Antagonistic perspectives: Turkish and European official discourse on Kurds

The aim of this paper is to examine the dominant ideology and official discourse in Turkey and its representation and exclusion of Kurdish identity and culture. We will attempt to do this in three parts. In the first part, we will look at the historical development and the implementation of the Turkish official discourse and its core element, that of Turkish nationalism. We will here examine the elimination of the Kurdish identity, language, and culture through the official Turkish discourse. In the second part we will focus on the Turkish official discourse today, in particular on the constitutional changes made in order to comply with EU legislation and on the differences between the new Turkish laws, their implementation and their violation by Turkish police and military. It is mainly in part three that the role of the European Union and its discourse will enter our analysis. This section will explore the clash between the Turkish official discourse and the discourse of the European Union on issues such as minorities, democracy and human rights. Such a clash provides the ideal platform to explore and examine the nature of Turkish official discourse today. Our discussion is based on Althusser’s and Foucault’s notions of ideology and discourse, and on Said’s elaboration of Orientalism.