3.8 Stakeholder #3

Kurdish Women Diyarbakir. Fakundo Guillen. 2015

At 20 million people, the Turkish Kurds are just a slightly narrower stakeholder in this controversy than academia as a whole. Since the creation of the Turkish Republic after World War I, the Kurds have been oppressed. Usage of their language was banned both in public and in the home for decades in an attempt to wipe out their cultural identity.

The Turkish government has the most to gain from this power play, but the Kurds come in at a close second. International organizations are learning about an issue that is usually avoided when talking about Turkey. Only specialized news sites reference the decades long conflict that has been keeping Turkey's population in check.

With international sympathy typically comes more aid and resources. Also, more attention to this conflict may pressure Turkey into some kind of political compromise.

The government's treatment of the Kurds was the necessary tinder for this international controversy, nobody is writing how the Kurds feel about this. Even the Kurdish outlets are equally objective and snarky. This Kurdistan24 article just describes the whole debacle as a set of expected "Erdoğanisms":

"The hysterical reaction reveals the extent to which violence has become a conventionalized and ritualized political weapon for Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) propaganda against real or imaginary enemies."

"The belligerent tirade instigated by AKP is inflaming Islamist bigots, fascists, and even criminals to take matters into their own hands." He then goes on to explain how the organized crime boss Sedat is threatening academics. 

"The Academics for Peace Petition was merely a symbolic gesture in defense of peace and freedom of expression. More and more academicians, journalists, and human rights activists are becoming victims of AKP’s venomous propaganda and its witch-hunt every day."