Fighting Ideologies, Concentric Roots: 'A Comprehensive Approach for Understanding Kurdish Ethnonationalist and Sunni/Salafi Radicalization in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia Regions of Turkey'

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Fighting Ideologies, Concentric Roots

A Comprehensive Approach for Understanding Kurdish

Ethnonationalist and Sunni/Salafi Radicalization in the Eastern

and the Southeastern Anatolia Regions of Turkey

Master Thesis

Kerem Övet – s2219565

Crisis and Security Management (MSc)

Word Count: 18.614

Supervisor: Prof. Tahir Abbas

Second Reader: Prof. Bart Schuurman

12.01.2020

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1. Introduction

1.1. Research Outline

In Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a leftist and staunchly secular ethnonationalist organization (White, 2015), and extreme Sunni/Salafi Islamist networks which have diametrically opposite ideologies to PKK (Çifçi, 2019; Parlar Dal, 2016), both try to get the youngsters involved in violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism. Until now, in the mainstream thought, these two radicalization practices have been suggested to be the opposite ends which are in conflict with each other, and thus mutually exclusive (Brewer&Hayes, 2016; Nicholson, 2007; Yavuz, 2001; Natali, 2005). However, this paper shows that it is time to open a room for a new paradigm allowing mutual interaction and give-and-takes between the ethnonationalist and the religious-based causes for radicalization.

This study focuses on the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey, with their unique circumstances as having both a predominantly Kurdish population, and the highest participation rates to PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah and ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) (Özdağ, 2016, July 1). Possessing long and permeable land borders with three turbulent countries, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and being extensively affected by the large-scale refugee inflows, the studied region has a distinct geopolitical importance, making it special in terms of radicalization practices (Özbey, 2018, January 10, p.2). In order to understand why these extremist groups with completely different ideologies can find extensive recruitment grounds in this particular region, it should be asked: To what extent does ideology (ethnonationalist vs. religious) and spatial/socio-political context play roles in the radicalization in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey?

The separatist ethnonationalist ideology of PKK originated from the dissolution of the Kurdish state by Iraq, Iran, Syria, and predominantly Turkey, where the largest Kurdish population lives. On the other hand, the radical Sunni/Salafi ideology of ISIS and Kurdish Hezbollah basically believe in forming an Islamic rule where the ethnic distinction will be abolished. While these two ideologies have found ground in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions, the conditions, underdevelopment, poverty, unemployment, high fertility rates, geographical disadvantages coupled with the ongoing military operations create further grievances paving the way to an ideal environment for radicalization. People in desperation see these organisations as a means of salvation and insubordination.

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By conducting semi-structured elite interviews, utilizing the secondary sources and analysing the narratives in the open-source published interviews with the group members, this explanatory research mentions all major pushing (grievances, anger, economic deprivation etc.) and pulling factors (ideology, material gains etc.) that drive people to join one of the three main organizations in the region, PKK (ethnonationalist), Kurdish Hezbollah (Sunni) and ISIS (Salafi). Although the ideology matters, the data indicates that, in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey, spatial/socio-political context plays the primary role in explaining both the ethnonationalist-inspired and Sunni/Salafi-inspired radicalization.

1.2. Why is it important?

This research is crucial for several reasons. First of all, it necessitates great courage to conduct research in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. Apart from the physical dangers in the field, a lot of academicians have been sued or jailed for making PKK propaganda whenever they stood against the Turkish national security discourse (Redden, 2019, July 1). In the eyes of the Turkish state, revealing the human rights violations, refuting the wrong policies or even demanding peace may be depicted to be the same as supporting terrorism. This attitude has created a large gap in the literature. Secondly, the problem has mostly been attributed to PKK and researched under a great bias. While the nationalist discourse has described the radicalization in the region as a process of deception (Bensaid, 2018, December 25), pro-PKK communities explained its roots only with Kurdish grievances against the Turkish state (Unal, 2014). As a result, neither a relatively objective work nor an inclusive research could have been conducted.

Western academia is also responsible for this deficiency. While dozens, maybe hundreds of researches have been done on the foreign fighters of Western origin that joined Islamic terror (Hegghammer, 2010; Malet, 2013, Klausen, 2015; Benmelech, 2018; Zuijdewijn&Bakker, 2014), number of studies on the radicalization of people in the predominantly Muslim countries is very limited (Yayla, 2019). The aim of this research is to fulfil this lacuna and become a pioneer in security studies by applying the existing radicalization frameworks in the literature to Turkey, by evaluating both camps, which have been thought to be mutually exclusive. Additionally, owing to the Western media and PKK propaganda during the war against ISIS, an artificial antilogy has been produced that presents Kurds, fighting against ISIS as an ethnic group, by overlooking the fact that Kurdish people are one of the main participants of ISIS and other extreme Sunni Islamist organizations in the region. Therefore,

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this study aims to change this wrong depiction, and to draw attention to the reasons which have made Kurds an easy target for radicalization.

Peter Neumann (2008) describes radicalization as “everything that happens before the bomb goes off”. To prevent this process, it is a must to understand the factors which trigger or constitute the motivations behind being a terrorist. This research, in this sense, may have a huge societal impact on the knowledge about the radicalization practices, and in the end, it may become a hand tool for those who are responsible for finding solutions to unending terror in Turkey and in its Middle Eastern neighbours.

The structure of this paper proceeds as follows:

In the second chapter, the ‘Body of Knowledge' and the ‘Theoretical Framework' of this study will be presented. The research will set the stage by giving basic information to the reader who has limited knowledge of the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. After conceptualization of the words that are attached to radicalization, the existing frameworks on the causes of radicalization will be studied.

In the third chapter, a clear methodological insight will be given about how this research will be carried out. Furthermore, the validity and the generalizability of the study will be evaluated. The fourth chapter will include the findings obtained during this research. The push and pull factors affecting people living in these regions of Turkey will be presented under five different subchapters: Identity, Geography, Economy, Youth, and Immigration. This chapter will refer to the interviews conducted during this research, and to narratives of PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah, and ISIS members retrieved from secondary sources.

In the fifth chapter, there will be reflections on the literature utilized in the second chapter. The paper will be ended with concluding remarks and suggestions for further research.

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2. Body of Knowledge

2.1. Setting the Stage

To familiarize the reader with the region, and to present the problem of radicalization in its socio-political context, this paper will set the stage by introducing an overview of the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey.

2.1.1. Demographic, Economic and Social Structure of the Region

The pushing factors that lead to youth radicalization in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia are better understood if some important demographic factors such as the GDP per capita, unemployment rates and literacy rate are tabulated and analysed. These two regions have the lowest GDP per capita, and the highest unemployment rate in Turkey both in general population and among young people (TUİK, 2018). Seventeen cities with the lowest literacy rates are in these two regions (TUİK, 2018).

Although five cities in these regions bear the highest infant mortality rates, surprisingly they also have the highest average number of children per household (TUİK, 2018). Fertility rates also support this statistic as ten highest fertility rate cities in Turkey belong to these regions. Moreover, four cities with the highest number of youngsters per household, and the lowest percentage of single households within total households in Turkey are all there (TUİK, 2018). Likewise, the region ranks first in Turkey in the early marriage rates, and the greatest

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age difference between couples of the first marriage with the three cities in the region leading (TUİK, 2018).

