Turkishness or Turkey-ness?
Three weeks after it was leaked in the newspaper ‘Radikal’, a report
challenging the Kemalist doctrine of Turkey continues to divide liberal
and conservative thinkers and commentators
By Alex Penman
Athens Daily News
ISTANBUL. For three weeks, Turkey has been witnessing an unprecedented
debate, triggered by a minorities report issued by the prime minister’s
Human Rights Advisory Committee. The first of its kind to originate from
an official body, the report examined state policy on minority rights,
but it didn’t stop there. With its proposal to replace the Kemalist
model of a nation-state with a pluralistic, multicultural society, it
challenged the very foundations of the Turkish state. So extreme were
some of the reactions to the report that the committee was forced to
modify its suggestions. Even so, the country is now engaged in a bitter
dialogue over perceptions on citizenship, Turkish identity and the
nature of its constitution.
The question of Turkey’s minorities has remained taboo since the
foundation of the republic in 1923. But the EU Commission’s report on
the country’s progress towards accession, published on 6 October 2004,
found the protection of minorities inadequate, though it refrained from
making recommendations.
At present, Turkey doesn’t recognise any minorities besides the
“non-Muslims” mentioned in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, traditionally
restricted by the state to Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Turkey’s other
Christians – Roman Catholics, Protestants, Chaldeans and Syrian Orthodox
– are not included. Also ignored are Muslim groups, such as the
Alevites, who consider themselves distinct from the Turkish-Sunni
majority. And the huge Kurdish community (20-25 percent of the
population) has long been denied official recognition.
Kemalism
Turkey is one of the few remaining states with an official ideology:
Kemalism. The constitution’s preamble declares: “No actions against
Turkish national interests, Turkish national existence in its
indivisible state and land, Turkish historical and moral values or the
nationalism, modernity, reforms and principles of Ataturk can be
afforded protection. ”
Article III.1, which the report criticises, affirms: “The state, with
its territory and nation, is an indivisible whole. Its language is
Turkish.” Amendment to this Article is prohibited by the constitution.
The establishment holds that “Ataturk’s nationalism” has nothing to do
with racism, religious, linguistic or ethnic discrimination and is a
synonym for modernity, a liberation movement from religious
obscurantism, a call to defend Turkey’s independence and the secular
republic. “It is always made clear in school that Ataturk’s nationalism
must be equated with citizenship, the commitment to the state and its
republican ideals. It is equivalent to the French fraternity slogan, ”
says Jem Taner, a member of the Society for Ataturkist Thought.
Many, though, view Kemalism very differently. They argue that although
the constitution may not mention race directly, the concept of
nationhood enshrined in it rests on the idea that only one culture is
acceptable in the country. Minority rights lawyer Fethiye Chetin points
out some practical problems: “Turkey doesn’t recognise minorities’
religious leadership bodies. Minority institutions lack legal
recognition. This creates obstacles in property trials…”
“Turkey hasn’t honoured its Lausanne obligations,” proclaims Human
Rights Association member Ayshe Gyunaysu. “Greeks in Imvros still await
the reopening of their schools, closed in an ethnic-cleansing campaign
of the Sixties. Armenians are denied permission to restore churches in
Asia Minor. Minorities are portrayed as potential traitors. Schoolbooks
present them cooperating with the enemy, stabbing Turks in the back – a
paranoia bequeathed from late Ottoman times. Unsurprisingly, the word
has become pejorative.”
The report
Against such a background, the report by the Human Rights Advisory
Committee, which operates under the Prime Minister’s Office and consists
mainly of academics and civil servants, infuriated many.
The report argued that minorities cannot be divided into recognised and
unrecognised ones. Going a step further, the report argued that
Ataturk’s concept of “modernity” – a nation-state organised in a secular
republic, as opposed to the multi-ethnic, confessional Ottoman structure
– may have been adequate for the 1920s and ’30s, but is now obsolete.
Denouncing the constitution’s “monolithic society”, it proposed that the
latter be amended – including its ‘unamendable’ Article III.1. The
report proposed that “Turkishness” be replaced with “Turkey-ness”, this
being the appropriate word to describe the bond between citizen and
state, a term devoid of any ethnic connotations.
The publication of the report caused an uproar and divided political
opinion. An angry Foreign Minister Gul said: “We disapprove of the way
the report was published without being handed to us first.” And then,
even as the committee was preparing for a press conference, they found
themselves unable to enter the room reserved for them: the locks had
been changed. Fethi Bolayir, the president of the Society for Social
Thought and himself a member of the committee, termed the report “a
document of treason produced by agents of powers who want to divide
Turkey”. He then sued the committee’s president, Ibrahim Kaboglu, and
rapporteur, Baskin Oran, for abuse of power.
With the debate between the committee majority who supported the report
and the dissenting minority becoming increasingly acrimonious, the
Turkish public was confronted by an open debate over its identity for
the first time since the nation-state’s creation. “Eighty years have
elapsed since the proclamation of the republic, and the question ‘Who
are we?’ still haunts us,” wrote Haluk Shahin, of the newspaper Radikal.
“Everything is now up for discussion.” “The only ‘untouchable’ subject
remains the Armenian Question,” said Oran, referring to Turkey’s denial
of that genocide. “The concept of Turkey-ness leaves no need for
minorities, since all the country’s citizens are treated as equal.”
As Alevis and Kurds protested that they wanted to be considered not
minorities, but ‘co-founders of the republic’, Oran argued that all
Turkey’s citizens should indeed be considered founders of the republic.
Meanwhile, the Kemalist intelligentsia made known to the press that it
won’t tolerate any challenge to Ataturk’s tenets. “There is no need to
resort to Turkey-ness,” conservative Hurriyet protested, while
Cumhuriyet strove to demonstrate that from the Middle Ages ‘Turk’ has
been an umbrella term covering the Muslims of Europe and Asia Minor. In
their statements for the anniversary of the republic celebrations, both
the president and the chief of staff also rejected ‘Turkey-ness’ and
stressed that “minority cultures can only be tolerated if confined to
private life”. “There is only one people in Turkey – the Turkish people
– uniting individuals from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, ”
President Sezer said.
[Caption: The ruins of a Greek school in Agridia, Turkey, shut down in
1964. A last month’s minorities report by the Turkish prime minister’s
office says the state structure is incapable of embracing
multi-ethnicity.]
ATHENS NEWS, 05/11/2004 [November 5, 2004], page: A08
Article code: C13103A081
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