Istanbul Armenians: The Diaspora’s `Outsiders’?
Vahe Sarukhanyan
hetq
20:36, May 4, 2011
Arus Yumul, an Armenian sociologist who lectures at the Bilgi
University in Istanbul, says that if the dominance of Muslims over
non-Muslims during the Ottoman Empire was a hierarchical division,
after the founding of the Republic in Turkey that difference
theoretically disappeared, but that this phenomenon still exists today
in Turkey but not in an overt way.
Yozge Genc, another expert with the Turkish Economic and Social
Studies Foundation (TESEV), told me that the main problem of Armenians
today in Turkey is that they are not regarded as full citizens of the
Turkish state.
“Armenians are still identified by their religion and ethnic
affiliation,” says Genc, adding that the other minorities in Turkey
have the same problem but that in the case of Armenians such a thing
is expressed in a slightly different way.
Pakrat Estukyan, the Armenian edition editor at Agos weekly expressed
the same thought, noting that at one time Armenians in Turkey
constituted a nationality, a people, but that they had been reduced to
a mere “community” today; and a religious one at that.
For years the number of Armenians living in Turkey has hovered between
60,000 – 70,000 and that’s not counting the number of crypto-Armenians
living in Anatolia and western Armenia. Experts say their number is
quite large.
Estukyan said that even though only a citizen’s religion is noted in
passports, government agencies have a good handle on nationality data
as well.
As the largest non-Muslim minority in Turkey, Armenians are not
represented in political or social sectors and do not hold state
office. Yozge Genc said that the employment process for state office
is quite complicated for Armenians, especially when national security
issues come up.
Armenians serve on the Sisli Municipal Council, but it’s one district
in Istanbul where most of the city’s non-Muslims reside.
Ozge Genc says that an Armenian was recently assigned to the
government’s Central Secretariat for EU Affairs, but this was a
singular event. Mensur Akgun, Director of the Global Political Trends
Center (GPOT) says that a lot has to do with personal and practical
contacts and not just a person being Armenian.
Silvia Tiryaki, his deputy, says that the Turkish “deep-state” avoided
assigning Armenians to top posts after the operations of ASALA in the
1970s and 1980s.
Pakrat Estukyan disagrees with this belief and stresses that the
divide was created not because of ASALA but the 1915 Genocide;
something the Turks don’t talk about.
Sociologist Yumul says that for the worldwide Armenian diaspora, the
Istanbul-Armenian community is akin to a “lost lamb”, an “outsider”.
She says that other Armenians have taken them to task for being
non-active in Armenian affairs and for cow-towing to the government in
Ankara. Yumul says she agrees with these assessments when it comes to
the Ottoman period, but that after Turkish independence Armenians not
only didn’t get involved in Armenian politics but also Turkish
affairs. It was kind of a survival strategy she noted.
Yumul added that the community is slowly integrating into the larger
Turkish society and that mixed marriages are paving the way.
“At one time Armenian parents resisted but this too has faded. The
next generation will be more like a hybrid, free to chose whether they
are Armenian, Turk…”
She was quick to add that this doesn’t mean that Armenians will
disappear in Turkey.
However, the use of Armenian as a daily language of communication is
also on the decline; the number of Armenians who can’t speak the
mother tongue is growing. Parents send their kids to Armenian
elementary schools but afterwards many go to private or foreign high
schools so that they won’t have problems with the Turkish language in
college.
The 1990s were a turning point for the community in many ways.
Armenians, like the other minority communities, began to voice their
concerns, speak about the discrimination they faced, and even raise
the taboo subject of the 1915 Armenian Genocide
Twenty years ago, all this was unthinkable. What the next twenty will
bring for the community remains a big question mark.
From: A. Papazian