In terms of ethnicity, around 70% of the region is Kurdish and Kurdish Zazas (KONDA, 2006, p. 14). Apart from the Turks and Arabs which constitute the largest minority groups, there are also a small number of Assyrian and Armenian communities in the region (KONDA, 2006, p. 14). After the Syrian Civil War, the region now hosts approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees (Mülteciler, 2019). The official language is Turkish, but Kurdish, Zazaki and Arabic are widely spoken. 99% of the population in the region is considered to be Muslim; mostly Sunni (Shafi‘i and Hanafi) with Alevi1_{and Ja’fari minorities (KONDA, 2006, p. 23, 24).}

2.1.2. Politics in the Region

The Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey have been dominated by two mass political orientations bearing two rival ideologies in the elite level (Kaya&Whiting, 2019; Tezcür, 2010), but large transitivity in the electoral support (Çifçi, 2019). The first one is the Kurdish ethnonationalist movement currently represented by the secular left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and its fraternal party Kurdish Democratic Regions Party

1 _{The only city where Alevis are the majority in Turkey is Dersim in the Eastern Anatolian region (KONDA, 2010).}

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(DBP). The second mass political movement is the pro-Islamic, conservative movement represented today by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling party since 2002.

Apart from their dissimilarity in the left-right spectrum, different understandings of the Kurdish Issue are posed by these parties. President Erdoğan, the leader of AKP, depicts Kurdish ethnonationalists as un-Islamic, and thus illegitimate (Grigoriadis&Dilek, 2017). His configuration of the Kurdish identity deviates deeply from the HDP’s, and has strong Islamic connotations (Grigoriadis&Dilek, 2017). He emphasizes that “there is a single Muslim nation in Turkey” (Erdoğan, 2011, June 2), referring to the Islamic bond between Turks and Kurds. In this sense, according to Erdoğan, the supra-identity of the people living in Turkey is Islam, and the race and ethnicity is much less important. HDP, on the other hand, promotes the pure Kurdish Nationalism, and rejects a bond which is solely built on a Muslim brotherhood (Grigoriadis&Dilek, 2017). HDP accentuates being a Kurd as a person’s supra-identity, and they are conclusive in depicting AKP as a trap laid by the Turkish State to block the road that goes to the Kurdish rights and freedom (2012, Candansayar).

Especially after the end of the Peace Process between the Turkish state and PKK in 2015, and with the AKP’s new political orbiting under a coalition with ultra-Turkish nationalist far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the hostility between the two camps has risen, leading to military operations causing thousands of deaths, and resulting in discharging and jailing of HDP politicians (Cupolo, 2019, August 12). The expectations, after all, was the dissolution and disappearance of AKP in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions, but AKP managed to keep its place as the first or the second party in all of the predominantly Kurdish populated cities (Yeni Şafak Seçim, n.d.). Undoubtedly, the greatest surprise is the result in Şırnak, which has long been considered to be the ‘castle’ of the Kurdish Nationalist Movement. Şırnak voted for AKP with a 61,72% of all votes in the 2019 local elections (Sabah, n.d.).

In order to apprehend the political transitivity in the region, it should also be known that summons to locals of the religiously important people such as Sheikhs, Sayyids, Mullahs and Dedes have serious ramifications affecting the results of the election campaigns (Önkibar, 2019, May 19). On the other hand, for centuries the people in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey have been mobilized by tribal confederacies and family clans whose leaders are easily led to deception by both HDP and AKP with financial rewards or other supplies. Consequently, high electoral change can be observed in the region when a tribe massively decides to change its electoral decision (Batman’da 3 bin, 2019, March 10).

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2.1.3. Violence in the Region

The Kurdish Issue has caused terrible bloodshed in the region since the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the following foundation of the Turkish Republic. The Sheikh Said rebellion of 1925, both an Islamic and ethnonationalist Kurdish rebellion, aimed at reviving the Islamic caliphate and sultanate, was the greatest but only one of the dozens of rebellions that resulted in thousands of deaths (Çifçi, 2019, p. 62). PKK, which has embraced the Maoist strategy of the ‘People’s War’ with a Stalinist organizational structure, originated from the revolutionary left in Turkey in the late 1970s with an initial political aim of establishing an ‘Independent United Kurdish State’ that would be comprised of bordering territories from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria (Ünal, 2013). Since its foundation, PKK has caused approximately 20,000 fatalities, around 11,000 of whom were civilians and 9,000 of them security personnel (Ünal, 2012; Şener, n.d.).

On the other hand, Kurdish Hezbollah, which has no ties with the Lebanon based Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah, has mobilized Sunni Islamist and ethnic narratives to localize its bid, and realize an Islamic revolution in Turkey concurrently gaining the legitimacy of the Kurds living in Turkey (Çifçi, 2019, p.143-145). This narrative of Kurdish Islamist armed mobilization has been engaged in fights both against the Turkish state but particularly against the ethnonationalist camp and its armed mobilization, PKK (Çifçi, 2019, p. 146). Although it has been blamed by the Kurdish ethnonationalists to be actually a counter-guerrilla organization led by the Turkish State, it has succeeded to become the second dominant terrorist organization in the region after PKK.

The mobilization of ISIS in the region is relatively new compared to others. The report of Parliamentary Investigation Commission on ISIS in 2016 has shown that ISIS received the greatest nationwide participation from eastern and south-eastern Turkey (Özdağ, 2016, July 1). The report indicates that the south-eastern cities Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Bingöl and Muş have become the largest recruitment grounds of ISIS, and Adana and Gaziantep have been chosen as the assembly grounds by the organization (Özdağ, 2016, July 1). Moreover, the perpetrators of Suruç, Diyarbakır and Ankara Bombings of ISIS in Turkey resulting in 149 people killed and thousands wounded were terrorists who were organized in Adıyaman (Kasapoglu, 2015, October 22). Additionally, there have been 4 different ISIS bombing attacks in Gaziantep, all perpetrated by ISIS members organized in the region, whereby 66 people have lost their lives and hundreds were wounded (Yayla, 2019).

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Dozens of attacks against Turkish Security Forces have been accomplished in the region by several revolutionary leftist organizations such as DHKP/C, TKP-ML, MLKP, DEV-SOL, DHP and TDP (Şenbaş, 2018). TKP/ML, for example, is still active in the region, and carries out a guerrilla war against the Turkish state in compliance with PKK (Bulur, 2019, August, 28).

On the other hand, violence in the region is not only due to terrorism but it has a wide span. Mostly land subdivision problems lead to fights between the family clans with dreadful consequences of dozens dead and wounded (Urfa’da, 2019, June 15). The first blood shed marks the point of no return. Killings from both families continue leading to a ‘blood feud’ that will continue incessantly for generations. Additionally, there is the issue of honour killings prevalent in the region taking hundreds of lives every year, (Töre, 2006, August 11) which are murders ruthlessly performed whenever a girl is involved in a relationship her family disapproves of.

