Stockholm School of
Economics put it, “It is less an
inherent dislike for Kurds that
drives state repression of this
minority than the state’s fear
for the institutional
consequences and loss of
centralized power.”
once seen as a semi-plausible
candidate for the European
Union, yet the Kurdish parts of
Iraq—one of the most
dysfunctional and broken
countries on earth—were and
are doing much better than the
Kurdish region of Turkey.
Beginning in 1984, the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or
PKK—initially backed by the
Soviet Union—has waged an
on-again, off-again guerrilla
and terrorist war against the
Turkish state that has killed
more than 45,000 people,
according to government
figures. That’s almost as many
as Americans killed during the
Vietnam War.
From mid-2013 to mid-2015,
the Turkish state and the PKK
enjoyed a period of relative
calm under a cease-fire, but in
late July the army bombed
PKK positions in northern Iraq,
and the PKK in Turkey
declared the cease-fire void. A
wave of attacks against police
stations swept over the country
in August. An enduring peace
between the two sides now
seems as elusive as ever.
Most of the dead are Kurdish.
The Turkish military dished
out unspeakable punishment in
the east of the country. Nine
years ago, I drove from
Istanbul to northern Iraq and
was shocked to discover that
Iraqi Kurdistan is a vastly more
prosperous and pleasant place
than bombed-out and repressed
Turkish Kurdistan. Turkey was
The Turkish establishment has
been alarmed by the existence
of an autonomous Kurdish
region in Iraq since the day it
was founded and has
repeatedly threatened to invade
if it declares independence
from Baghdad. (That may be
the only reason the Iraqi Kurds
haven’t yet done it.) And it’s
JOY FEELINGS | DECEMBER ISSUE
176