II. ARE PEOPLE OF KURDISH DESCENT A SEPARATE HOMOGENOUS COMMUNITY?

While most of the people described as Kurds speak Kurmanji in Turkey, Zazas who do not accept being Kurdish are also usually called as Kurds. In a survey conducted in some provinces of Eastern Turkey in 1995,7 7.9% of the respondents identified themselves as Zaza, but not Kurdish. It is acknowledged that 30% of Kurds in Turkey are Alevite and their affinities with Turkish or Zaza speaking Alevis are greater than those with Sunni Kurds.8 In addition, including the people called as Kurds outside Turkey, it is seen that there are various dialects such as Sorani, Gurani, Kurmanji, Lorani with major differences that impede someone speaking one dialect to understand one speaking another.9 They also include subdialects and their locally spoken forms, e.g. Buhtani, Garmiyani, Baban and so on.10 It should not be surprising that Turkish Kurds desire to share the destiny of a democratic Turkey on its way to integration to the West through modernization and development, instead of becoming a part of a heterogeneous community entangled in intertribal violence and marked with the hegemony of tribal thinking.

7 Ümit Özdağ, Güneydoğu Anadolu Bölgesi'nde ve Doğu ve Güneydoğu Anadolu'dan Batı'ya Göçedenlerde Kültürel Yapı ve Kimlik Sorunu [Cultural Structure and Identity Problem of the People in Southeastern Anatolia and Who Migrated to Western Turkey From Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia] (Ankara: Avrasya Merkez Uluslararası İlişkiler ve Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi, 1995)

8 Andrews, Ethnic Groups..., pp. 116-117.

9 Philip G. Kreyenbroek, "Kürt Dili Üzerine" [On the Kurdish Language], in Kürtler: Güncel Bir Araştırma [The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview] edited by Philips G. Kreyenbroek and Stefan Sperl (London: Routledge/Istanbul: Cep Kitapları, 1992), p. 76.

10 Izady, The Kurds, pp. 172-173; Azmi Süslü, Mesud Fani (Bilgili)'ye Göre Kürtler ve Sosyal Gelişimleri [Kurds and Their Social Development In the View of Mesud Fani (Bilgili)] (Ankara: Tanmak Yayınları, 1993), p. 44; Dr. M. Şükrü Sekban, Kürt Meselesi [Kurdish Question] (Ankara: KON Yayınları, 1979), p. 116. This book was originally published in Paris in 1933 under the title, "La Question Kurde".