Diyarbakırspor fights for its identity in face of racist attacks

    The Diyarbakırspor administration announced last Sunday that the team would boycott this weekend's match against Galatasaray in protest of the racist slogans shouted at them since the beginning of the soccer season, but under pressure from civil society organizations and after being urged by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan not to withdraw from the game, the team changed its decision. At all Diyarbakırspor matches, the slogan most frequently shouted by supporters of the rival team is “PKK out,” linking Diyarbakırspor with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the US.

Since the promotion of Diyarbakırspor to the first division this year and amid the government’s democratization initiative, which aims to solve Turkey’s decades-old Kurdish question, the slogan has been heard more frequently than ever before.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while addressing his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) parliamentary group on Tuesday, said that some groups are trying to use soccer as a means of provocation to harm national unity, but at the same time urged the Diyarbakırspor administration not to withdraw from the league.

“Don’t commit such a mistake, my brothers in the Diyarbakırspor administration. I am urging you to reassess the situation with common sense and not to act sentimentally. You don’t have any right to do that,” he said.A large number of civil society groups in the city also voiced their disapproval of the decision, saying Diyarbakırspor should continue its adventure in the league.

In response to these statements, Diyarbakırspor Chairman Çetin Sümer announced that the team will play the match against Galatasaray, adding that they expect the Turkish Soccer Federation (TFF) to take measures against racism in the stands. 

Further measures by soccer federation       

The TFF last month amended its regulations in this respect to proscribe penalties such as heavy fines and even making teams play without audiences if their supporters shout slogans comparing the rival team to a criminal network.

The next few weeks will show whether the new amendment will prove useful, but many soccer authorities have been quick to note that Diyarbakırspor has always been identified with the PKK; still, the situation is a bit different these days.

Necmi Erdoğan from Middle East Technical University’s (METÜ) political science department recalled that during heavy clashes between security forces and the PKK in the 1990s a new practice started on the soccer pitch: playing the national anthem before every game, a tradition which continues today.

Erdoğan underlined that at that time the national anthem was followed by shouts of “Damn the PKK” and “Martyrs don’t die; the nation is indivisible.” “The situation at that time was different from today; in the 1990s, it was more or less against terrorism, but now it is anti-Kurdish,” he told Sunday’s Zaman.

Researchers Tanıl Bora and Emre Gökalp, who shared their joint article in development on “Banal nationalism in soccer,” recalled that the situation in the 1990s was a planned psychological operation against separatism, as was admitted by Mustafa Ağaoğlu, an adviser to the National Security Council (MGK) at that time, in an interview with the Zaman daily.

Bora agrees with Erdoğan about the differences between the 1990s and today, noting that the situation today can be considered an indication of changes in perception from assimilation to dissimilation despite the recognition of the different identity. “It became normal to chant slogans at matches categorizing Kurds as ‘enemies’ and ‘others’ despite the official ideology, which preaches that there is a difference between the separatist terrorists and Kurdish citizens,” Bora told Sunday’s Zaman.

Diyarbakırspor’s identity crisis

Despite the attitude of supporters of rival teams, who consider Diyarbakırspor a “Kurdish team,” in Diyarbakır it is sometimes considered the “state team,” as Chairman Sümer pointed out after the Bursaspor game a few weeks ago, where at least 20 Diyarbakırspor fans were injured. Sümer suggested at that time that his team might withdraw from the league if it continued to be the target of racist attacks.

“We are not the extension of any understanding, nor the representative of any political party. They are calling us the ‘state team’ in the east, and they are labeling us the ‘team of the PKK’ in the west. We are just a community trying to make soccer loved in Diyarbakır and the Southeast,” he said.

Bora also recalled the history of Diyarbakırspor, which is linked with the Kurdish question in Turkey.

According to Bora, Diyarbakırspor was established in 1968 by an initiative of the TFF within the framework of bringing soccer to every city in Turkey. It was elevated to the first division in 1974 but fell to the second division in 1980 at a time when no one was interested in soccer due to the highly politicized atmosphere just ahead of the Sept. 12 military coup.

Bora recalled that in 1995 the state decided to use soccer to ease political tension, but the administration of the team at that time was not considered “open to cooperation” until the next team congress, where hundreds of policemen voted, bringing in legendary Police Chief Gaffar Okan, who was killed in an assassination in 2001, as the chairman of the team.

According to Bora, in those years, it was less common for Diyarbakırspor to be branded “terrorists,” but its supporters’ bad behavior at matches played on their home turf, which went unpunished, also led to another kind of antipathy in the eyes of soccer lovers.

Diyarbakırspor was again elevated to first division in 2001 and stayed there for five seasons, but regardless of its division, its matches were always linked with Turkey’s Kurdish issue.

“Depending on daily developments, sometimes Diyarbakırspor harshly protested the fact that some soccer commentators claimed Diyarbakırspor supporters do not sing the national anthem loudly. If Diyarbakırspor supporters attack the other team, then there are comments suggesting that the PKK is working to make Diyarbakırspor fall from the division in order to harm the unity of the city with the rest of the country,” Bora underlines.

This week, when it was not yet clear whether Diyarbakırspor would play against Galatasaray, commentator Fehmi Koru pointed to the spirit of sports and criticized the Diyarbakırspor administration for its decision to withdraw, but added: “The spirit of sports includes preventing this ugliness from the very beginning. Meanwhile, it is the main duty of the [TFF] to change the situation on the pitches which makes a team consider withdrawing. We will all be Diyarbakırspor fans this Sunday.”