Mehmet Kurt, Kurdish Hizbullah in Turkey: Islamism, Violence and the State. London, Pluto Press, 2017, 188 pp., (9780745399348).
This book is an essential contribution to the relatively limited scholarship on Hizbullah in Turkey, especially in the form of ethnographic analysis of primary data produced through interviews with former and current supporters of Hizbullah. There are a handful of works on the group, notably the works including Deep Hizbullah (Derin Hizbullah) by Rusen Cakir (Cakir, 2001) and Political Islam in Turkey by Gareth Jenkins (Jenkins, 2008). “Developed from the author’s doctoral dissertation” (p. ix), the book sets out to answer the question “What is Hizbullah and how can it be analysed as a form of belonging?” (6).
The book is composed of three chapters. The first, describes the theoretical and methodological framework, as well as engaging in a brief analysis of historical and sociological conditions of the period in which the Hizbullah was founded and developed into one of the most violent illegal organisations in Turkey. The second chapter is composed mainly of references to the interviews with informants, who are former and current members of the Hizbullah. The author clarifies that these informants do not include members of the armed wing of the Hizbullah. Given that the organisation’s primary influence in the recent history of Turkey and the Kurdish issue stems mainly from its use of violence, it is unfortunate that we do not hear from the former or current armed members of the group. Since the organisation is very secretive, with a membership base suspicious of any approaches to their fighters as a potential attempt of spying (65), it is understandable that the author did not have contacts with former or current armed Hizbullah members. This chapter analyses categories such as violence, disengagement, group identity and forms of belonging.
In the third chapter, the author focuses on how social memory is constructed through the stories and novels written by Hizbullah members. The chapter looks into the texts produced by Hizbullah-affiliated individuals and in the framework of social memory investigation, analyses how Hizbullah remember and reconstruct the past, to establish and reinforce group belonging.
The sections that are abundant with references to the interviews with informants, especially the second but also the first chapter, constitutes the book’s most significant contribution to the literature.
In his book’s title, the author refers to Hizbullah as “Kurdish Hizbullah in Turkey.” There is, however, not an elaborate discussion as to why Hizbullah in Turkey is referred to as Kurdish. The group has never referred to itself as a pro-Kurdish group, let alone as “Kurdish Hizbullah.” Their enemies, especially the dominant left-wing Kurdish nationalism, never regarded Hizbullah as Kurdish. Referring to Rusen Cakir’s book on Hizbullah, the book establishes that Hizbullah never targeted the Turkish state or Turkish nationalism, neither to achieve its revolutionary Islamist objectives or in the name of Kurdishness. Indeed, members of Hizbullah are mostly, if not exclusively, Kurdish. However, it is also true that the target of the group has also been almost exclusively, Kurdish nationalists. If the real identities of the group make it a Kurdish group, the fact that the group exclusively targeted Kurdish nationalism (and not the Turkish nationalism), would surely make it an anti-Kurdish group. In the absence of this discussion, the books’ main title in Turkish, Türkiye’de Hizbullah: Din, Şiddet ve Aidiyet (Hizbullah in Turkey: Religion, Violence and Belonging) (Kurt, 2016) would have been a more appropriate title. A critical observation by the author on this topic is that the Islamist Hüda-Par’s1 political sensitivity to the Kurdish issue and increasing references to the rights of Kurds has resulted from the expectations of and demands by their supporter base (109). The author emphasises this point by referring to the statement of one of his informants.
The author engages with his informants about the ways they justify their utilisation of violence. However, the author records in various places that the Hizbullah members are usually silent about that period either describing it as a traumatic one or trying to explain it away by giving superficial answers. It is understandable again that it might be challenging to get into the specifics and push the informants a bit further to understand their motivations and modes of thinking better. In this way, the study clarifies for future researchers that it would be almost impossible to get Hizbullah members to face with their organisation’s violent past if the question of violence is posed in an abstract form.
Hizbullah was established in the late 1970s and waged a campaign of targeted killings, especially between 1991–1996. Former and current Hizbullah members who spoke to the author, justify their utilisation of violence as a form of “self-defence” (89). While it is true that Hizbullah members came under attack by the PKK, Hizbullah’s targets were mostly civilians who were teachers, nurses, lawyers, journalists, politicians and human rights defenders. There were also young children among the group targets. Although mistakenly referred to as “the PKK members” (143), the targets of the groups were mostly civilian public figures, who were perceived to be sympathetic to the PKK. Hizbullah very rarely, if ever, confronted or targeted armed professional members of the PKK.
The book also engages with Hizbullah’s ideological roots, especially by referring to the main ideological influences on the group. According to the author, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, as it is expressed by Hasan Al Banna as well as Said Hawwa, from the Ikhwan’s Syria Branch has a significant influence on Hizbullah (15, 140). The other significant influence is the Iranian Revolution (141). There are also references, via Hizbullah affiliated websites, that Said-i Nursi also having a strong formative influence on the Hizbullah’s founding leader Hüseyin Velioğlu. Author’s informants also report keeping Nursi’s corpus in their houses. This book, however, is not a detailed study of Hizbullah ideology and policies.
Another significant aspect of Hizbullah is its relations with two major regional states, Turkey and Iran. The author discusses Hizbullah’s links with some Turkish state elements. But again, both the former and current Hizbullah members and senior members of the Hüda-Par are tight-lipped. The informants demand proof of the alleged links (36), rather than attempt to address questions in the minds of many civilians who lived through the 1990s facing Hizbullah’s continuing violence with perceived or real impunity. Hizbullah’s relations with Iran is also elaborated in the study, especially in the form of ideological influence of Iran and the training provided to the Hizbullah members by elements of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hizbullah members who spoke to the author, however, are either not knowledgeable about the extent of these links or again too tight-lipped to reveal any previously unknown information.
The reader leaves the book by having a powerful insight into some aspects of thinking of former and current Hizbullah supporters, including rituals, slogans, categorisations. The book is the result of a significant effort to carry out challenging fieldwork with former and current supporters of a violent and dangerous organisation.
Today, dominant Kurdish leaders and political parties are mostly secular. This is true of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraqi Kurdistan as well as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Northern Syria.
The Kurds, moreover, do not belong to either the Sunni or Shia camp in the region, although Kurdish people across the Middle East are majority Sunni. That is why some maps are drawn to show the influence of Shia and Sunni block, usually have Kurds as a separate category, as if the Kurdishness is not just an ethnonational but also a religious category.
There is arguably great potential, however, for the rise of a movement which could tap on the dynamism of Islam as well as Kurdish nationalism. Hizbullah is not that movement and this kind of a movement, arguably, does not exist in today’s Middle East. Hizbullah, however, is a significant example of political Islam being practised in the Kurdish society and used to justify violence. That is why studies, including this one, on Hizbullah, are very significant.
References
Çakır, R. (2001). Derin Hizbullah: İslamcı Şiddetin Geleceği. Istanbul: Metis Yayınları.
Jenkins, G. (2008). Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? New York: Springer.
Kurt, M. (2016). Türkiye’de Hizbullah: Din, Şiddet ve Aidiyet. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.
Hür Dava Partisi (The Free Cause Party) is a political party established by the Hizbullah movement in 2012.