The Kurds were seen as either "proper Turkish citizens" by the way they conducted themselves with dignity, or they were seen as "outlaws characterized by tribalism, religious reactionism, or banditry" (Yegen, p. 599). In other words, the Turkish government tried to take away the Kurds' ethnic identities; the Turks attempted to "assimilate" the Kurds into the nation of Turkey by referring to them as Turkish citizens -- and many Kurds have simply agreed to become Turks over the last 80 years or so. Meanwhile in the 1950s Kurds in Turkey "…were no longer in a position to produce major trouble for the state," and Kurds began moving into big cities in the western sections of Turkey (Yegen, p. 604). The "assimilation" strategies of the Turkish government towards the Kurds lightened up from the 1950s regarding forcible settlement practices, but then when the Kurds began to resist Turkish authority in the...
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