Battling with Memleket in London: The Kurdish Diaspora's Engagement with Turkey

Since the late 1980s there has been a significant migration of Kurds from Turkey to the various countries in Western Europe. Even though Kurds from Turkey make up a significant proportion of London’s ethnic minority population, they constitute an ‘invisible’ diasporic community, both in terms of the current debates surrounding ethnicity and the Muslim minority in the UK and in diaspora studies. This article examines how the Kurdish diaspora interacts with, and relates to, their country of origin by highlighting their resistance to, and struggle with, Turkey (as defined by their displacement and suppression of cultural and linguistic rights) as well as the close and, at times, intimate ties Kurds continue to maintain with Turks and Turkey. Whilst the first is conceptualised as ‘battling with Turkey’, the latter is conceptualised within the framework of ‘memleket’ (homeland) ties. The article explores how the Kurdish diaspora encodes its orientation towards, as well as its resistance to, Turkey and in so doing, brings visibility to this largely ignored and understudied, yet politically very active, diasporic formation in London.