TURKEY’S MINORITIES STILL ORPHANS ON 90-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
Assyrian International News Agency AINA
Oct 31 2013
Posted GMT 10-31-2013 1:36:15
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s gift for the 90th birthday of the
Republic of Turkey — proclaimed on Oct. 29, 1923 — was an Ottoman
dream come true. The Marmaray railway linking Istanbul’s two shores,
the dream of Sultan Abdulmecit 153 years ago, was inaugurated in a
ceremony attended by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Romanian
Prime Minister Traian Basescu, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud
and nine ministers from eight countries. Europe and Asia are now
connected via an undersea tunnel, but the pieces of Turkish society,
fractured by a singularist official ideology, are yet to be united
after nine decades.
Many groups — Kurds, whose identity was denied until recently;
assimilated ethnic minorities; troubled Christians; Alevis and Jafaris
ostracized on sectarian grounds; women who have paid dearly for
wearing the veil and people barred from public service on ideological
grounds — are all eager to see the republic mature in a way that
would embrace them all.
Even though EU-prompted reforms have led to significant progress, the
score-settling in society, perpetuated by the republic’s immaturity
problem, is continuing in the form of bickering over secularism,
Turkishness and identity. The tensions have marred the republic’s
anniversary celebrations.
Living with uneasiness
In its Oct. 29 issue, Radikal handed the pen to those the republic
has orphaned, and asked them to describe the republic of their dreams.
Rober Koptas, editor-in-chief of the Armenian minority’s Agos,
shared three striking memories. The first was about a basketball game
between the Turkish club Efes and the Greek Aris in 1993, when Koptas
was a student in Istanbul’s Surp Hac High School. He recalled how
after the Armenian boys rooted for Efes, their windows were broken
by stone-throwing Turks, who attacked the Armenian school to avenge
the attack on Efes players by Greek fans at the end of the game.
In a second story, Koptas recalled how his blood froze at the sight
of a poster he saw in Istanbul in 1989 on his way to the Karagozyan
Orphanage. The poster read, “The Armenian dog will drown if we only
spit on him,” a message of support for the Azeri in Nagorno-Karabakh
by the ultra-nationalist Ulku Ocaklari association!
Koptas’s third story concerned the surname law in the early years
of the republic. He recounted how, in 1934, his grandfather failed
to officially register his family name — Sirvanyan — because of a
provision that banned “names of foreign races and nations.” The clerk
decided that “Koptas” was the appropriate surname for the family.
“Violence is at the core of all three stories. I guess the republic,
to which I belong as a citizen, means, primarily, violence to me. … I
do not celebrate Oct. 29 because I have seen that violence. … I dream
of a free, democratic and violence-free republic that ostracizes none
of us,” Koptas concluded.
Many things have changed over the years, but unfortunately, that
bloodthirsty poster remains pasted in many minds.
“We have remained only a handful of people in Istanbul, but we are
still living with the uneasiness of a pigeon,” a Syriac businessman
told me privately. The climate that would eradicate his fears remains
a remote prospect.
In another article for Radikal, ethnic Greek scholar Nikolaos Stelya
recounted the grim years after the Turkish-Greek population exchange
under the Lausanne Treaty, which saw the remaining Greeks dispossessed
and forced to emigrate. Stelya wrote, “Before we speak of re-opening
the Greek Orthodox seminary, the return of community properties and
a state apology, there is one reality we have to focus on: All colors
of this country must lead an equal and free life.”
Inadequate reforms
Kurdish writer Fehim Isik, for his part, underscored how the policies
aimed at building a Turkish identity crushed the Kurds and summed
up the outcome of the Kurdish resistance. Isik wrote, “At the 90th
anniversary of the republic today, the Kurdish struggle has torn down
the policy of rejection and denial. Yet many demands pertaining to
equal citizenship rights — from education in the mother tongue to
self-administration — are yet to be obtained.”
And what does the republic mean for Alevis? Here is an answer,
penned by Ali Kenanoglu, chairman of the Hubyar Sultan Alevi
Culture Association: “In Ottoman times, the Alevis existed as a
community and were mostly seen as people of ‘perverted’ beliefs,
which kept them under persecution. With the republic, the Alevis
became citizens and acquired a certain sense of security. But soon
the republic began to reveal its true face and banned the dervish
convents. … The system, on one hand, banned Alevism and subjected
Alevis to occasional massacres, but, on the other hand, it appointed
the same cornered Alevis as the republic’s guardians, out of fear of
Shariah. … Today, in 2013, the Alevis are realizing that neither
secularism nor a non-democratic, oppressive republic holds salvation
for them. … Without democracy, the republic means nothing.”
The republic’s traits are unsatisfactory, but, as Zaman columnist
Ahmet Turan Alkan notes, no one is longing for the sultanate.
New republic needed
A number of steps have been taken forward recently: Ethnic identities
have been recognized, though the demand for education in their mother
tongues remains unmet; the racist “oath” recited by schoolchildren
— starting with the line, “I’m Turkish, I’m honest,” and ending
with “How happy is the one who says ‘I’m Turkish'” — has been
abolished and public servants have been granted partial freedom to
wear the headscarf. Such steps would have been expected to help
ease the tensions. Yet, they have not only failed to be a remedy
but are threatening to create fresh trouble due to the government’s
confrontational policies and disregard for social consensus and the
resistance of secularist, nationalist and neo-nationalist quarters.
The frustration of prominent scholar Mehmet Altan sums up the
stalemate of both the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
and the main opposition. Altan, who advocates a “second republic”
as a solution to the problems and who had initially backed the AKP’s
reformist agenda, wrote the following in his piece for Radikal: “If
you only take a look at the first 28 pages of the AKP’s 2011 election
declaration, you will see how the party has become an admirer and a
hostage of Kemalism in just two years. Trying to get results while
linking the solution of problems to the emotional fluctuations of
‘the one and only’ is stoking the emotional fluctuations of society
itself, resulting in a collective ‘neurotic’ crisis. … After the
‘secularist’ version of Kemalism, we have now tried its ‘religionist’
form, only to find that it, too, has led us into a dead end.”
The articles of Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Alevi, rightist and leftist
writers all lead to one conclusion: An all-encompassing republic is
a must. There is progress in this direction, but it is not enough.
By Fehim TaÅ~_tekin AL Monitor
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.aina.org/news/20131030203615.htm