This extended essay analyzes what Professor Olson considers have been the three most important developments in the Kurdish nationalist movements (KNMs) in Turkey during the three decade span from 1980 to 2011. The author analyzes three major themes that contributed most to the consolidation of KNMs in Turkey during this 30 year period. The first two themes stress oppression by the state and resistance by Kurds leading to sustained armed conflict right up to the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999. Lower intensity warfare then continued throughout the first decade of the 21st century. But along with continued armed conflict, in the first decade of the 21st century the leadership of KNMs in Turkey begin to escalate their demands for linguistic rights, most notably demands for “education in the mother tongue” (Kurdish), and by the end of the decade, democratic autonomy for the heavily populated Kurdish regions of southeast and eastern Turkey.

The third major theme of the essay discusses the great effects that the achievements of the KNMs in Iraq had on the KNMs in Turkey, especially after the US-led war against Iraq in 2003. Olson argues that the achievements, unimaginable in 1980, of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, which obtained full autonomy within the federal government of Iraq in the 2005 constitution, were inspiring for the KNMs in Turkey. The achievements of the Kurds of Iraq inspired Kurds of Turkey to think that they too could achieve some kind of political autonomy and administrative decentralization for Kurdish regions of Turkey and to establish Kurdish as the administrative language of such regions. Most importantly, in such regions, education from primary through high school would be in Kurdish. In such regions other ethnic groups would also have education in the mother tongue. Olson concludes his essay by stressing that language demands, education in the mother tongue and democratic autonomy will dominate the struggle of the KNMs of Turkey and be the dominant factor in the domestic politics of Turkey for the foreseeable future.