Turkey's Internal Conflict and the Kurdish Minority
Turkey's key internal conflict centers on the role of its large Kurdish minority, ethnically and linguistically distinct, in a state that constitutionally consists of Turks.
This issue has been with Turkey almost since the foundation of the Turkish State in 1923. The Kurds were promised the creation of an independent state as part of the treaty of Sevres in 1920 but this part of the treaty was never ratified and Turkey has refused to recognize the existence of a separate Kurdish ethnic community within its borders.
Even so, Half of Turkey's Kurds have moved from the south east to the western cities of Turkey and have increasingly become integrated into the Turkish economy. Fifteen million individuals of Kurdish origin presently live in the republic of Turkey and are striving to achieve legal recognition and to establish legal rights after having been subject to economic disadvantages and human right violations for decades.
A large number of Kurds have immigrated to Europe, where they engaged in nationalist activities such as the PKK. Since 1984, an unofficial war has raged between successive Turkish governments and the Kurdish worker's party (PKK), An armed group trying to gain autonomy for the country's 15 million Kurds. This war resulted in something between 20,000 and 30,000 deaths, with innocent villagers, being subject to interrogation, torture, indiscriminate violence and even death.
For better understanding the international conflicts and the behavior of states, David Singer introduced the idea of levels of analysis. He distinguished between two broad levels: the macro level that explains the events from an international and global perspective, and...
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...ation state consisting of Turks alone, a decision that could no longer be implemented. Therefore, the solution lies in the need to reformulate the very concept of the Turkish State as perceived by its citizens.
The Kurdish ethnic problem has a spectrum of potential solutions ranging from totally repressing all ethnic expression of Kurds to granting the Kurds total independence. Both of these are undesirable extremes with, with obviously a great range of choice in between. A realistic solution is one that satisfies Kurdish aspiration without truly threatening a modern democratic Turkey. This is a complex but quite achievable goal.
Bibliography:
Referencing:
Turkey's Kurdish question by Henry J. Barkey and graham E. Fuller
"Kurds," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 available at:
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000
The Young Turks, a group of young military officers who wanted to keep their country’s decline from continuing, wanted to improve general conditions for certain peoples in the Ottoman empire. Not only was anyone who was not Muslim treated as second class citizens, they were also required by law to pay more for their taxes than a muslim civilian. Realizing this, in the 1890s and early 1900s, an organization called The Young Turks arose, pressing for political reform calling for the right to vote, a constitutional government and and an end to discriminatory practices such as the aforementioned raised taxes. Eventually, The Young Turks staged a coup successfully in an attempt to change the rule to a constitutional monarchy . This, however, had some unforeseen consequences.
Political violence is action taken to achieve political goals that may include armed revolution, civil strife, terrorism, war or other such activities that could result in injury, loss of property or loss of life. Political violence often occurs as a result of groups or individuals believing that the current political systems or anti-democratic leadership, often being dictatorial in nature, will not respond to their political ambitions or demands, nor accept their political objectives or recognize their grievances. Formally organized groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses and collectives of individual citizens are non-state actors, that being that they are not locally, nationally or internationally recognized legitimate civilian or military authorities. The Cotonou Agreement of 2000 defines non-state actors as being those parties belonging to the private sector, economic and social partners and civil society in all its forms according to national characteristics. Historical observation shows that nation states with political institutions that are not capable of, or that are resistant to recognizing and addressing societies issues and grievances are more likely to see political violence manifest as a result of disparity amongst the population. This essay will examine why non-state political violence occurs including root and trigger causes by looking at the motivations that inspire groups and individuals to resort to non-conforming behaviors that manifest as occurrences of non-state political violence. Using terrorism and Islamic militancy on the one side, and human rights and basic freedoms on the other as examples, it will look at these two primary kinds of political violence that are most prevalent in the world ...
Islam has been a dominant force throughout Turkish history. During the Ottoman Empire, Islam ruled every part of the theocratic state, but after the demise of the empire, Turkey's rulers led the country away from political Islam. The modern Turkish state has a strictly secular government, and Islam has been relegated to the personal sphere. Although Turkey has experienced a rise in fundamentalism in the past twenty years, the separation of church and state has remained relatively intact. Even with this increase of fundamentalist Islam, the wide majority of Muslims in Turkey are moderate and tolerant. They have adapted to modern life and value Islam for its moral and spiritual messages. Islam is a guide for right living and ethical conduct rather than a political system. Turkey constantly struggles to balance Islamic life with a secular government. Although the government wants to maintain a strict separation between religion and politics, it cannot ignore the power and influence that Islam has in the lives of the Turkish people.