2.1.4. Extensions of Violence in the Region on Syria and Iraq

It should be underlined that the concern and focus of this study is not the phenomenon of foreign fighters which have been intensively studied by the academia especially after the outstanding participation to jihadist groups from Western countries. This part is just an intention of giving a clear presentation of the scope of the problem in Turkey by its extensions to Syria and Iraq.

Firstly, as it is mentioned above, the southeast of Turkey has become a great recruitment and logistical ground for ISIS during the Syrian Civil War. According to the report of Parliamentary Investigation Commission on ISIS in 2016, 5000 to 9000 Turkish citizens, mostly from eastern and south-eastern regions, have gone to Syria for fighting under the flanks of jihad (Özdağ, 2016, July 1).

Secondly, the YPG, as a Syrian branch of PKK, has direct contact with the Kurdish ethnonationalist camp in Turkey. “YPG is using the face of Abdullah Öcalan on their flags, uniforms, cars and checkpoints, and there is transitivity of weapons, equipment, fighters, training, intelligence and knowledge between these two groups” (Gürcan&Övet, 2018, p. 11). The exact number is still unclear, but it is estimated that more than 8500 people participated in YPG from Turkey (Kızılkoyun, 2015, June 25). Moreover, the Ankara and Bursa attacks by PKK in 2016 against the Turkish civilians have shown an operational connection to Kurdish

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majority cantons in northern Syria where the perpetrators received military training in YPG camps for eight months to two years (Gürcan, 2016, July).

Thirdly, the primary representation of Kurds in Syria is mostly attributed to Kurdish People's Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG), but the Salafist Kurdish Islamic Front in Syria and the Ansar-al Islam in Iraq which constitute Kurdish Jihadist camp have generally been overlooked. The fighters in Kurdish Islamic Front have the claim of defending the rights of Kurdish people in Syria, and they stress that the implementation of the Islamic Law (Sharia) is the only way of securing a fair solution to Kurdish cause (al-Kurdi, 2013, December 30). Their designation of ‘Kurdishness’ (Kurdayeti) as the primary theme, and their emphasis on the Kurdish identity, have brought dozens of conservative Kurds living in the region to fight under the flanks of these organizations.

2.2. Theoretical Framework

2.2.1 Conceptualization

Radicalization has become the new buzzword of the 21st Century (Maskaliūnaitė, 2015, p.9). While Peter Neumann (2008) famously defined it as “what goes on before the bomb goes off”, McCauley and Moskalenko’s definition “development of beliefs, feelings, and actions in support of any group or cause in a conflict” was more extensive and broader. (McCauley and Moskalenko, 2011, p.4). This research suggests the definition of Maskaliūnaitė (2015, p.9): “A process by which a person adopts belief systems which justify the use of violence to affect social change, and comes to actively support as well as employ violent means for political purposes” (Maskaliūnaitė, 2015, p.9).

Extremism, in this sense, is one of the terms attached to radicalization. According to Alex Schmid (2013, p.9), “extremists strive to create a homogeneous society based on rigid, dogmatic ideological tenets; they seek to make society conformist by suppressing all opposition and subjugating minorities”. In general, it can be regarded as “being against democratic norms, human rights, equality and tolerance” (Maskaliūnaitė, 2015, p. 13). In terms of their ideological reflections on society, all terrorist organizations consist of extremists who never hesitate to use violence as a means of reaching their goals, which is a process consistently observed in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia.

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Terrorism is another term mostly used in connection with radicalization. It has always been mentioned that one person's terrorist can also be another person’s freedom fighter (Bjørgo and Heradstveit, 1993; Gilbert, 1994; Best and Nocella, 2004). Only after 9/11, the EU Member States reached an agreement on the definition of terrorism and defined it in brief as “acts with the objective of destabilising the existing order, irrespective of what this order consisted of” (Hörnvist&Flyghed, 2012, p. 320). It was then that the European Union (EU) agreed on which organisations were terrorists, and which organisations were not. With respect to this study, both PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah and ISIS are considered to be terrorist organizations by the EU (EU Terrorist List, 2019, January).

According to Hörnvist and Flyghed (2012, p.320), this collective understanding on terrorism, together with the Madrid Train Bombings of March 2004 and London Bombings of July 2005 by home-grown jihadist terrorists, have bred the question: Where did terrorism come from? Whatever was meant by radicalization and terrorism it was obvious that the time had come to learn about root causes, or what it was that led to terrorism (Hörnvist&Flyghed, 2012, p. 319). Today, although it has grown its popularity with the “start of Syrian civil war and the influx of ‘foreign fighters’ with European passports into it” (Maskaliūnaitė, 2015, p.10), there is still no single agreed reason and mechanism of the radicalization process.

2.2.2 A Literature Review on Reasons of Radicalization

In the literature, to seek for an answer to the question ‘why’, scholars address various reasons at the individual, group and mass levels which can be influential on the targeted person concurrently through his/her process of radicalization. Firstly, a reason for radicalization can be the result of waves of anger and feelings of revenge due to prior harm or injustice done to self or loved ones (personal grievance), or it can likewise be the consequence of the exposition of the same to a larger group or cause that this person cares about (group grievance) (McCauley and Moskalenko, 2011). For instance, in PKK case, political exclusion of the Kurds, and killing, wounding, torturing or jailing of a person’s friend, relative or partner by the Turkish security forces have always been addressed as one of the primary reasons of an individual to radicalize, and join PKK. These grievances can also operate in group and mass levels. Tore Bjørgo and Horgan (2009, p. 39) suggest that “civil war or deep-rooted conflicts, invasion and occupation by foreign military forces, economic underdevelopment, bad governance and corruption” can all be causes for a nation, a group or a person to radicalize.

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Secondly, there are social ties and common values that link the individual to the majority of the society (Durkheim, 1933). According to the exclusion perspective, the radicalization can emerge when the individual becomes disengaged from these fundamental ties, and starts to create his/her own values, norms and behaviour patterns that are different and particularly in conflict with the rest of the society (Hörnvist&Flyghed, 2012, p. 323). After this point, the person loses his/her social connection to the other individuals and their ways of thinking, and starts creating more and more extremist thoughts (McCauley and Moskalenko, 2011). This social exclusion can happen in connection with a person’s grievances, but also as a result of factors such as socioeconomic status or psychological problems (Maskaliūnaitė, 2015, p.20).

The culturalist perspective, as a third approach, also refers to the links that connect the individual to the rest of the society, but with the distinction that, in this view, there are cultures which are in conflict with each other (e.g. Islamic culture vs Western values). The members of these cultures isolate themselves, and blame the other culture for having ‘alien values’. The radicalization then happens as “either a direct consequence of the individual’s cultural affiliation or a result of the individual being under the influence of two cultures simultaneously, and thus exposed to cross-cultural pressure” (Hörnvist&Flyghed, 2012, p. 323). Although this perspective mainly focuses on the immigrants from Islamic countries who have problems about integrating themselves into Western societies (Sageman, 2011; Hoffman 2008; Silber&Bhatt, 2007; Gartenstein-Ross&Grossman, 2009), it also has validity in the context of Turkey.

