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As a young boy in southeast Turkey, George Mason University graduate student Ihsan Gunduz became what those in the conflict field call “internally displaced.” The brutal Turkish-Kurdish war in his home country turned the Kurdish Gunduz into a marginalized minority member, and it was something he needed to learn more about to come to grips with it—or even to stop it. That is what brought him to George Mason.
“Our language was banned in schools, and they beat us to learn Turkish,” Gunduz says. “I was six-years-old. We thought that was the normal way to learn.”
When he was in high school, where conditions were good as long as he didn’t speak of politics, he was inspired to do something about it. “At that moment I thought something could be changed, somehow, so we could live together.”
Coming to America in 2007, Gunduz came across a book that profoundly influenced his thinking: “Identity, Morality, and Threat” by Daniel Rothbart and Karina Korostelina, both professors at Mason’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Specifically, he was most taken by the words, “In cases of protracted conflict, an act of violence always has unanticipated consequences. Its effects far exceed the objectives of strategists and perpetrators.”
“I felt a very deep connection in reading that,” he says. “It explained a lot about the conflict I was born into.”
He enrolled and is now working on a master’s degree in conflict analysis and resolution with Korostelina as his advisor.
Gunduz’ views on his homeland conflict have been more about finding ways for both Kurds and Turks to learn to live together peacefully and to find a way to reconstruct the national identity of Turkey to include all minorities. “The violence has done nothing but put a social boundary between both Turkish and Kurdish communities, which is hurting both our national identities and with it, cultural, social, political and economic development,” he says.
While studying at Mason, Gunduz is working for a nonprofit organization called the American Kurdish Information Network, and working as a language analyst and consultant for various organizations. “These experiences, coupled with my current pursuit of a master’s degree, are positioning me to be better equipped to try to find creative ways for which the Turkish-Kurdish conflict will be a thing of the past,” he says.
He is focusing his studies on revision of history textbooks, peacebuilding and identity, but once he lands his degree, one of the projects he aims to undertake is to write a manual for history teachers on how to promote peace and teach a more inclusive history of all the people of Turkey.
“Perhaps this may be the first course for reconciliation for both Kurds and Turks if they can read about one another,” he says.
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