1 million and 5 hundred-thousand people were killed because of the Turkish government. Many of them were raped, enslaved and murdered. For instance, they drowned people in rivers, burned them alive, executed, etc. They also kidnapped children and sent them to Turkish families. In many places, Turkish people rapped and used Armenian women as slaves.
Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: "Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and the Armenian Genocide. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005. (Accessed March 20, 2014).
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.
...ic cleansing of a certain race, and there is no reason for wanting to create the perfect race. The Turkish government set out to do just that, they wanted a takeover to occur, they were aiming to wipe out a whole race, because of what? To have a mono-ethnic and mono-religious society? To become “perfect”, well it needs to be recognized by all, especially the Turks. The Turkish need to realize that they cannot put the blame on others, the killings were by their hands not any other group. It’s hard to admit something so far into someone’s past, and some have a hard time reminiscing those memories because they are ashamed of what they did to people just like them. What people of today’s society need to realize is that just because it’s hard to admit that their people did something so horrible, does not mean that it does not need to be acknowledged nor appointed to.
The chosen level of analysis and international relation theory to explain this event are the individual levels of analysis and realism. This level of analysis focuses on the individuals that make decisions, the impact of human nature, the behavior of individuals acting in an organization, and how personality and individual experiences impact foreign policy decisions.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Since March 2011, Syria had no longer experienced a situation called peace and harmony. Syrian’s daily life is filled with the events of killing, bombing and torturing of their brothers and sisters. This unresolved conflict began with a revolution to against the government for brook the promise to have betterment in political system (citation). However the government had responded by harsh action. Starting from this point, Syria had slide into Civil War. Based on the brief description about situation in Syria, I strongly believe that the best International Relation theory to describe this situation is constructivism. This is because the Civil War in Syria is socially constructed by some factors which will be discussed deeply in the next paragraph. In this essay, I will emphasize on the two factors that lead to Syria Civil War which are identity conflict in a state and the absence of shared norms of sovereignty; and provide a solution from constructivism perspective which is diplomacy negotiation and limitation to it.
The level of analysis discloses three different ways of understanding international relations. System-level analysis considers a "top-down" approach to studying world politics (Rourke, 2007, p. 91). It emphasises that international actors, countries, operate in a global social-political-economic-geographic environment and the explicit characteristics of the system outlines the mode of interaction among the actors. The State-level analysis stresses the national states and their domestic practices such as national interests, interest groups, government, and domestic economy as the key determinants of the state of world affairs (Mingst, 2008). The individual-level analysis examines human actors on the global stage.
Imagine waking up one day to the thundering of blows given at the door telling you to “open up or be shot down.” It is the Serb police, and they are telling you that you and your whole family had to leave your home immediately. This is how it went for many Albanian people during what some Serb extremists called “demographic genocide.” This was the beginning of what many would call the Kosovo War, and it lasted from March to June 1999. After NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, something strange happened. Now the people being victimized were the Serbs and anyone who was “friendly” to them. In this paper, I will speak about what happened before and after the war in Kosovo.
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
Whenever world politics is mentioned, the state that appears to be at the apex of affairs is the United States of America, although some will argue that it isn’t. It is paramount we know that the international system is shaped by certain defining events that has lead to some significant changes, particularly those connected with different chapters of violence. Certainly, the world wars of the twentieth century and the more recent war on terror must be included as defining moments. The warning of brute force on a potentially large scale also highlights the vigorousness of the cold war period, which dominated world politics within an interval of four decades. The practice of international relations (IR) was introduced out of a need to discuss the causes of war and the different conditions for calm in the wake of the first world war, and it is relevant we know that this has remained a crucial focus ever since. However, violence is not the only factor capable of causing interruption in the international system. Economic elements also have a remarkable impact. The great depression that happened in the 1920s, and the global financial crises of the contemporary period can be used as examples. Another concurrent problem concerns the environment, with the human climate being one among different number of important concerns for the continuing future of humankind and the planet in general.
The international system is an anarchical system which means that, unlike the states, there is no over ruling, governing body that enforces laws and regulations that all states must abide by. The International System in today’s society has become highly influential from a number of significant factors. Some of these factors that will be discussed are Power held by the state, major Wars that have been fought out in recent history and international organisations such as the U.N, NATO and the W.T.O. Each of these factors, have a great influence over the international system and as a result, the states abilities to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development”.