The national ban on speaking Kurdish, clothing reforms, the closure of Islamic lodges and taking all the mosques and Imams under the control of the state were all clear signs that the new Turkish Republic founded in 1923 would not allow Kurds and conservative communities to protect their ‘alien’ culture rooted in the Ottoman Empire, because this aforementioned way of life was totally against the Western norms and values of the new Turkish nation-state (Zürcher, 2017). For many, this was a milestone for the radicalization practices in Turkey. Although the conservative Erdoğan regime has resulted in a great cultural change after the 2000s by strengthening these excluded cultures, and pulling them to the very center of daily life, these moves just helped to increase the tension between the seculars and the conservatives depicting each other as ‘alien cultures’, and surged the participation to PKK rather than decreasing it (Aydın, 2013, July 23). Especially, for the latter, the nationalist angles have harshly criticized AKP because of opening a space for the Kurdish ethnonationalists to spread their ideology.

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The fourth factor would indisputably be ideology. “Despite the seemingly obvious connection between ideology and terrorism, the causal link remains unclear" (Hardy, 2018, 83). For example, it was found that two British men caught during their journey to ISIS were carrying the books ‘Islam for Dummies’ and ‘The Qur’an for Dummies’ (Cottee, 2017). However, as Neumann (2013, p. 880) claims terrorism cannot be explained without the ideology, because otherwise “none of the behaviours make any sense”. Many terrorist organisations appeal to people by adopting extremist ideologies that “demonize enemies and justify violence against them” (Hafez & Mullins, 2015, p. 961). When a person is trapped inside the ideology’s sphere of influence, it becomes a slippery slope for him which can progressively push the individual to more and more radical acts (McCauley&Moskalenko, 2011). Technology, today, plays a crucial role in the spread of radical ideologies. ISIS, for example, became enormously successful in recruiting fighters from all over the world by posting propaganda videos on social media, and using cross-platform messaging (Klausen, 2015; Greenberg, 2016; Speckhard, & Yayla, 2017).

The last and the fifth approach is the identity-building theory. This theory argues that “for young people in search for identity, ideologies might assist in identity formation and joining terrorist groups can act as a strong ‘identity stabilizer’, providing the young adult with a sense of belonging, worth and purpose” (Maskaliūnaitė, 2015, p.17). The psychological factors such as a lack of self-esteem and sense of identity, in this sense, might trigger the desire of the individual to join a cause, and hence feel valued by others (Hardy, 2018, p. 84). Krugulanski et al. (2014) define this as a ‘quest for significance’. Charismatic leaders, firebrand preachers, radical clerics or intellectual gurus can play a crucial role in the acceleration of this process (Hardy, 2018, 85).

The rational choice theory that links the process of radicalization to a series of rational choice decisions can also be evaluated as an extension of the identity-building theory. Individuals choose to follow a path in terrorism for being recognised, and to reach an emotional satisfaction, a social prestige, a sense of heroism or maybe a material gain which they would never be able to reach in their ordinary lives (Pisiou, 2012). This is a process of calculating the costs and benefits of joining a terrorist group, and in the end, the person is convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs.

Due to several reasons, this research supports the idea that the rational choice theory will be the best fit in explaining the radicalization practices in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. Firstly, if the politicisation of the region is analysed, it can be

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observed that there is a huge transitivity between the votes of political parties which seem to have completely different ideologies. This means that, even considering the electoral preferences, people do not act primarily upon fixed political ideologies and choices, but make a rational decision that may change according to the candidate, proposals or promises. Secondly, when we look at the participation in terrorist groups, we can see that almost all of the terrorist organizations with various ideologies have been successful in recruiting people from the region. When this information is combined with the demographics of the region (see chapter 2.1.1), it makes sense that a person, born into an underprivileged family with a lot of siblings, would choose a course in PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah or ISIS which may seem to offer more than that person's ordinary life and potential future present.

3. Research Design

3.1. Methodology

This research will reveal the ethnonationalist and Sunni/Salafi radicalization practices in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey, and the primary aim of this paper is to explain the fundamental reasons for its being a perfect recruitment ground for terrorist organizations by examining the pushing and pulling factors. The expected outcome is that the ideology will not be the main driver that leads people to radicalize but the spatial/socio-political context of the region will be the major factor that impels youth to build an identity, and drives them to make a rational choice about having a course of life in the terrorist organizations rather than complying with a pointless and probably impoverished future. In order to test this hypothesis, the research will focus on three major terrorist organizations in the region: PKK (ethnonationalist), Kurdish Hezbollah (Sunni) and ISIS (Salafi). Other terrorist organizations will be excluded from the process not only due to their limited scales, various fragmentations and difficulties in comparison but also because of the unavailability of data.

The primary aim of this research is to investigate the reasons of participation in terrorist organizations indigenous to this particular region, to find out whether this has any relation to the Kurdish identity or other factors such as geography and economy, and to reveal the connection between radicalization and spatial/socio-political context.

Secondly, to determine the facts about the radicalization practices in the region, this study will focus on the stories of militants from three particular organizations: Kurdish

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Hezbollah, ISIS and PKK. If a correlation is found, the reasons behind it will be explored, because if organizations with distinct ideologies are targeting the same people for recruitment, there must be a special feature of the region that eases the establishment of terrorism, and this issue must be addressed in the research.

This study is a qualitative research primarily built on 7 semi-structured elite interviews conducted in 2019 during November and December. Apart from the last one, all of these interviews were face-to-face interviews realized in Istanbul, Turkey. Only the last one was through Skype due to the interviewee's present location. The names of the interviewees are all pseudonyms, and will not be exposed because of ethical and security reasons.

In this sense, the first interview was conducted on 18th of November with Mert Görü, who served as commander of a commando regiment and Special Forces team in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions. After his service, he is a security studies scholar today with several books and publications. The second interview was conducted on the same day with Recep Çan, a cult journalist in Turkey who has researched Kurdish Hezbollah since the 1990s, and published several books on the Kurdish Issue and the Islamic sects and organizations in Turkey. The third interview was conducted on 21st November with Hasan Yollu, a professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at one of Turkey’s top universities. Yollu researched the roots of the Kurdish Issue between the years 2013 and 2015, but couldn't reveal the results of his research due to the political pressures after the end of the Peace Process between PKK and Turkish State. He also shared the results of his research during the interview. The fourth interview, which was on 26th November, was with Doğan Erol, a journalist and the writer of a book about ISIS networks in Turkey. Erol has conducted an extensive research on the organization, and has spoken with dozens of ISIS militants and their families.

