[LINK] "HDP: focus of left-wing opposition beyond pro-Kurdish mobilization"

[rfmcdonald]

At Open Democracy, Cuma Çiçek looks at the geography behind the HDP's success in Turkey. Mass popularity in Turkish Kurdistan is key, but apparently not the only factor at work.

H. Bozarslan, a leading scholar working on the Kurdish/Kurdistan issue argues that the “Iraqization” and “Kurdistanization” of the Kurds function as two parallel processes supporting each other. He contends that the participation of the Kurds in political and administrative processes at the Iraqi level (the Iraqization), has allowed them to construct an autonomous space at the Kurdistani level (Kurdistanization).

Borrowing Bozarslan’s concepts, I would argue that the KM has been following a similar trajectory in Turkey since 2013 to reshape the political arenas at the level both of Turkey and the Kurdish region. Although some Kurdish nationalists contend that the Turkey-ization and Kurdistanization are two opposing political projects, the results of the June 7 election confirmed that the autonomous construction of a political space in the Kurdish region and the construction of Kurdish oppositions as an integral part of Turkey’s politics are two interrelated parallel processes.

Since the foundation of the HDP, BDP has re-organized itself as a regional party to construct an autonomous political and administrative space in the Kurdish region. It changed its name to DBP (Democratic Regions Party) and transferred its PMs to the HDP, while keeping the local governments under its party structure. Alongside the DBP, DTK (Democratic Society Congress) functions as the principal umbrella organization of this construction process at the regional level. It comprises the DBP’s local branches, the local governments, youth movement, women’s movement, pro-Kurdish NGO networks, trade unions, media, and local assemblies in the Kurdish region.

Both DBP and DTK have been re-organizing themselves in accordance with eight aspects - political, legislative, self-defense, cultural, social, economic, ecological and diplomatic - of the democratic autonomy project. According to the KM, democratic autonomy is a socio-political project that aims to construct the Kurdish people’s self-government in their homeland. The eight stars in the DBP’s flag symbolize these aspects of the democratic autonomy project. The re-construction of the DBP and DTK at the regional level, the reshaping their political agenda on the basis of the construction of Kurdish self-government in the Kurdish region can be conceptualized as the Kurdistanization strategy.

Kurdistanization was just one side of the coin. There is another one: Turkey-ization. While the DBP and the DTK signify the Kurdistanization of the KM, the HDP and the HDK (Peoples’s Democratic Congress) denote its Turkey-ization process. The KM has led the construction of the HDP and HDK as a new focus of left-wing democratic opposition. With the participation of different left-wing, feminist and ecological groups, parties and movements, ethnic and religious minorities, the HDP and the HDK have been attempting to unify and represent all oppressed groups in terms of the class, ethnicity/nation, religion, gender in Turkey with a left-wing populist political agenda.