The Zaza Kurds of Turkey
A Middle Eastern Minority in a Globalised Society
Mehmed S. Kaya
I.B. Tauris
Although the world is contracting and becoming smaller as we acquire insight into an ever-increasing number of cultures, there are still many peoples with their own cultures, lifestyles and social organizations that are totally unknown to many of us. We do not know how social life in other societies manifests itself under completely different circumstances than the ones we are accustomed to. We still know little about other peoples' living conditions, beliefs and traditions. We know little about what and how they think, what their perception of reality is, how they organize their lives, how they perceive themselves and others, how they view their and others' actions, how they view the world, what their social manners are, how the family is organized, how kinship relations function, how they justify their actions, what in life is important for them and so forth.
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Mehmed S. Kaya received his Dr. polit. degree in sociology and social anthropology from the Norwegian University of Scientific and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. He is professor at Lillehammer University College. He founded the Norwegian Journal of Migration Research and was its editor-in-chief during the period 2000-5. Kaya has published Muslim Immigrants' Adaptations to Norwegian Society (Dr. polit. dissertation) and a series of articles in scientific journals.
Contents
Illustrations / vii
Important episodes in the history of the Zaza / ix
Preface / xi
1 Introduction / 1
2 Kinship / 12
3 A tribal society / 29
4 A patriarchal society / 42
5 A society with its own authorities / 54
6 Reciprocity among the Zaza population / 81
7 The economic system of the Zaza society / 96
8 Turkey, a nationalist state in conflict / 111
9 Culture and identity / 146
10 Gender relations, family and division of labour / 171
11 Religion, collectivism and individualism / 190
Notes / 208
References / 212
Index / 216
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Areas where Zaza-speaking Kurds live / 5
1.2 The Sherevdin landscape, with a flock of sheep in the middle / 6
3.1 The origin of the tribe, lineage structure and the partition into levels / 33
3.2 The relation between tribal units and unit leaders at different levels / 33
5.1 Important centres of propagation of the Nakshibendi Order / 60
5.2 Types of authorities or institutions in Zaza society / 75
7.1 Summer camp of white and black tents in the Sherevdin landscape / 98
7.2 A hardworking farmer in Meneshkut / 99
8.1 A mountain top vis-a-vis the Kurdish city of Hakkari / 121
10.1 A woman ready to milk the sheep / 185
10.2 A woman preparing milk products / 186
11.1 Ulu Cami in Bingol / 193
Table
2.1 An overview of various rights, obligations and opportunities connected with kinship categories / 22
PREFACE
This book is an ethnographic study of Zaza-speaking Kurds in Turkey, a people almost completely unknown to the international community.
In the 1980s, while I was working on my master's degree, which dealt with the Kurds' adaptation to Norway, I discovered that the Zaza minority was virtually invisible in the world literature. Since then I have followed this unknown people closely. However, because of the unstable political situation in Turkey, it would be some years after I learned of this minority before I could start the present work.
When I finally started this project in 2001, I searched through the common catalogue system of the Norwegian libraries (BIBSYS) for literature on the Zaza people. To my great disappointment, I did not find any titles on Zaza Kurds, with the exception of a few linguistic works and even now in 2006, neither Norwegian nor international literature on this subject exists. In the Kurdish literature, the Zaza are treated as a subtopic. This study is therefore concerned with a people who have been almost entirely neglected in the academic literature.
The task of documenting and revealing little-known societies and preserving their memories usually falls to anthropologists. After all, mapping the cultural variation in the world has been a clear goal for social anthropology. But it seems as if the anthropologists themselves have been hiding from this little-known people. There are still blank areas on the map of Western Asia. There are large areas hardly visited by researchers and these areas have been investigated systematically to an even lesser degree. I felt that something should be done about this situation. This said, it must also be added for fairness that since the 1920s the Turkish authorities have effectively prevented research projects concerning the Kurds. The Kurdish question in Turkey is an extremely sensitive one that is still met with discrimination in Turkish society. During my third field work in 2003, I witnessed four researchers, two from Hungary, one from France and one from Belgium, being expelled from the Solhan region, a Zaza area in Eastern Turkey. They wanted to make zoological investigations around Solhan, but were refused by the local Turkish authorities, who expressed the opinion that they could make the same investigations elsewhere in Western Turkey, an area in which the researchers were not interested.
This book is an original work incorporating important empirical data on a little-studied people. The book is topical in several respects: with relation to the current focus on the Middle East question, ethnicity, minorities, the multicultural society and both European and global political development. The subject is a part of the larger minority research that is taking place the world over. It is important to make clear that societies in the Middle East also include large number of minorities within their boundaries. In this book I compare the Zaza minority's situation in the wider context of similar minority groups in the world.