The fifth interview was conducted with Müge Ugay on 29th November. Ugay is an ex-leftist guerrilla fighter from 1968 generation of Turkey, and she is now a writer and a film director shooting documentary movie in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions. The next interview, which was conducted on 2nd December, was with Aydın Yarmaz, an ex-PKK member who stayed in jail for 10 years, and became a writer afterwards. In terms of PKK studies, he is a crucial person because he has written several ground-breaking books on PKK’s use of child soldiers and intra-organizational killings. The last interview was with Gören Mehmet Tezcan on 11th December. He is the chair of the Kurdish Political Studies Program at

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a university in United States, and has numerous publications on the Kurdish Issue. Besides, this study also gives references to a meeting organized to share the results of a research aimed to find the reasons of ‘The Radicalization among the Kurdish Youth’ by the Rawest Research Company based in Diyarbakır, and the narratives of its top level employee, Reha Giren. As secondary sources, this study refers to books, articles and news written on the issue. Its major secondary sources are the books that contain interviews with group members and local people: ‘Hezbollah in Turkey’ (Kurt, 2015), ‘ISIS Networks’ (Eroğlu, 2018), ‘ISIS in Turkey’ (Saymaz, 2017), ‘Looking Behind the Mountain’ (Matur, 2011) and ‘It is Not as You Know’ (Akın & Danışman, 2011). Finally, by using these narratives, an answer will be found to the question: To what extent does ideology (ethnonationalist vs. religious) and spatial/socio-political context play roles in the radicalization in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey?

3.2. Validity and Generalizability

In terms of the validity of this study, it is well known that the topic is open to political bias especially while scrutinizing the reasons of the radicalization of PKK. Therefore, control groups had to be found while gathering data both from pro-military and pro-PKK angles. For example, ex-commander Mert Görü’s narrative is supported with empirical data, and with the narratives of PKK members or vice versa. The main problem with ISIS and Kurdish Hezbollah has been the difficulty of reaching data. The interviews conducted with Recep Çan and Doğan Erol, and the books written by İsmail Saymaz, Doğu Eroğlu and Mehmet Kurt constitute the primary building blocks of this research about ISIS and Kurdish Hezbollah, but this study lacks giving a clear empirical data about these organizations due to the non-existence of an analytical profiling study in the literature.

When it comes to the generalizability of this study, it is hard to say that it will set light to all regions in the world that contain both ethnonationalist and religious radicalization practices. However, in terms of Iraq and the continuing civil war in Syria, it will open a huge path for further studies especially about Sunni Islamist and ethnonationalist radicalization practices in the geography, and their symbiotic existence. A holistic approach examining the concentric roots of two major radicalization practices which have been suggested to be mutually exclusive will also be a milestone for the comparative case studies on radicalization in Turkey.

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4. Findings

First of all, the findings indicate that a clear-cut division between the push and pull factors, which have been effective during the radicalization process in the region, cannot be made. Apparently, a factor that pushes an individual to radicalize generally triggers a pulling factor for joining a terrorist organization. This may happen by coincidence, but may also be masterminded by the organization. Doğu Eroğlu’s studies about ISIS networks in Turkey are a direct demonstration of this, in the sense that ISIS cells were certainly aware that they could make use of local grievances to their benefit as pushing factors over the targeted community (Eroğlu, 2018, p. 11). For instance, a recruiter operating in a socioeconomically deprived neighbourhood emphasizes the economic benefits which may be achieved by participating in ISIS (ibid., p. 29), and consequently, the desire for a financial gain becomes a pulling factor (ibid.).

Secondly, with the data obtained in this research, it is impossible to create a typology for the people who have been radicalized in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. Every single case examined during this research was different from each other in a sense, confirming that there are numerous aspects of radicalization. Same factors may work for one individual but not for another one, and it can even be said that, even if all the factors are present, a recruiter is needed for radicalization to occur.

In light of these, what this study can offer is a holistic perspective which addresses the potential building blocks of the general pattern of radicalization in the region. These potential building blocks will be presented under five subchapters: Identity, Geography, Economy, Youth and Immigration. These chapters are all interlinked with each other, and they cannot be considered independently and singularly in explaining the overall radicalization pattern in the region. It will also be seen that the narratives created by the most powerful terrorist organizations in the region (PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah and ISIS) have been influenced by these building blocks. The only difference is in the interpretation and utilization.

4.1. Identity

It is seen while reviewing the literature on the Kurdish issue that it has been reduced by most of the scholars only to a PKK problem. If this is not because of the astonishing popularity of the Kurdish ethnonationalism in the last decade, this may have two reasons. The state may

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wish to conceal the Islamic Kurdish radicalization in order to limit the Kurdish Issue to a PKK Issue, an issue of a radical leftist organization, which has been depicted as an ‘infidel organization’ against the major ‘conservative’ values of Turkey. The pro-PKK angles, on the other hand, want to hide this issue, since the Islamic interpretation of Kurdishness creates a huge alternative against PKK’s and HDP’s secular ethnonationalist understanding of the Kurdish Issue. The conservative parties, especially AKP, realized that alternative ‘vein’, and benefited from it in their political discourse and during their election campaigns in the Kurdish dominated Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey (Somer&Liaras, 2010). Thus, to understand the Kurdish Issue and its potential reflections on the reasons of radicalization, a holistic perspective, which explains both the Islamic and pure ethnonationalist interpretations, should be adopted.

4.1.1 The Kurdish Issue with its Ethnic and Islamic Roots: Understanding PKK and Kurdish Hezbollah

The Ottoman Empire, constructed on religious, ethnic, and linguistic heterogeneity, was ruled by a system called the ‘millet’ (nation) system (Öztürk, 2014). Under this system, a person’s nationality was defining his membership to a religious community rather than an ethnic identity (ibid.). Islamic community, in this sense, was holding the majority and the power of governance (ibid.). However, due to its extensive lands, and its multinational and multireligious structure, the Ottoman Empire had adopted a decentralized model, in which different ethnicities and religions had semi-autonomous power structures (ibid.). As a member of the ruling Islamic community back then, Kurds were enjoying a semi-autonomous status (Kurdish Emirates) under the rule of their feudal lords and leaders (ibid.). Mainly, Islam constituted their supra-identity, and ethnicity was a less prominent determinant (ibid.).

However, in the 19th Century, this structure started to shatter with “the Ottoman state's efforts to extend its control throughout the empire for a more modernized and centralized state structure”, leading to unrest and several revolts among the Kurdish tribes (Bilgen, 2018, p.3). The primary reason behind this unrest was the “attack of the centre on the autonomy of the periphery”, removal of the Kurdish emirates and increasing demands, basically supply of soldiers and taxation, from the Kurdish regions (Yeğen, 1996, p. 219). After the First World War, while partitioning the Ottoman Empire, Allied powers wanted to benefit from this unrest, and with the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, they granted an autonomous region to Kurdish feudal

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lords (see Figure 3) (Bilgen, 2018, p.3). “However, this treaty was never implemented and led to the War of Independence in 1919 that would eventually establish the modern and unitary Turkish state in 1923. According to the Treaty of Lausanne – signed after the War of Independence in 1923 and which became the legal basis of Turkey’s international recognition as an independent state – only Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were granted special minority and cultural rights as non-Muslims”, but the Kurds, divided across four countries, namely Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, were left apart (ibid.).

