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ing its ethnic and religious components. The only legitimate utilization ofsuch elements of individual identities in the public sphere would be in thecontext of the implementation of "positive discrimination" policies, suchas the "affirmative action" in the USA, to help underprivileged ethnicgroups to improve their living conditions and thus integrate fully the nation.The Canadian political philosopher, Charles Taylor, called this approachthe "politics of recognition" 18 of the identities of individuals belongingto minoritarian groups, in order to respond to their specific needs,and thus strengthen the cohesion and unity of the nation, not by coercion,but through democratic multicultural policies.The Kurdish question illustrates perfectly some of these contradictions.The two basic dimensions of this question are: firstly, it is an issueof cultural identity and claims for the recognition of cultural rights. Secondly,its emergence (beyond the specific aspect of PKK terrorism) is aconsequence of Turkey's having become a modern, pluralist society. TheKurdish question follovvs a different pattern in Iran and Irak, where feudal-typewar-lords and their communities struggle against the centralpovver and vvith each other. In south-eastern Turkey, pre-modern communitarian,tribal social structures have been vveakened, if not altogethereliminated; the social relations and the linkage and/or opposition to theState are being individualized. The PKK mobilized a limited number ofpeople for terrorist actions around modern concepts such as nation, nationalismor class, and not around tribalism. To violence, vvhich has arisenin the context of modernity, the response should be elaborated throughmodern democratic approaches. The Kurdish question in Turkey cannotbe reduced to PKK and the military solution can only vvin över —and thisvvas largely achieved- terrorism. But it cannot replace the necessary recognitionof cultural rights and pro-active policies oef integration. There isa recognition, at least, in the civil society, and amongst a limited numberof politicians, that the Kurdish problem is a problem of democracy andhuman rights. Such a recognition should be shared by the State institutionsand ali the political parties, as a matter of national policy-making.WHITHER TURKEY'S DEMOCRACY?What are the prospects for democracy in Turkey? its current outlookis a very contrasted one. We have seen above that there are quite a numberof established democratic institutions and practices. They are, hovvever,counter-balanced, and even out-vveighed, by non-democratic features.What vvould be the conditions that vvould allovv the consolidation ofthe Turkish democracy, so that it escapes cyclical fatality?18. Gutman, Amy (ed.) (1992), The Politics of Recognition, Princeton, Princeton UniversityPress.244