Europe throws up a volatile challenge to Turkey’s idea of national self
By SELCAN HACAOGLU

The Associated Press
11/23/04 19:32 EST

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – As a child, Hrant Dink dreamed of becoming
a homicide detective, but he faced an insurmountable obstacle. In
overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, Jews and Christians can’t join the
police.

Now that unwritten rule, product of a history of ethnic strife and
distrust of non-Muslim minorities, is coming into heated debate
as Turkey faces up to the reforms it must undertake to achieve its
cherished goal of joining the European Union.

Things almost came to blows earlier this month at a news conference by
a semiofficial human rights body, when its chairman, Ibrahim Kaboglu,
suggested Turkey must expand minority rights.

Fahrettin Yokus, a civil service union leader, grabbed the papers from
Kaboglu’s hands and ripped them up. “We don’t recognize this report;
it is aimed at dividing the country,” he shouted.

The EU demands, he charged, “are threatening our unity.”

Kaboglu, whose Human Rights Advisory Council was created by the
prime minister’s office, has sought police protection. His critics,
meanwhile, have petitioned state prosecutors to file treason charges
against Kaboglu and those who signed the statement that he read.

Tensions have heightened since an EU panel ruled last month that
for Turkey to negotiate its way into the prosperous 25-nation bloc,
it would have to meet European standards of democracy and human rights.

It urged Turkey to grant more rights to ethnic Kurds and recognize
Alawites, a religious sect rooted in Islam, as a minority. Jews and
Christians already have minority rights, but are still suffering
discrimination, such as exclusion from the police, Foreign Ministry
and military officers’ corps, the panel
said.

But while multiculturalism may be the norm in much of Europe, it’s
an explosive concept in Turkey. Here children open the school day
by saying “Happy is the one who says ‘I am a Turk,”‘ and the word
“minority’ is seen by nationalists as code for national fragmentation.

More than a quarter of Turkey’s 71 million people are either Kurds,
Alawites or share both identities. It has an estimated 130,000
non-Muslims – Greek, Armenian and other Christians, and Jews.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer says the debate over minority rights is
“destructive,” and that every citizen of the state – Muslim or other –
is a Turk and is bound to the Turkish state.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul ruled out any official recognition of
Muslim minorities. As for non-Muslims, he acknowledged that there are
“possible snags,” such as property rights, which the government was
trying to address.

The military, which regards itself as the guardian of a united, secular
Turkey, spelled out its distaste for the idea of Muslim minority
rights in a statement read to a news conference by its deputy chief,
Gen. Ilker Basbug.

“The nation is a whole. It cannot be seen as made up of pieces,” it
said. Otherwise “this would open the way to the breakup of the state.”

This unyielding approach is rooted in the founding doctrines of the
Turkish republic that arose in 1923 on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

Although the new constitution was staunchly secular, many Turkish
Muslims regarded Christians and Jews as foreigners in their new
state. They were deeply suspicious of the Greeks and Armenians, the
main Christian communities, which had risen up against the Ottoman
Empire as it collapsed.

The new definition of Turkishness was strictly enforced, especially
on the Kurds who dominate the southeast. Their language was suppressed
and a Kurdish rebellion has left 37,000 dead since 1984.

Sectarian clashes also broke out between Alawites and the Sunni Muslim
majority in the late 1970s and again in the 1990s.

Dink, an Armenian Christian, is now 50 and a journalist. He told NTV,
a private network, that all he wanted was to catch murderers. “But
I was barred from becoming a detective in this country because I am
seen as a security concern.”