Why The Word “Identify” Grinds My Gears
I remember the first conversation I had with one of my close friends. We’d both just arrived at university. “So what do you identify as?” she asked as I explained how I was Kurdish, Alevi and European by upbringing.
“I don’t identify,” I said. “Frankly, I hate that word.” I hope I didn’t sound rude because I know she meant well. It was probably something she asks everyone. The word “identify” has become ubiquitous, especially among left-wing people. It’s pitched as a racially progressive term in The West, but most people in The West don’t really know what it’s like to have this supposedly racially progressive term used against them.
When my Kurdish compatriots are killed, the few Turkish newspapers that haven’t been closed down don’t actually report that they were Kurds. They use what can only be translated as “people who identify as Kurdish”, a particularly egregious combination of person-first language and implication that being Kurdish is a choice, a revolving door rather than a lifelong mode of existence. At best, a phase to be outgrown, like wearing goofy Hawaiian shirts, or smoking too much weed, or ending every sentence with “dude”. At worst, a moral failing, a religious sin, compared to murder, worse than murder. The state implies that everyone’s born innocent and a Turk and a Muslim, until they transgress against the false gods in government and “identify”. “Identify” is Turkish state rhetoric condensed into a single word.
It implies being Kurdish can be “changed” by the Turkish state, which doesn’t even recognise Kurds or Kurdish language. It imprisons parents who give their babies Kurdish names, and changes the names beyond recognition. Verily, “identifying” is a crime Kurdish people can be convicted of at any age. My partner was 12 when he had one of these nonconsensual name changes and has been trying to undo it for 20 years. Did he decide one day that he was going to become a super-infiniKurd to wind up the haters? No, the government jumped to that conclusion first. I have a very racially ambiguous name that can be spelled in an impressive variety of ways —I still can’t figure out which of those will net me charges of “identifying”, and when, but I think they exist on a spectrum where the one used by my professors is the most virtuous and the one used by my protest group is pure evil.
The word “identify” incurs so much blame. It allows anti-Kurdish discrimination and brutality by suggesting it is self-inflicted. That Kurdophobia is not in the state’s control, but entirely in the individual’s. That if I’m walking home from wherever and a (theoretical) masked man chases me down with a meat cleaver, calling me a dirty little Kurdy who needs to be punished, I was obviously “leading him on” because “it looked sort of OK” to a non-Kurd. That when the Turkish state arrests, assaults and kills Kurds, that Kurds somehow made them do it, by “identifying”. That they could have avoided it, and that if they didn’t, they deserve it.
When is a Kurd who has been shunned for “identifying”, free from that accusation as long as they are happy with themselves? If I have a dream where I’m in my deserted ancestral village, or an Alevi folk music bar, or a refugee advice centre, which I often do, am I subconsciously committing the crime of “identifying” in my sleep? Are the most menial things like brushing my teeth, tying my shoes, putting on hand sanitiser, all “identifying” when a Kurd does them? How much have I “identified” this week? This month? I’m guessing the answer is that I’ve “identified” 24/7 —how much atonement am I going to need to do for that, and is it even physically possible to fit that much atonement into my life? How much more miserable do I need to be when even at my most miserable, I wasn’t miserable enough?
I don’t know if this experience is unique or universal, but I have experienced a veritable smorgasboard of responses to my introducing myself as a Kurd, from “No, you’re not, you identify as a Kurd” all the way to “And I identify as a chimpanzee, ooh ooh ah ah.” Turks usually come out with something sappy like “Well, we’re all human”. I’ve heard “overidentify” too, and I have to ask, over what? Over the amount found palatable by the middle-aged, rather well-off white teacher who said it? Over the amount approved by the Turkish state? I think in both cases, that would be nothing. Over nothing?
I live in the UK and I’m personally not oppressed. But let’s say I went on a (theoretical) road trip to Turkey to visit some prisoners and volunteer for a NGO. Say I got arrested, for playing Kurdish music too loudly or something else that’s actually completely morally neutral, and put up before one of their kangaroo courts, if there was any trial at all. “A Turkish trial” here refers to something unfair, as “a Syrian ceasefire” refers to something implausible. I were to plead innocent in this theoretical trial with, “I’m not a Kurd though, I’m a person, because we’re all human, I only identify as Kurdish”, it would not be accepted as a defence. “Identify” only works as an unloading of guilt, not a claim to innocence. It’s a racial slur, but one that can’t be reclaimed. There wouldn’t be a “Kurd costume” that I could take off for charges to be automatically dropped. Kurdish identity is like a tattoo. I can put it somewhere discreet and hide it in all sorts of elaborate ways, but it’s always going to be there. The Turkish government can pull me up on “identifying” as much as it sees fit but I can’t “identify” my way out of it. Once you Kurd, you can’t curb.
Looking at Kurds through the framework of “identify” suggests they can. That the greatest goal for a Kurd is to “change” themselves, to embark on an endless journey of self-improvement, stripping away their unfortunate status to be reborn as a good right-wing Turkish and Muslim citizen. To go from being tied to the tracks, to driving the train. Levelling up. Huge numbers of Kurds have intentionally distanced themselves from the Kurdish community by building themselves up on the idea that they have the moral high ground for not “identifying”. A musician called Ibrahim Tatlises did it. A TV chef called Nusret did it. Any Kurd who supports the ruling regime is doing it, whether they like it or not. “I’m not like other Kurds,” they say. “I don’t identify, like you lot,” they humble-brag, figuratively driving away from their homeland in a shiny new car gifted by Erdogan himself. “You identify, but I’m being good. I’m one of the good ones.”
There are times when 40 million feels like a conservative estimate of our population size; how many more don’t include themselves in that total because that would be “identifying” and one should feel guilty for that? Another 20 million? Making us roughly the same size as the British population? Another 40 million? Are there twice as many Kurds as we thought? One of my neighbours thinks most of the world’s population is a little bit Kurdish. The word “identify” kills Kurds without killing Kurds.
Turning Kurds into “people who identify as Kurdish” doesn’t help any other groups of people either. It melts down age-old ableist, homophobic and transphobic tropes and makes them into new materials where disability, sexuality or gender are replaced by ethnicity; the way the marginalisers marginalise is uncreative at best. Like my partner with his nonconsensual name change, these groups get renamed “People who have a disability” or “People who struggle with same-sex attraction”. The Turkish state steamrollers these minorities too. That’s what intersectionality is — no one can get out from under the steamroller.
If someone accuses me of “identifying”, I’ll try telling them I’m “identifiably Kurdish”. Visibly Kurdish. Kurdish enough that if you know what you’re looking for, you can find it. Maybe not stereotypically so, and I’m not oppressed, but I still speak Turkish with my chest voice and show longing for my homeland in my sad blue eyes. My need to accept myself as a “practicing” Kurd wasn’t a conscious decision to “identify”. It was an accumulating realisation, like the realisation that once one’s homework has piled up until the night before the deadline, it would be a good idea to pull an all-nighter to get it done. I simply couldn’t spend the rest of my life in the limbo of “seasoned white”.
I’m not necessarily asking us to swear off the word “identify” altogether, because everything is circumstantial and it may sometimes be possible to use it in a non-offensive way. If you want to use that word to talk about your own position in society, go on, that’s your business. But I personally think it’s always offensive to foist on Kurdish individuals. So I wish people would ask first to apply it to others (eg “She is Kurdish” vs “She identifies as Kurdish”). Respect those who sit on the sidelines of the identifying game as much as you respect the players. And please, more importantly, don’t make those inconsiderate “jokes” about identifying as a chimpanzee or a helicopter or anything like that, because they’re offensive to pretty much everyone.
