The long-oppressed Kurds, the ones who rebelled against Atatürk’s daughter Sabiha Gökçen, who could not legally speak their language or watch Kurdish television shows, and who suffered from discrimination in the workplace, on the street, and in school, began agitating for independence. Many Kurds joined a militant group called the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. When I moved to Istanbul, in 2007, most of the Kurds I met had a family member who had, as they said, “gone to the mountains,” to join the PKK and fight the Turkish state.
