Modern Communications Technology in Ethnic Nationalist Hands: The Case of the Kurds

Abstract

This article examines the effect of modern media and communications technology on ethnic nationalist resurgence, using the Kurds as a case example. Television, satellite communications, the Internet and easy access to publishing technology now facilitate ethnic nationalist challenges to state hegemony and monopoly of information. Additionally, modern media and communications technology can turn a humiliating defeat into a catalyst for a more unified, stronger, ethnic nationalist movement. Globally broadcast images of such a defeat arouse the passions and indignation of even those people who only nominally identify themselves with the ethnic group in question. At the same time, communications technology such as telephones, faxes and e-mail facilitate the channeling of such indignation into immediate group protest and action which, in turn, strengthens the ethnic identification of action participants.

The Sung Home. Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation

“…As such it became a major site for contesting the authority of the Turkish state. Although the founder Tabak declared himself to be independent of the PKK, the station is often regarded as having ties with the PKK and of broadcasting PKK propaganda (Romano 2002). Turkey tried by all means to close down the station in Europe, labeling it as a mouthpiece of terrorism.…”

“…Kurdish organizations vanished, but "opposition continued in the countryside in the form of civil resistance" (Bozarslan 1992 with its harsh state persecution, they gained by far the most dominant position in the Kurdish political field during the 1980s and 90s. 81 As the initial name Apocular suggests, Abdullah Öcalan became a crucial person in the organization, ideology, and policymaking of the movement, "the PKK (..) has always been dominated by Öcalan" (Imset 1992: 9 in Özcan 2006, see also White 2000, Romano 2006. 82 Over the years, Öcalan communicated his ideology through books and manifests he wrote, through his numerous party speeches, and through interviews.…”

The Politics of the Digital Technoscape in Turkey: Surveillance and Resistance of Kurds

“…The Kurdish diaspora has employed desktop and electronic publishing to develop a standardized Kurdish as well as an archive of extensive literature, both of which aim to produce a sense of belonging to a culture, literature, and history (Romano, 2002;Ayata, 2011). Likewise, Kurdish cinema and music became a means for Kurds to assert their cultural and ethnic identity more strongly than ever through digital media.…”

‘Sold Out to the Enemy’: Emerging Symbolic Boundaries in Kurdish Politics and the Strategic Uses of Labeling Treason

“…Challenge of Rival Kurdish Nationalisms and the Strategy of Labeling Treason 14 A striking example of symbolic niche overlap has appeared in the cultural habitat of the Kurdish TV channels and internet media. Since the establishment of MED-TV in 1994, the PKK-led Kurdish ethno-nationalists have been heavily involved in the production of Kurdish identity through modern communication technology (Hassanpour 1998;Romano 2002). In recent years, however, the ethno-nationalists are not the sole players in the field.…”