, while the second took place at the house where M. Emin Bozarslan was temporarily residing in Istanbul (Kotan 2003: 275). 94 N. A. Özcan underlines the role of the Naqshbandi religious order connections during the expansion of the Barzani movement as a result of the Hür subaylar (Free officers) who were in close contact with cities near Turkey’s border with Iraq: Mardin, Hakkâri, Van, and Diyârbakir. The scholar also affirms the influence of the southern Kurdish struggle in the north, most notably through KDP’s illegal branch office in Silopi in 1963 under the command of T-KDP led by Said Elçi (1999: 15-19). 122 “The Basque people do not confront to Spanish people but the Spanish oligarchy; Basque people are in solidarity with Spanish people in their confrontation against the Spanish oligarchy. [...] It is about being in favor of exploitation with the oligarchy suppressing our people or being against it.” (ETA 1979, Vol. 15: 119) After the high-profile kidnapping of the German Consul Eugen Beihl in 1970 as a way of bringing international attention to the Burgos Trial, Zabala was the first of a series of business people kidnapped for labor disputes as part of ETA’s revived politico-military strategy in this period. Having received positive feedback from working-class Basques as well as some Spanish migrant workers, ETA continued to pursue this labor favoritism which, by time, turned into the organization’s imitation of the state by enforcing its own industrial law and financial rules (Letamendia 1997: 232), best reflected through a revolutionary tax imposed on Basque industrialists and business people. 4.1.3. The late Franco period violence in the Basque collective memory In terms of ekintzas against the regime forces, the most high-profile action taken in ETA’s history was the execution of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in Operation Ogro, who had been appointed Prime Minister by General Franco himself. The operation was carried out on 20 December 1973 by an ETA commando named Txikia, in honor of ETA member Eustakio Mendizabal, killed earlier that year (Euskadi Eta Askatasuna 1993, Vol. 3: 134-149).105 The execution of Admiral Carrero Blanco, who was considered Franco’s successor, reinforced ETA’s fame both nationally and internationally (Conversi 2000: 100-101).106 Idigoras narrates how this ‘spectacular success’ received enthusiastic celebrations among Basque nationalist circles: “We celebrated it in style, and from the popular wit, the famous song about the admiral arose, which went ‘Flew, flew, Carrero flew...’ with an ‘Eeeeeuuup!!!’ at the end that served to launch all kinds of clothes and objects on the air, trying to imitate the ‘deadly leap’ that Carrero Blanco gave on Claudio Coello Street in Madrid. The best thermometer to measure the popularity of ETA’s action was, without a doubt, the positive reaction by most popular sectors.” (Idigoras 2000: 250) In a communiqué dated the very same day, 20 December 1973, ETA claimed responsibility for the assassination of Carrero Blanco, whom it considered the guarantor of the continuity of ‘the fascist regime supported by Opus Dei and Falange’, which had cost the lives of nine militants up until that moment. Carrero Blanco was also held responsible for the intensive repression over all members of the working class, and, finally, they also ‘gifted’ this act to the peoples of Euskadi, Catalonia, and Galicia 105 In her book titled Operación Ogro (Cómo y por qué ejecutamos a Carrero Blanco), based on interviews with four members of the Commando Txikia, Julen Agirre (pseu. Eva Forest) revealed details of the earlier kidnapping plan and alternative scenarios for the long-studied action and how the organization eventually had to give up the initial plan and opted for the execution of the Ogro, referring to Admiral Carrero Blanco (1974: 63-79). 106 Besides its effects on the struggle against Franco’s government and rendering impossible the regime’s transition to Francoism without Franco (Sullivan (2015[1988]: 152), Operation Ogro achieved remarkable publicity for ETA as well as the Basque national liberation struggle worldwide although the operation did not accomplish its initially desired objective, the liberation of Basque political prisoners, which provoked a sense of lament among those who carried it out (see declarations made by Jon and Iker in Agirre 1974: 79). Right after the explosion of Blanco’s car, the entire world knew the name of ETA as it was also on the front page of the world’s leading newspapers. [Document text truncated for crawler view.]