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European Declarations on Minorities: The Kurdish Quest for Turkey’s Membership of the European Union

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Majority Cultures and the Everyday Politics of Ethnic Difference

Abstract

The Kurdish community in Turkey is one of the groups in favour of Turkey joining the EU. Since the Turkish state has denied and repressed the Kurdish language and identity, the Kurds hope that Turkey’s membership of the EU will reverse their long-lasting experience of oppression. However, it is doubtful if the EU will satisfy Kurdish demands for linguistic equality. The Kurdish issue needs a more comprehensive evaluation than that provided by EU declarations on linguistic minority rights, which are hostage to nation-state philosophy. One of the main themes of this chapter is the language policy of the nation-state project. Most projects that aim to build a national identity turn to language as a ‘homogeneity producing’ instrument. Any minority group that speaks a language other than the national (majority) one is usually perceived as a threat to the desired homogeneous national identity.

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Authors
  1. Nesrin Uçarlar
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lund University, Sweden

    Bo Petersson (Professor of Political Science, Deputy Head of the Centre for European Studies) (Professor of Political Science, Deputy Head of the Centre for European Studies)

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, UK

    Katharine Tyler (Lecturer in Race and Ethnicity) (Lecturer in Race and Ethnicity)

Copyright information

© 2008 Nesrin Uçarlar

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Cite this chapter

Uçarlar, N. (2008). European Declarations on Minorities: The Kurdish Quest for Turkey’s Membership of the European Union. In: Petersson, B., Tyler, K. (eds) Majority Cultures and the Everyday Politics of Ethnic Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582644_10

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