When does a Kurdish villager go to Turkish courts to make a right claim against the Turkish state? How does compensation paid by the state become legitimate (blood money) or illegitimate (bloody money)? This paper examines extra-legal ethical repertoires through which legitimacy of making right claims against the Turkish state is constructed in Van, a predominantly Kurdish-populated province on the Turkish-Iranian border. Through an ethnographic research among Kurdish litigants, their Kurdish lawyers, and mostly non-Kurdish, appointed judges and prosecutors, the paper depicts a particular legal consciousness –namely, contending visions of law, crime, and justice– among ordinary people as well as legal experts. The paper examines two categories of compensation cases: cases to compensate for village evacuations and cases to compensate for killing of smugglers by border patrols. Cases in the first category refer to a particular law: The Law on Compensation for Damage Arising from Terror and Combating Terror (law no. 5233). These cases, therefore, proceed smoothly, and result in compensation awards. The law, however, mobilizes terrorism discourse that significantly restricts the legitimacy of such right claims among pro-Kurdish activists. The cases in the second category do not refer to a specific compensation law and the courts usually reject those claims. In fact, as the fieldwork shows, the judges and prosecutors, who are appointed for a two years term, tend to identify smuggling activities with ‘terrorism’ by referring to the state’s recent anti-terrorism campaign that depicts the PKK –the pro-Kurdish armed organization– as a terrorist and an international crime/smuggling syndicate. Yet, for pro-Kurdish activists, these cases are seen as opportunities to prosecute disproportionate state violence. Besides the pro-Kurdish activist circles and state officers, the paper documents how individual Kurdish litigants can mobilize various extra-legal ethical references, such as family/tribe affiliation, village solidarity, social class position, or religious attachment (instead of Kurdish nationalism) to justify making a right claim to compensate for village evacuation or being given a state post in place of going to the court to compensate for a killing on the border. In providing a nuanced depiction of legal consciousness in the region, the paper aims to surpass the pro-state versus pro-Kurdish dichotomy that prevails in the studies on the Kurdish Question in Turkey.

Why do ordinary people take extraordinary risks and join an armed rebellion? The paper seeks to understand why individuals risk their lives and join an armed rebellion when avenues for lower risk political activism are abundant. More specifically, I address the puzzle of why three generations of Kurdish youth have joined the insurgency despite significant changes in economic, social and political circumstances in Turkey in the last three decades. Arguments based on selective material inducements, forced recruitment, state repression, and preexisting social networks do not provide satisfactory explanations. I develop a theoretical synthesis linking micro-dynamics at individual level with macro-dynamics at society and polity. I offer three central arguments. First, the formation of a collective threat perception (i.e, the Kurdish people deprived of their sovereignty and facing an existential struggle) is central to the construction of identities conducive to high risk political action. Second, emotions of remorse, revenge, and solidarity with fallen friends and relatives strongly affect individual’s decisions to choose the path of mountains. Ironically, observing the death of militants (e.g., participating in funerals) generate emotions that overwhelm fear and passivity. Finally, increased opportunities for low risk political activism do not necessarily make the option of armed struggle obsolete. To the contrary, cultural frameworks that are cultivated in legal political settings glorify guerilla warfare. I conducted around 70 in-depth interviews with people who were either active in the Kurdish rebellion or had close relatives (e.g., son, daughter, brother, husband, etc.) who fought in the ranks throughout the fall of 2012. The interviews took place in many different locations including Batman, Dargeçit, Diyarbak?r, ?stanbul, K?z?ltepe, Kozluk, Lice, Midyat, Nusaybin, Yüksekova, Van. I reached these individuals through associations representing the families of deceased militants and my personal contacts. Interviews with these individuals help me construct paths to the insurgency. What were the primary motivations? Was the individual aware of the risks involved? Was the participation in the insurgency a “rational decision” given the threats to individual’s well-being? How did cognitive and emotional experiences affect rational calculations? Were there less-risky paths available? I also attended many events such as memorials and funerals of deceased militants. Besides, I combine ethnographic work with information from an original dataset. The Kurdish Insurgency Militants (KIM) dataset includes biographical information of around 7,500 militants who lost their lives between 1984 and 2011. This dataset allows me to identify broader historical and geographical patterns characterizing the insurgent recruitment.

