Am I Oppressed? Good Question.
By spending my formative years in a peaceful European environment, among Europeans, reaping the fruits of liberal democracy, privilege was the default option. Yet this could be very different if I lived in my occupied homeland, where the government both endorses and promotes the idea that being Kurdish is shameful and sinful, especially when combined with being Alevi.
If I lived in Turkey, I would have the same probability of being stop-and-searched, taken into custody, left in custody, or convicted without trial as any other Kurdish Alevi. If I became an academic, a journalist, or, even better, a lawyer, that probability would become even higher than the average for Kurdish Alevis.
If I lived in Turkey, I would be at the same risk of experiencing a hate crime or police brutality as any other Kurdish Alevi. A few years ago, a Kurdish Alevi woman called Dilek Dogan was shot by police who were carrying out an unwarranted raid of her property, simply for requesting that they show some basic manners by putting on overshoes while inside.
If I lived in Turkey, I would be at the same risk of eviction from student housing, living in a dangerous “gecekondu” shack with no planning permission, homelessness, and being fired from formal employment, as any other Kurdish Alevi.
Speaking of being fired from formal employment, I would be at the same risk of coerced labour picking fruit or nuts, sweatshopping, sex trafficking or being used as a pawn in organised crime as any other Kurdish Alevi. I graduated sixth form. I’m on track to being university educated. But my qualifications would be irrelevant in a scenario where one can get turned down by doing something as trivial as hinting who they vote for.
Many disenfranchised people in Turkey turn to blood or organ donation. But given that most Turkish recipients of transplants or transfusions request donors who are both Turkish and Muslim, I would have the same difficulty legally donating, and be at the same risk of organ trafficking, as any other Kurdish Alevi.
Turkish domestic aid agencies have given expired food, milk and vaccines to Kurdish kids. Only this year, a racist Turkish doctor was suspended from her job for giving Kurdish kids overdoses of medication so as to cause irreversible damage. Kurds live with a higher probability of undiagnosed health problems than Turks, one of the main reasons for this being out of distrust for the Turkish healthcare system. Yes, that Turkish healthcare system, with its well-funded hospitals and excellent elective surgery departments. If I lived in Turkey, I would be at the same risk of medical malpractice – and inability to take the perpetrator to court – as any other Kurdish Alevi.
Turkey is not only the world’s most dangerous place for a Kurdish Alevi woman like me to live in, it is arguably the world’s most dangerous place for me to visit too. I would probably be safer visiting Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or the Congo; in those countries’ books, I would not be a wayward insurgent, only a naive tourist. If one can go to Turkey on holiday, and not have to worry once about their life becoming a rerun of Midnight Express because they made a rude Youtube comment when they were 11, they undoubtedly have things easier than I do.
But I don’t live in Turkey. And that’s why I don’t consider myself an oppressed individual, or a victim. Race relations in the UK are simply not comparable with race relations in Turkey. There’s no system seeking to eradicate me. Sure, someone compared my existence to hard drug use, accused me of recruiting children to join the PKK, and said any Kurdophobia I face would be self-inflicted, but that’s individual Kurd-shaming, not systemic Kurdophobia. Hell, I’m even protected under British anti-discrimination law, which holds that no discrimination is self-inflicted. That makes me more privileged than Kurds in Turkey, who have hardly any anti-discrimination laws on their side and who are often told that if only they assimilated and became good Turkish, Muslim citizens, they could celebrate becoming discrimination-free just like one celebrates becoming debt-free.
My life isn’t perfect. I don’t always see eye-to-eye with family, I’ve had employment difficulties, and my grades haven’t always been that good, but these small shortcomings probably haven’t happened because I casually mentioned that I’m Kurdish. That makes me privileged if my struggles aren’t related to my ethnicity. That’s literally the definition of privilege.
