Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths

The Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths (Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları, DDKO) were an association of mainly Kurdish students in Turkey.^[1] It was formed in 1969 and forbidden after the military coup in 1971.

History

In the late 1960s, Kurdish students organized so-called Eastern Meetings (Turkish:Doğu Mitingleri) which in 1969 lead to the foundation of the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths.^[2] The DDKO was initially present in Ankara and Istanbul,^[1][3] where Abdullah Öcalan took part in their activities.^[4] But soon spread its activities to cities in the Kurdish provinces,^[5] branches were established in Ergani in November 1970, a month later in Silvan and Kozluk and in January 1971 in Diyarbakır and Batman.^[6] The DDKO received relevant support of the left-wing Turkish Workers' Party (TIP)^[6] whose president Mehmet Ali Aslan was a Kurd and in 1969 has condemned a decree of the year 1967 prohibiting the distribution of foreign material in the Kurdish language.^[7]

Ideology and aims

The DDKO organized further meetings and demanded a better development of the Eastern Provinces and also more cultural freedom.^[5] The DDKO was very much involved with the society and also published demands the farmers made in their journals.^[5] It was a left wing organization as it was involved in organizing in seminars about Marxism and socialism. But later also it also organized meetings where the Kurdish question was discussed.^[1] In several of their events and gatherings, short theater plays were performed in the Kurdish language.^[8]

Closure and prosecution

In October 1970, many prominent leaders of the DDKO were arrested and after the military coup in March 1971, the DDKO was closed down.^[6] Then the DDKO trials began which were held under martial law.^[9] The prosecutions arguments were that Kurds don't actually exist, and their language was in reality a Turkish dialect.^[10] He argued that Kurdish was in its vast a mixture of 60% of Turkish and 40% Arabic and Persian words.^[11] Therefore, Kurdish was just as Turkic as Yakut or Chuvash.^[11] Further he accused the DDKO to have had ties with the left wing of the political party TIP and the Revolutionary Youth Federation of Turkey (Dev-Genç) which shall have led to separatist activities and violence that caused the Military to announce Martial law in 11 provinces.^[9]

Musa Anter, Necmettin Büyükkaya and İsmail Beşikçi prepared their defenses.^[10] Other important activists for Kurdish rights arrested were Edip Karahan [ku], Mehdi Zana and Mümtaz Kotan, among others.^[12] The defendants argued that Kurds existed and lived in Eastern Anatolia since 2000 B.C.,^[13] while the Turks only arrived in Anatolia in the 11th century. They also argued that Kurdish is an Indo-European language while Turkish is an Altai-Uralic language.^[10] The Military tribunal attempted to impede such a defense, for it eventually could be seen as an argument which would be able to be used in the future, but in the end the defense was admitted and included to the case files.^[10] Many of the defendants were sentenced to over 10 years in prison.^[14]

Aftermath

Some former DDKO members attempted to create a successor with the Devrimci Doğu Kültür Derneği (DDKD) but did not have success.^[4]

References

1. Gunes, Cengiz (2013-01-11). The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance. Routledge. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-136-58798-6.
2. White, Paul (2015). PKK, coming down from the mountains. Zed Books. pp. 13–15. ISBN 9781783600373.
3. Kutschera, Chris (1994). "Mad Dreams of Independence: The Kurds of Turkey and the PKK". Middle East Report (189): 12–15. doi:10.2307/3013105. ISSN 0899-2851. JSTOR 3013105 – via JSTOR.
4. Yılmaz, Kamil (2014). Disengaging from Terrorism - Lessons from the Turkish Penitents. Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-317-96449-0.
5. Orhan, Mehmet (2015-10-16). Political Violence and Kurds in Turkey: Fragmentations, Mobilizations, Participations & Repertoires. Routledge. pp. 51–53. ISBN 978-1-317-42044-6.
6. Çay, Abdul Halûk (2000). Die kurdische Akte: aus allen Perspektiven (in German). Ankara: Tamga Yayıncılık. pp. 444–445. ISBN 9789758386123.
7. Kutschera, Chris (1994), p.13
8. Çelik, Duygu (2020-09-07). Korangy, Alireza (ed.). Kurdish Art and Identity. De Gruyter. p. 104. doi:10.1515/9783110599626. ISBN 978-3-11-059962-6. S2CID 225263554.
9. Richter, Fabian (2016).p.38
10. Beşikçi, İsmail (2004). International Colony Kurdistan. Parvana. pp. 84–88. ISBN 978-1-903656-31-0.
11. Richter, Fabian (2016). Identität, Ethnizität und Nationalismus in Kurdistan: Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Prof. Dr. Ferhad Ibrahim Seyder (in German). LIT Verlag Münster. p. 37. ISBN 978-3-643-13234-5.
12. Gunes, Cengiz (2013), p. 43
13. Orhan, Mehmet (2015), p. 70
14. Taspinar, Omer (2005). Kurdish Nationalism and Political Islam in Turkey: Kemalist Identity in Transition. Psychology Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-415-94998-9.