Bringing Turkey's Kurdish issue in, this paper argues that cultural contestation is an essential dynamic of ethnic conflicts. The paper analyzes the role of two major components of culture, namely native language and religious identity, in Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Based on field interviews with a variety of Kurdish activists including members of Hizbullah and Koma Civaken Kurdistan, the author depicts how Kurdish Islamic activists and Kurdish leftists engage in a fierce competition to shape Kurdish public opinion on "authentic" Kurdish language as well as "authentic" Kurdish Islam. The contestation over Kurdish language, the "war of words," is increasingly taking center stage in the Kurdish conflict. The Turkish state’s recent official Kurdish TV channel, the Gülen movement’s Dünya TV, Kurdish Islamic activists’ numerous publications challenge the PKK’s long term monopoly over the Kurdish language. The article shows how these rival groups debate over authentic Kurdish since Islamic expressions are highly preferred by the Islamic activists whereas a secular tone is quite visible among Kurdish ethno-nationalists. Moreover, the debate over the language is crucial for all parties that are involved in Kurdish issue since it is directly tied with emerging Kurdish civic sphere in the past decade. These new cultural spheres include dengbêj (traditional Kurdish male singers) performances, newroz (Kurdish new year) celebrations, public commemorations of historical Kurdish figures, protest Friday prayers in city centers, fine art houses, youth reading centers, women’s fraternity clubs, and Kurdish language schools. Thus, the Kurdish language is at the center of the Kurdish identity politics. In the second part, the paper delves into recent contestations over “authentic” Kurdish Islam. Threatened by the pro-Islamic AKP’s electoral success in 2007, the Kurdish leftist ethno-nationalists have started to construct new public image that is peaceful with Islam. A few examples include the organization of Ramadan breaking-fast dinners by the BDP run municipalities, Kurdish imams’ public speeches in the political rallies, protest Friday prayers called as “Civil Friday,” the recitations of Mevlid, i.e. commemoration of the Prophet, in funeral ceremonies of the PKK fighters, and public recognition of women guerillas who wear headscarves. Moreover, the public symbolism of Kurdish Islam is in transformation among Kurdish Islamic activists. Hizbullah, for instance, has ever more developed an ethnic tone in its interpretation of Islam. Kurdish-Islam has become an emerging contested field in which various Kurdish movements mobilized their constituencies.

Numerous scholars ascribe the root causes of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey to the central government’s policies of forced and aggressive assimilation. As the conflict drags on with serious doubts over the efficacy of a military solution to the rise of Kurdish nationalism, some have pointed to Islam as a cure for ethno-nationalist grievances. This view has gained momentum with the rise of political Islam, long banned in Turkey by the staunchly secularist elite, and particularly with the ascendancy of the Justice and Development Party to power in 2002. The proponents, emphasizing the notion of Islamic brotherhood as the glue that holds numerous ethnic nationalities together, argue that political Islam can serve as an antidote to the rise of ethno-nationalist demands. This study examines this claim and argues that Islam’s role as a cure for these demands has been overstated. The data from in-depth interviews with the members of Kurdish Islamist communities in Turkey conducted in the summer of 2012 in Diyarbakir and Batman, two major towns in the Kurdish populated region, as well as Istanbul, the largest city in the country with a sizable Kurdish population, indicate a rather nuanced relationship between Islam and ethnic nationalism. Islam at best plays a secondary role in shaping nationalist claims and has primarily been used as an instrument in hands of the political leaders to re-frame and strengthen their position. Furthermore, rather than Islam serving as a cure for ethno-nationalism, the ethnic conflict transforms traditional Islam. In other words, similar to the Turkification of Islam in the hands of the Turkish political elite, the long standing Kurdish struggle for greater rights for the Kurds in Turkey has been able to shape the hearts and minds of the religious Kurds, thus leading to the Kurdification of Islam.