I don’t have to worry about racialised medical malpractice when I live somewhere with the gold standard of universal healthcare, and a multiracial melange of healthcare staff. Yes, my GP has asked me pointed questions about race in a way that makes it sound like a medical condition. Yet on the off chance that I do develop an actual medical condition like diabetes, beta thalassaemia or G6PD, which disproportionately affect Kurds, I know I would be able to find the same treatment as anyone else. That makes me privileged if I can trust my healthcare system to treat me as it would anyone else.
I can use the internet without it getting cut off as an “anti-terror” measure. I can watch Youtube without paying through-the-nose for a VPN. I can read oodles of news sites, from Bianet to (God forbid) the Daily Mail. The only curfew I’ve been put on by the government is in the context of the pandemic. I can even check off Kurdish ethnicity and Alevi faith as options on the census. Meanwhile in Turkey, everyone’s identity card automatically lists them as a Turk and a Muslim even if their name is Mordechai Ali Van Allen O’Shea. And if that were the case, they’d get a bonus name change to Muhammet Ozturk.
I can learn my language without facing legal action. I can even teach it, if I ever get past beginner level. I can celebrate my national holiday without an onslaught of accusations of “terrorism”. I’m no stranger to being the only Kurd in my block of flats or workplace, but I can usually be confident that no one will treat me any differently for it. As I said in my other article, lots of people have told me I don’t even look Kurdish. So I’m white-passing, at least in a multiracial context. That’s privilege.
Some of my Kurdish friends in the UK do think of themselves as victims. They think Kurds anywhere, in any context, are victims, under the assumption that race relations are similar everywhere. That a second-generation Kurdish immigrant with a mundane life running a logistics business from a semi in Enfield continues to writhe in agony at the hands of murderous Middle Eastern tyrants. That a Kurdish tribal leader who inherits a bunch of oil money and moves to a mansion on a beach in California is still a global scapegoat for the most ruthless discrimination. Thoughts and prayers for the poor downtrodden Californian mansion owning oil tycoon. Because he’s Kurdish, so that must mean woe is him.
They join radical bridging cultures collectives and postmodernist postcolonial book clubs, where a motley crew of people with completely unrelated experiences commiserate about how all manner of random things are secretly manifestations of the imperialist war-machine. They would consider the sentence “I’m Kurdish and privileged” to be a right-wing dog whistle, never mind the fact that I voted for Corbyn and have been told my political leaning is “redder than Elmo’s earlobe”. Almost all left-wing people recognise the importance of checking one’s privilege. Which is why it doesn’t make sense when left-wing people tell me to check my privilege, only to tell me it’s not there.
I know this sounds controversial but I don’t think the victim mentality is healthy for Kurds. We might be victims in one place, as I would be in Turkey, but if we aren’t there, we do gain privilege, and we should recognise the fact that we’re not necessarily victims elsewhere. We can’t move forward as a nation if we put more emphasis on being victims than fighting the forces that victimise us. We need to celebrate our victories.
Yes, Kurds are oppressed as a group compared to, say, Norwegians. But there are exceptions, and the idea that all Kurds, as individuals, are perpetually oppressed victims is as much of a stereotype as the idea that all Kurds have insatiable sex drives and unmanageable body hair. I think it’s far more constructive to think of Kurds as a two-tiered group, and for us privileged Kurds to use our privilege to help oppressed Kurds.
My being “more Kurdish than not” is complex and nuanced. I’m theoretically oppressed in one context, but I’m not actually oppressed in the context where I spend most of my life. My privilege might be something I end up leaving at home with winter coats and thermals when travelling to Turkey, but it’s still there. And I suppose I could accumulate a big pile of oppression points by being Kurdish, Alevi, female, visually impaired, under 5’6" and open to the idea of kissing a girl, but do I want to? No, because it’s not a competition to see who can have the most difficult life. That’s not what intersectionality means ; all it means is that people who are oppressed, unlike me, can be oppressed for multiple related reasons. I know it’s not in-vogue to say this but I honestly find privilege quite useful for having an easy life. It’s only a problem when it goes unchecked. I acknowledge the fact that I’m privileged and I want to use that privilege for the forces of good.