Additionally, the founding fathers of the Republic were coming from the Turkish nationalistic movement which played the biggest role in the Ottoman modernization and the Independence War (ibid.). Their perspective on the nation-building and modernization was based on ‘Turkishness’ as a supra-identity covering all the ethnicities, religions and languages on the lands of Turkey, and secularism. These two were the fundamental notions that were met with a backlash from the Kurdish communities (ibid.). Especially, with the abolishment of the Caliphate which was the only ideological tie left between Kurds and Turks, 18 different revolts occurred in the Kurdish dominated Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey against the Kemalist regime of the Republic of Turkey from 1924 to 1938 (ibid.). All of “these revolts were brutally suppressed, and the expression of Kurdish identity was heavily restricted afterwards” (ibid.).

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Between these revolts, Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925, led by a Sunni religious leader called Sheikh Said, has significant importance in explaining the dual-construction (Sunni and ethnonationalist) of the Kurdish identity. “The Sheikh Said rebellion has shown many years ago something that some observers have associated only with Iran in recent times - the possibility of a symbiotic relationship between nationalism and religion. It has demonstrated that nationalism in its seemingly modern western sense (shared language, cultural forms, history, contiguous territory etc.) and religion, in this case Sunni Islam, were by no means incompatible, at least at the level of political policy and struggle. In ‘Kurdistan’, the nationalist ideas found their way into the tarikats (religious sect) and tekiyyes (dervish lodges) where the sheikhs became their ardent supporters” (Yeğen, 1996, p. 220).

Almost six decades later, Kurdish Hezbollah, have used the same ground, and by promising to go from the way of Sheikh Said, built its primary narrative against the Turkish modernization. In reference to the culturalist perspective, Hezbollah isolates itself from the Turkish culture, and blames it for having ‘alien values’. It alleges that the Republic of Turkey is a tağut (non-Islamic) state. Considering Islam as its supra-identity, it blends Kurdishness with the ideal of a Sunni Islamic revolution. The ultimate goal of Hezbollah, and also its solution to the Kurdish Issue, is “to overthrow the constitutional secular regime of Turkey in order to introduce a strict Islamic state”, in which the ethnicities would have no priority (Özeren, 2006, p. 82). At this point, it should be underlined that the ideological grounds of Hezbollah, its Islamic interpretation, and proposed solution to the Kurdish Issue is much older and fundamental than PKK’s.

PKK, on the other hand, emerged from the Turkish left in the 1970s, and created its own Marxist-Leninist model of modernization against the rules and values impelled by the Turkish modernization and nation-building, and combined it with the Kurdish ethnonationalism. In this sense, PKK labelled the Republic of Turkey as a colonialist, occupying state in Kurdistan, and declared its primary goal to be “establishing an independent and unified Kurdistan carved out of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey through a radical revolution and the use of violence” (Bilgen, 2018, p. 3). In contrast to the fact that the ideology of PKK was much newer and ‘synthetic’ for the region than the Islamic interpretation of the Kurdish Issue, it has found extensive ground, and became successful in recruitment.

While both of these camps, Hezbollah and PKK, define themselves as ‘Kurdistani’, and although they see the Turkish modernization and the Republic of Turkey as their common enemy, they have engaged in a war since the 1980s for an ideological dominance in the region,

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resulting in at least 600 fatalities (Kurt, 2015, p. 238, 255). Hezbollah calls PKK as Partiya Kafiren Kurdistan (Kurdistan Infidels Party), and PKK blames Hezbollah to be a counter-guerrilla organization managed by the Turkish state, naming them as Hizbulkontra (ibid., p. 85). After the 2000s, to change these perceptions, Hezbollah started to concentrate more on the Kurdish rights, while PKK began its ‘Islamic opening’ by approaching the sheikhs and mollas in the region and trying to get closer to the Islamic communities (ibid., p. 236).

4.1.1. Socialization and Grievances

According to the scholar Hasan Yollu, these two paths of Kurdish radicalization cannot be understood without referring to historical roots of this issue. He goes further, and argues that these revolts in the 19th and 20th Centuries may have created ‘festering sores’ and started a path-dependency in the region that continues even today:

“It doesn't matter if it is Islamist or Communist… If a culture of protest was formed… I mean going to the mountains, using force, resisting… And if some people have been killed, tortured or jailed for that… The new-born people find themselves inside this culture and socialize themselves with this culture. I mean none of the Turks grows in an environment where the biggest plan of people is taking a weapon and going to the mountains! You can never find this socialization in İzmir or Aydın, but you can find it in Diyarbakır. The important thing is the environment that you are born in, what you see when you first open your eyes, in which street you socialize, what your family tells you as their memories… As I understand, the problem of the Kurds is the environment they socialize. Since the Sheikh Said…”

Rewan, a PKK member, refers to that path-dependency:

“There is also the effect of my family’s history on my understanding of Kurdishness. The rebellion history is powerful on my family’s background. As the Cibran Tribe, my family played a huge role during the Sheikh Said Rebellion (Matur, 2011, p. 44).”

The same narrative can be found in Hezbollah’s printed material. The statement below is from the ‘39. Koğuş’ (2007), one of Hezbollah’s propaganda books. It refers mainly to the times of Kemalist regime, and establishes social ties with today:

“Since the beginning of this system, it is a structure constructed against Islam. They killed our scholars, mollas and sheikhs. This system banned the Quran, turned our mosques into military posts and horse shelters. They are the ones who slaughtered Sheikh Said and his

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friends. Again, they are the ones who banned everything related to Islam. Today, we are here to show that they couldn’t succeed. Today, we are here to defend Islam!” (Tutar, 2007, p. 41).

Of course, the continuation of this path-dependency for decades since the first revolts did not occur incidentally. Radicalization may be due to a wave of anger or a pursuit for revenge (McCauley and Moskalenko, 2011), but it may also be triggered when an individual or group excludes itself from the rest of the society which is called the exclusion perspective. (Hörnvist&Flyghed, 2012, p. 323). There is a huge literature on the human rights violations, legal/political restrictions, and exclusions against the Kurds which have constructed the building blocks of this unending problem in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions. Although the Kurds are the second largest ethnic group (today between 20-25 million) in Turkey after Turks, their language, publishing, music, political parties, folklore and even names were restricted for years (Alataş, 2010). Their identity was denied, and they were relegated to the status of ‘mountain Turks’ (ibid.). They have undergone an extensive assimilation campaign, and the Kurdish names of people, associations, towns and villages were all changed to Turkish (ibid.). A PKK member, Şevin tells her own experience:

“They were not writing our real names on the ID Cards. However, even my family never knew my name on the ID. My mother was calling me Şevin, but I had a different name at school. My mother was telling me: ‘We are the Kurds and we live in this country, but they don’t let us use our names.’ I made my name Şevin. The state gave me another name that I even don’t remember” (Matur, 2011, p. 97).

“In this regard, the ethnic exclusion did not only fuel widespread grievances among members of the [Kurds], but also contributed to the mobilization capacities of this minority” (Tezcür & Gürses, 2017, p. 226). Therefore, the appearance of PKK and Kurdish Hezbollah, and their success in recruitment cannot be fully comprehended without this high mobilization capacity among the Kurds. For instance, Rıza, a PKK member tells that he was ready to be recruited by any organization with a Kurdish rights protection promise:

“I went to the mountains because the Kurds were being crushed! If it wasn’t PKK but another organization, I would still join them. I didn’t even know the name of Abdullah Öcalan. I learned it after I joined the organization. My only concern was the rights of the Kurds” (Matur, 2011, p. 83).