Since the Zaza society has not been the subject of previous research, I had to make certain decisions with respect to which topics should be emphasized. With a holistic perspective (to understand the totality rather than the individual parts in a society) as a starting point I decided to focus on certain central topics, for instance, the Zaza people's own traditional institutions such as patriarchy, sheikhdom, tribal relations, religion, kinship, reciprocity, culture and identity, the relation between the genders, marriage and the economic system, and their relation to the national state and its policies. In other words, the book consists of a series of insights into the Zaza society. Yet this does not mean that the parts are underestimated. They derive their significance from the totality that they constitute in the same way as, for example, when a Zaza patriarchal practice acquires its meaning through a feudal and sheikhal tradition. The topics often overlap. They are interconnected and the dividing lines between them are analytical. Therefore, the chapters are organized in such a fashion as to illuminate each other, and they are put in a wider social context.
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Kenan Atas who translated the manuscript from Norwegian to English.
Mehmed S. Kaya
Norway
Important episodes 1n the history of the Zaza
c.600-700 BC / Zaza Kurds converted to Zoroastrianism.
641 / Kurdistan was occupied by the Arabs. Kurds were forcibly converted to Islam. The Kurds resisted until the turn of the millennium. Until the 1200s, Kurds were called 'infidels' by Arabic authors. Towards the end of the 1600s, the majority of the Kurds converted to Islam.
1920 / The victorious powers of the First World War commit themselves to the establishment of a Kurdish state in parts of South-East Turkey and North Iraq with the Sevres Treaty.
1923 / The Sevres Treaty was rejected by Kemal Atatlirk's Turkey and was replaced by the Lausanne Treaty, which denied national rights to the Kurds. The victors betray the Kurds and Atatürk annexes Kurdistan to Turkey.
1925 / Kurds staged a large rebellion against the newly proclaimed Turkish republic. The rebellion was led by the legendary Sheikh Said who was a Zaza and was from Xinus to the north-east of Solhan. The rebellion started in February and spread to several cities in the Kurdish area. The rebels seized several large cities including Bingol, Xarput (Elazig), large portions of Diyarbekir and a series of smaller cities. Their liberation was short lived. The rebellion was brutally suppressed by the Turkish army after some months by direct orders from Atatlirk. Sheikh Said and 48 of his close collaborators were hanged on 28 June of the same year in Diyarbekir.
1930 / The Zaza Kurds of Turkey The Kurds started yet another rebellion around Mount Ararat. The rebellion was led by General Ihsan Nuri who had deserted from the Turkish army. This rebellion lasted for two years before it was suppressed and the leaders fled to Iran and were granted political asylum there.
1937 / Another rebellion took place in the Zaza-dominated province of Dersim to the north-west of Dersim. Also at this time there was full popular participation but the rebellion was suppressed brutally after nearly two years. The leadership, along with the colourful personality Seyid Riza, was executed and more than half of the population of Dersim was deported to West Turkey.
1984 / The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) started an armed struggle against the central government in Ankara. The PKK demanded independence from Turkey. Turkey arrested PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan with American help in Nairobi in February 1999. The PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire in September of the same year, but Turkey answered with military operations and in 2004 the PKK cancelled the unilateral ceasefire. Turkey is not capable of suppressing a Kurdish rebellion for the first time in recent history.
Chapter I
Introduction
Although the world is contracting and becoming smaller as we acquire insight into an ever-increasing number of cultures, there are still many peoples with their own cultures, lifestyles and social organizations that are totally unknown to many of us. We do not know how social life in other societies manifests itself under completely different circumstances than the ones we are accustomed to. We still know little about other peoples' living conditions, beliefs and traditions. We know little about what and how they think, what their perception of reality is, how they organize their lives, how they perceive themselves and others, how they view their and others' actions, how they view the world, what their social manners are, how the family is organized, how kinship relations function, how they justify their actions, what in life is important for them and so forth.
The interest in cultural differences has been increasing, and this has its own background; during the last 35 years, Western Europe has become a meeting place for people from practically all over the world. These people come from very different cultures and societies. They bring different perceptions of reality with them, and they have different premises. While we do not have sufficient knowledge about all the cultures and the societies that these different people come from, we are acquainted with different cultures to varying degrees. Some of these cultures and societies have already become familiar in Europe. Some are less familiar and some are totally unknown.
A considerable growth in immigration in the second half of the previous century has created a wholly new situation in the wealthiest parts of Europe. This has not only created problems but also an increased interest in new knowledge about other societies, cultures and ways of life. To communicate with people from different…
Mehmed S. Kaya
The Zaza Kurds of Turkey
A Middle Eastern Minority in a Globalised Society
I.B. Tauris
London - New York
Published in 2011 by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.
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Copyright© 2011 Mehmed S. Kaya
The right of Mehmed S. Kaya to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
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Library of Modern Middle East Studies 71
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog card: available
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham
Camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author
ISBN 978 I 8451 I 875 4
