TURKEY AT THE CROSSROADS?
By George Gregoriou
Greek News, New York
May 21 2007
Turkey is at the crossroads, at the turn of the 21st Century. But
Turkey has been at the crossroads for over a century, a long time for
a nation of 70 million to make up its mind which way to go: secular
vs. Islamic? The main obstacle to confronting the dark pages in its
history, from the Ottoman centuries, to the "Young Turk" movement at
the turn of the 20th century, and to Kemal Ataturkism is this. The
genocidal policy to end the presence of Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians,
and other Christians in the Ottoman territories. This inability and
the punishment of those who violate his taboo is a clear insight into
modern Turkey.
We are at the turn of the 21st Century, and the Turkish leadership
seems unable to get it right. The Turkish people want to be in the
EU. But, membership requires democratic credentials, a secular state,
and the generals on a leash. Evidently, the war between Islamicists
and secularists, was not resolved with the creation of the Republic of
Turkey in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). We are reminded that Mustafa
Kemal secularized Turkish politics in 1923. What we are not told is
that his "national independence movement" carried out the policies
of the Young Turks, who, in turn, carried out the "Turkification"
policy of the Ottoman rulers, that is, the elimination of the Christian
population in the Ottoman Empire.
Christians were 33% of the total population in 1900. There are very
few left today. Where did they go?
Abdul Hamid, the Sultan for thirty years (1876 to 1909), had one
policy: "kill, kill." The Young Turks had a two-pronged policy:
"deport and kill." Deporting was the same as killing. Hamid was
having nightmares, that the Christians, Sir Edwin Pears reports,
would become the majority. He was also paranoid. He declared war
on the Armenians, banned any references to Armenians and all words
referring to regicide or murder of heads of state. In 1890 Sultan Hamid
created his own personal army, the "Hamidiye" (literal "belonging"
to the Hamid). The targets were Armenians, and other Christians. He
was not exactly sane. The entire Hamidian system had but one aim: the
security of the Sultan himself. All historical Anatolian geographic
names were banned, even references to H2O were banned from science
textbooks because he feared the symbol would read as meaning "Hamid
the Second is Nothing. "The Hamidiye Kurds terrorized the Armenian
population. There were 33 Hamidieye regiments in 1892, each with five
hundred men, and more were found under a new commander Zeki Pasha,
who would play an important role in the Empire-wide massacres of the
Armenians a few years away!
Mustafa Kemal did not ³subdue² the Islamic religion from Turkish
politics. He merely offered a "garb" of secularism to an otherwise
dominant Islamic culture. This superficiality was evident in the
1930s when political parties were permitted. The Kemalist state had
to intervene to safeguard the Kemalist tradition from an Islamic
surge. The military did so again in 1960, 1971, and 1982, to protect
the Kemalist legacy, mostly from too much democracy, demanded by the
labor movement. Safeguarding Kemalʼs legacy means suppressing
the democratic movements, even forcing the Islamicist Erbakan out
of office. The current crisis over the presidency is a continuation
of this anti-democratic climate in Turkish politics. Every time the
pressure builds up in Turkey (from inside and outside forces), the
leadership in Ankara creates or finds itself in a crisis to ward off
these pressures. It is a lot easier to have a political crisis than
deal with the problems confronting the Turkish society.
Neither the Kemalists nor the Islamicists are capable of submitting to
real democratic politics. Open elections would most likely guarantee
one victory after another, for the Islamicists. On the other hand,
the Kemalists are doing their best to stifle democratic opposition,
with the threat of military intervention. Article 301 of the Penal
Code is very handy. "Insulting" Turkishness or Ataturkism can lead to
prosecution and jail. This is what happened to the Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink. He referred to the Armenian genocide, was prosecuted,
and was assassinated by a young Turkish nationalist, who in his own
words "I killed a non-Muslim!"
Except for those who attended the funeral, most Turks were concerned
over the murderʼs impact on Turkey¹s accession to the European
Union.
"Real" democracy in Turkey is not possible, if it means the right:
to discuss and write about the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and Kurdish
genocide, without landing in jail or forced into exile; to criticize
the Islamicists and the Kemalists without fear of punishment, the
first for their religious fanaticism, the second for putting Mustafa
Kemal on a pedestal, as a demi-god, beyond criticism; to agitate
for more rights for the 15 million Kurds (including autonomy) and
guaranteed equal rights for the non-Turkish minorities; and a Turkey
which is not the bully of the neighborhood, occupying 1/3 of Cyprus
and carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing for 33 years.
Such a democracy is incompatible with the present state of affairs
in Turkey (Islamicist or Kemalist), including membership in the NATO
bloc and being a "staunch" ally of the United States.
**** George Gregoriou Professor, Critical Theory and Geopolitics
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