Volume 35, Number 1 · February 4, 1988
Turkey's Nonpeople
By Jeri Laber
You see the same sign frequently in the Kurdish areas of eastern Turkey. Etched in bold white characters on bald brown mountain slopes, it is visible from great distances across the bleak terrain: the crescent and star of the Turkish Republic above a quotation from its founder, Kemal Atatürk: 'How happy I am to be a Turk.' The irony is cruel, because this desperately poor, neglected region—about one third of Turkey's land mass—is inhabited mainly by Kurds, not Turks, eight to ten million of them, close to one fifth of Turkey's total population.
Feature, 4237 words
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