Gestión de Residuos Plásticos

I will end this thesis by offering some thoughts on how the issue of ‘terrorism’ can potentially be conceptualized in a way that does not support radical and threatening Otherness, and which suppresses rather than encourages cycles of violence. This is by no means an apology for violent acts perpetrated by the PKK, of which there is every reason to be critical. But if we accept that violent responses from two parties can enter into a mutually reproductive cycle, then there is every reason to point out how discursive constructions contribute to such cycles. Arguments have been made within new theoretical perspectives on the relation between identity and Otherness, that the Self/Other divide does not necessarily have to entail the delineation of a threat. Rumelili (2011) argues for moving away from the one-dimensional security dichotomy of e.g. Campbell (1998a), dividing instead between ‘security-as-being’ and ‘security-as-survival’. Here the question of whether the Self feels ontologically secure does not have to be related to whether it feels its physical security threatened. Because ontological security (having a secure identity) can be achieved without the representation of threat, this clears the ground for desecuritization. While this is a very welcome and important insight, the question is how applicable it is to the issue of ‘terrorism’. Due to the construction of the ‘terrorist’ identity, and to the naturalization of nation-state primacy discussed above, it seems highly unlikely for the ‘terrorist’ to become a non-threatening Other. If possible this would entail what Hansen (2011: 539) refers to as change through stabilization: “a rather slow move out of an explicit security discourse” requiring the mutual recognition of legitimacy. But judging from the analyses of this thesis, the concepts ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ seem too saturated with negative articulations for desecuritization to be likely. Hansen (ibid.) even points this out, arguing that “the Global War of Terror does not entail a similar space for recognition and accommodation” as did the détente of the Cold War. The concepts are also abstract to an extent that facilitates the adaptation of an international discourse on ‘terrorism’ to specific (and far from ‘global’) conflicts, such as with the PKK. What is perhaps a more likely way to counter radical Otherness in the conflict with the PKK – or perhaps a precondition for what Rumelili (2011) is arguing for – is a direct challenging of

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the discourse of ‘terrorism’ itself. One way of doing this is by emphasizing contingency and problematizing the social reality that this discourse reproduces, rejecting the crudeness of the categories being used and the dehumanization of the ‘terrorist’ identity. Here my thesis – in all its humility – is a contribution. But academia cannot carry this weight alone; critical perspectives would have to gain a stronger foothold within general public and political discourse. This does not mean seeing violent (‘terrorist’) acts as something that doesn’t have to be dealt with or taken seriously, but to re-conceptualize it as something else than for example “a very great danger to civilization as we know it [that] threatens the fundamental rights of the individual and endangers the fabric of societies everywhere and at all times” (Cengizer 2002b: 4).

Here there is a potential in politicians rearticulating the identity of the PKK (to something else than ‘terrorist’), which could facilitate the identification of political solutions (Hansen 2011:

542). This is of course far from an easy task and can incur severe political costs.63 There have

been examples of this dynamic in Turkey, when attempts at political approaches towards the ‘Kurdish question’ by the AKP have been followed by strongly critical rhetoric from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), declaring the AKP as dangerous and “accusing it of treason and weakness”, as well as of “bringing about more terrorism as they are saying more democracy” (Celep 2010: 136-138). For these reasons, such a move would take time. Though the conflict reached a cease-fire in March 2013, the prevalence of the language of ‘terrorism’ does not seem to have changed. Responding to the currently (June 2013) ongoing popular protests in Turkey, sparked on Istanbul’s Taksim Square in response to the government’s plans of building a shopping mall in Gezi Park, Prime Minister Erdo!an has referred to the protesters as “living arm in arm with terrorism” (Reuters 2013), even accusing some of them in being “implicated in terrorism” (The Telegraph 2013b). Again we see demonstrated the plasticity of this potent concept.

For future research in this field, I consider three elements in particular to be of high interest. Firstly, it would be interesting to look more closely at developments to the representations of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

$#!An example from the United States is illustrative here: In the second Presidential debate of the 2012

campaign, Governor Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama for spending 14 days before referring to the 2011 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya – which illustratively took place on September 11 – as ‘acts of terror’ (CNN 2012). Afterwards there has been some controversy as to whether or not he did, but here the point is that this example shows how politically hurtful a seemingly arbitrary choice of words – the deviation from dominant discourse – can be.!

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‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ in Turkish domestic discourse – and to compare it with the language used towards an international audience. This would illuminate further the role of ‘terrorism’/’terrorist’ as constitutive for Self-identity, and it would allow for tracing changes that have rendered politically viable attempts made by the AKP to engage politically with the PKK – as well as how these are discursively challenged, for example by the MHP. Secondly, a discourse theoretical approach could be employed from the perspective of the ‘terrorists’, examining how central PKK actors construct the conflict they are a part of and how such a reality supports acts of violence, including against civilians. The third element is already suggested at the introduction to this thesis: to carry my theoretical approach over to other specific conflicts between nations states and ‘their terrorists’, seeing how a similar identity- ‘difference’ function plays out.

My approach in this thesis has shown that a discourse theoretical approach can be employed not only one-dimensionally, in order to draw attention to problematic aspects of the labels being used in political discourse, but in a way that more fully respects identities as being relational; even opening for seeing how the identity of the Self can be reconstructed through the Other of the ‘terrorist’. The theory has also allowed me to see the myriad consequences of this function for representing the reality of a given conflict – to see who is put in a position of a priori illegitimacy, and who is put in a position of a priori legitimacy. A statement by $smet Ocakçıo!lu, President of the Turkish Court of Appeals in 1992, reflects this in telling simplicity and can serve as an endnote here: “It is entirely in keeping with the rules of the democratic State of Law for the State to use the instruments and methods used by the terrorists in order to prevent terror” (quoted in Gunter 1994: 13).

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