Additionally, starting with the coup in 1980 and continuing with the operations against PKK, executions, tortures, forced displacements, arbitrary arrests, and murdering of Kurdish

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journalists, activists and politicians became common practice in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions. These applications did not solve the problem but further marginalized the Kurdish communities, and paved the way for radicalization. Şevin, for instance, names those events as the major factor that pushed her towards PKK:

“I was 13 when my village was burned down by the army. The soldiers came at 5.00 am and took all of us out of the village. They stripped all the men naked and started to torture them. My uncle’s son had a Quran in his hand. The soldiers even took that and threw to fire” (Matur, 2011, p. 99).

A soldier, who didn't want to give his name, tells these events from his perspective:

"It was a religious holiday eve. People had cleaned their houses and they were ready for the festivities. We entered their houses to search. None of us cared about taking our shoes off. When you get in a house for a search you go to their bedroom, you look at their drawers, you don't care about their private life. When we were getting out of the house, a woman was saying something in Kurdish. There were people who know Kurdish among us. I asked them what she was saying. They told me that she had been swearing. She was right…” (Mater, 1998, p. 52).

Yusuf, a Hezbollah member tells about his prison experience in those days:

“I faced a lot of human rights violations. I was tortured. I cannot even describe the tortures inside prisons. It was terrible” (Kurt, 2015, p. 100).

Looking at the overall picture today after this sad past, especially after the end of the Peace Process in 2015, it is seen that the Turkish state took control of the HDP municipalities suspending their democratically elected co-mayors under suspicion of terrorism offences and jailed a lot of HDP deputies with terrorism charges. Reha Giren, who is a top-level employee in the Rawest Research Company based in Diyarbakır, says that “The Kurds are losing their belief in democratic representation” and adds “This might further increase the radicalization in the region”.

4.1.2. Education

Kurds, today, can speak their mother tongue, but still, the use of languages other than Turkish in education is prohibited. “Article 3 of the constitution declares Turkish to be the

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official language, while Article 42.9 goes further by stating that, ‘Apart from Turkish, no other language shall be studied by or taught to Turkish citizens as a mother tongue in any language, teaching, or learning institution’. Efforts to teach Turkish in rural areas where ethnic Kurds predominate have had mixed results” (Human Rights Watch, n.d.). A considerable number of Kurdish children do not know even a single word of Turkish before starting primary school (ibid.). Moreover, teachers appointed to the region from non-Kurdish counties also don't know a single word of Kurdish, turning the education into a real catastrophe for both sides and creating grievances (ibid.).

Bezvan, whose father joined PKK, shares his own experience:

“I didn't know Turkish before primary school. Because we were talking Kurdish at home and on the street… Most of the Kurdish people learn Turkish at school. When I first heard Turkish, I was surprised and emulated. Because the ones that can speak Turkish was seen superior. The teacher was asking something, and I wasn't able to answer. The teacher was getting mad. Then I told to myself: 'Kurdish is a problematic language, but Turkish is not. I must learn Turkish'” (Akın & Danışman, 2011, p. 157, 158).

For Piran, the primary school was her worst times due to the language problem. She explains that:

“I never spoke during primary school. Because I didn't know the language, I was getting bored. Teachers were always slapping me because I didn't know Turkish. I was despised by children who knew Turkish. My teacher never cared about me. I tried to talk once, but I only knew Kurdish. I was beaten really hard because I spoke Kurdish.” (ibid., p. 284).

Both the ethnonationalist and the Islamic camps in the region disapprove of the Turkish education system and its materials. PKK, in this sense, is responsible for dozens of teacher assassinations, and urges the Kurdish people not to attend the lectures (ibid.). When these facts are combined with the economic deprivation and the geographical conditions of the region, it is easier to understand why the region ranks very high in illiteracy rates in Turkey by containing the first seventeen cities that have the lowest literacy rates in the country (TUİK, 2018). This problem has also a reflection on radicalization practices. A study conducted by analysing profiles of 2312 PKK members shows that the “vast majority of organizational members (72%) received an education equivalent to or lower than primary school” (Özeren et al., 2014, p. 328). The same can be observed with Kurdish Hezbollah: “A quarter of them do not have any kind

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of education, and about a third of the members only have an elementary-school-level education” (Özeren & Voorde, 2006, p. 80).

4.1.3. Tribalism and Kinship Ties

For centuries, the Kurds have been organized as tribal confederations, and still, kinship ties and tribalism are the building blocks of the society (Turcan, 2009). Inside these tribes, there is a collective mentality where the selfish individual interests would not be appreciated (ibid.). For instance, if a tribe gets into a dispute with another tribe, it is expected from the male members of the tribe to be ready to give their lives for the sake and name of their common good, in this sense the tribe (ibid.). This is a lifetime commitment (ibid.). When referring to the unending terror in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions, it should be mentioned that this sense of commitment has a huge role in explaining the radicalization practices.

During the interview conducted with Aydın Yarmaz, an ex-PKK member, he defined PKK as the ‘Blood brother of the Kurds’. In the mentality of tribalism, if someone sheds the blood of a tribe member, then the reaction of the tribe would be taking revenge (ibid.). According to Aydın Yarmaz, PKK has become brothers with all Kurdish tribes in the region

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because at least a person died from every tribe during the war of PKK against the Turkish state and has thus paid the price for the common good, in this sense Kurdistan.

However, besides the sociological tie that the Kurds may build with an organization, it is a fact that the terrorist organizations in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions have considerably benefited from these kinship ties. According to Wiktorowicz (2005, p. 7– 11), “friends or others with kinship ties can accelerate the process of radicalization by providing guidance, fostering movements, and providing credibility to the newly learned ideology or message”. It is also seen in these regions that the individuals whose relatives have already joined an organization, are more inclined to join it themselves (Özeren et al., 2014, p. 334). A PKK member who didn’t give his name explains his pathway to PKK:

“My brother had great influence upon me joining PKK. It was around 1988–1989, and he had socialist views, and influenced me greatly. My mother used to always mention [and show an example of] Fethi Sancar as he was the first guerrilla to join PKK from their village and kept wondering how he was. She kept teaching us the struggle of the Kurdish people in the mountains, and their fights to establish a state called Kurdistan. As my mother taught us the struggle, my curiosity and interest to PKK increased day by day, resulting in me joining PKK” (Aytekin, 2019, p. 71).

Manis has a similar story:

“Two of my brothers joined PKK. Especially after my second brother left, I started to feel alone. When two of my brothers left, I started to think that this is the way how it should be” (Akın & Danışman, 2011, p. 267).

ISIS networks, on the other hand, even built their major recruitment strategy in the region on the kinship ties (Eroğlu, 2018). When combined with the notion of ‘hegira’ (immigration to the lands of Caliphate), ISIS has succeeded in pulling families to Syria (ibid.). They knew if they could convince a person from a family, the others would also join (ibid.). There are dozens of examples in the case of ISIS (ibid.), but the worst one is the two brothers from the Adıyaman network, Yusuf Alagöz and Yunus Emre Alagöz, who are responsible for two suicide bombing attacks in 2015. While the first attack conducted by Yusuf Alagöz killed 33 people in Suruç/Şanlıurfa, the second one exploded by his brother killed 109 people in Ankara, making it the bloodiest terrorist act in Turkey's history (140journos, 2017, May 5).

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Kurdish Hezbollah has also built its main recruitment mechanism on the kinship ties. In the Kurdish tradition, weddings have a special place, and they are organised with the participation of hundreds of people from the tribes of the bride and the groom. Hezbollah organizes grand weddings, called Hezbollah Weddings, if a group member gets married (Kurt, 2015, p. 47). These weddings create a perfect environment for making propaganda and power play, turning the wedding into an organizational meeting. According to a Hezbollah member, Mahmut, even the name of Kurdish Hezbollah was founded during one of these weddings when people were dancing and shouting randomly as “İnşallah, Maşallah, Hizbullah”, later labelling the group’s name as Hezbollah, which means the Party of God in Arabic (Kurt, 2015, p. 46).

4.1.4. ISIS as a New Actor in the Kurdish Issue: The Hijacker and the Flamer

Before the Syrian Civil War, there was a fixed status among the ethnonationalist and the Islamist camps. After the murder of Kurdish Hezbollah's leader, Hüseyin Velioğlu, in a police operation in Istanbul in 2000, the armed wing of Hezbollah moved underground and disintegrated. Therefore, since the beginning of the 2000s, an unnamed peace has taken place between PKK and Kurdish Hezbollah. As a matter of fact, Kurdish Hezbollah, causing controversy among its supporters, decided to enter the democratic politics in 2012, and established a party called Hür Dava Partisi / Hüdapar (Free Cause Party), in opposition to pro-PKK HDP and President Erdoğan’s AKP, which are the leading parties in the region. Increasing support to HDP from the other regions of Turkey, and the start of the Peace Process in 2013 between PKK and the Turkish State had been understood as a way out from the 40-year-old violence in the region. When ISIS defeated the Iraqi Army and took control of Mosul in 2014, people on the other side of the border in Turkey, were still not aware that this organization would bring an end to all these efforts.

As a result of its territorial gains and after declaring itself to be a worldwide caliphate, ISIS captured the attention of radical Sunni/Salafi Islamists all around the world, turning the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions both into a pathway to reach jihad behind the border and a logistical base. The government in Turkey, those days, didn't/couldn't fight effectively against the growth of ISIS in Syria, and the networks that it developed in Turkey. Having found the opportunity and the ground for propaganda, ISIS began to extend its networks in Turkey. However, most of these networks have suffered from being hierarchical, and stayed as regional groups, utilising the local grievances (Eroğlu, 2018). Therefore, contrary to the

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popular belief, ISIS has never taken a side against the Kurds. The side they took was against PKK. As a matter of fact, ISIS recruiters were completely aware that they could benefit from the Kurdish grievances and the opposition against the secular and nationalist Turkish modernization (ibid.).

Therefore, what ISIS primarily did was hijacking the narrative of Hezbollah2, engaged in democratic politics then on, getting closer with its followers (mostly the ones who were against the democratization politics), and taking the already radicalized masses to its Salafi chamber. This operational tactic of ISIS combined with the enflaming war between ISIS and YPG in Syria significantly blurred the settled structure in the region, and made the side of the Islamist masses completely vague. Under this ‘explosive atmosphere’, in autumn 2014, the Kurdish ethnonationalist camp decided to organize protests against the Turkish State, demanding allowance for YPG fighters to pass the border and go to Kobane in order to fight against ISIS advance targeting the town. These protests, after several provocations, turned into street fights between the ethnonationalist camp and the Sunni/Salafi camp with the involvement of the urban, militant youth wing of PKK (YDG-H), and the armed wing of Hezbollah which went underground years ago. These events left 46 deaths in total from both sides, and created a perfect ground for the recruitment of ISIS, which will be explained in the following paragraphs. Before the 2014 Kobane Events, although Hezbollah and PKK had different ideologies and interpretations of the Kurdish Issue, there were tribes, villages, relatives and even families divided into both sides, and living together. For instance, Amed, born in Batman, where Hezbollah was founded, tells about his high school years and the situation between the sympathizers of both camps even during the 1990s, the most violent times of the Hezbollah-PKK clashes:

“We had friends from both camps. They were having discussions in the class. Sometimes, they were even fighting. But they were living together. They had different opinions, but in a sense, similar roots. For example, my father was an intellectual person who was engaged in leftist union activities. He was always reading a book at home. But, on the other hand, he was praying 5 times a day. I was also praying. Every single person in my family was going to the mosque” (Akın & Danışman, 2011, p. 32, 33).

2_{The exact same interpretations with Hezbollah about the Kurdish Issue can be found in}

ISIS-affiliated Tevhid: e.g. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JluCtu4X4Vg&t=518s [In Turkish ]

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However, after the Kobane Events, this structure totally shattered, and especially the fear and the cleavage it created became one of the major pushing factors of radicalization, especially for ISIS. For instance, Orhan Gönder, who then bombed the Diyarbakır meeting of HDP, decided to pass to Syria after the Kobane Events. His brother explains that:

“At the night of the Kobane Events, I learned that he told his sister that he was afraid. He was thinking that the youth of HDP would target us because we were not from them. He told us: ‘I can’t stay here, I should go to the other side (Syria). If I stay here, they will kill all of us.’ He told that he was taking threats from PKK” (Eroğlu, p. 149).

When the effects of the Kobane Events on the masses was asked to Recep Çan, he says that it created an enormous cleavage between the Kurds:

“Before those days, there was still a chance of living together. I mean, for example, you were able to see the flag of Hezbollah and PKK in the same Kurdish neighbourhood. Today, it is impossible! These people cannot live together anymore.”

4.2. Geography

The radicalization pattern inside the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey cannot be understood without mentioning how the location and landscapes have affected the people’s lives and radicalization practices inside the territory.

First of all, the studied region is the farthermost area relative to Istanbul, formerly the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire, which has ruled the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia regions for more than 400 years. As a result of being in the periphery, distant from the central authority, the region remained remote from the commercial and industrial networks of Istanbul and its surrounding Marmara region, constituting 47% of the overall GDP of Turkey today (TUİK, 2019). On the other hand, the mountainous terrain made it a difficult place for the central authority to reach and provide services, leaving the region secluded, marginalized and deprived of economic, scientific and technological benefits; this is especially true for Eastern Anatolia (Bilgen, 2018, p. 1). Even after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, these problems could not be totally overcome. In the interview conducted with Mert Görü, who served as a commando regiment and Special Forces team commander in the region, he explains this issue in relation to radicalization:

Fighting Ideologies, Concentric Roots: 'A Comprehensive Approach for Understanding Kurdish Ethnonationalist and Sunni/Salafi Radicalization in the Eastern and the Southeastern Anatolia Regions of Turkey'