TURKEY: RELIGIOUS MINORITIES WATCH CLOSELY AS ELECTION DAY APPROACHES
Yigal Schleifer

EurasiaNet, NY
July 19 2007

The Princes’ Islands, a small archipelago about an hour’s ferry ride
from Istanbul, are perhaps the last remnant of the city’s cosmopolitan
past. The summer home of a large part of Istanbul’s Armenian, Greek
and Jewish communities, the islands are one of the few places in
Turkey where you can still hear Ladino and Greek spoken on the street.

Kinali, one of the smaller islands, is a favorite among Istanbul’s
Armenians. Along its leafy main street, markets sell Armenian
delicacies, while down on the rocky beach, men and women of all ages
sun themselves while looking out upon the Istanbul skyline.

Despite the island’s tranquility, the vacationers’ minds are not at
ease. Turkey will hold parliamentary elections on July 22, and many
members of Turkey’s small, but historic religious minorities believe
these elections are the most important in decades.

On the one hand, Turkey’s successful government, led by the
liberal-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), has been accused
of trying to undermine the country’s secular foundations and to
promote the role of Islam in public life. On the other hand, the
country’s secular opposition has increasingly embraced rhetoric that
is nationalist and anti-Western, part of a wider nationalist surge
that has already turned violent. Last January, an ultra-nationalist
teenager shot to death Hrant Dink, an outspoken Armenian journalist, on
an Istanbul sidewalk. [For background see the Eurasia insight archive].

nsight/articles/eav012207.shtml
A few months later, a group of young men brutally murdered three
evangelical Christians in the Turkish city of Malatya. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].

nsight/articles/eav042507.shtml

While in previous votes people sometimes didn’t bother to leave
the beach to go cast their votes on the mainland, islanders say this
election is different. "This time, people are aware of the seriousness
of these elections. As minorities, these elections are very important
for us," says Nadin Papuccian, a 22-year-old Armenian sitting with
friends at a waterside cafe.

Though small, numbering less than 100,000 in a country of 70 million,
Turkey’s officially recognized minorities – Armenians, Greeks and
Jews – loom large in the country’s imagination, and in how Turkey is
perceived abroad.

Ankara often uses the minorities’ continued presence to present Turkey
as a mosaic where different religious groups coexist peacefully. At
the same time, religious freedom is consistently one of the barometers
by which Turkey’s progress on human rights issues and its ongoing
European Union membership bid are measured. Also, problems revolving
around the minorities – from the Armenian genocide debate to the
Cyprus issue and the continuing closure of a major Orthodox Christian
seminary on Heybeli, another of the Princes’ Islands – continue to
haunt Turkey domestically and in foreign affairs. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].

nsight/articles/eav110806b.shtml

The July 22 election comes in the midst of a raging debate over the
role of Islam in public life and the question of whether the AKP
is committed to maintaining Turkey’s secular system. Despite that,
it appears that a large number of Turkey’s Christians are supporting
the party, which has worked hard to portray itself as committed to
democratization and human rights.

"The AK Party is more moderate and less nationalistic in its dealings
with minorities. The Erdogan government listens to us – we will vote
for the AK Party in the next elections," Mesrob II, the Armenian
patriarch in Turkey, told the German magazine Der Spiegel in a recent
interview.

Meanwhile, Agos, the Armenian weekly, estimates close to 60 percent
of Turkey’s 70,000 Armenians will vote for the AKP. "I’m a Christian,
but I’m not scared of the AKP. They are working for the good of the
country, they are respecting other cultures and accepting the rules of
the EU," says Aret Cavdar, an Istanbul steel trader who is summering
in Kinali. "I don’t know if they are honest about this or not, but
I haven’t seen another government working this well."

Mihail Vasiliadis, editor of Apoyevmatini, a Greek-language daily
newspaper based in Istanbul, says he believes Turkey’s miniscule Greek
community – an estimated 2,000 people remaining from a population
that numbered over a million in the early 1920’s – is also backing
the AKP. "[AKP leaders] are more liberal towards the minorities. I
do not deny that they are Islamists, but they are the only [ones]
that will guarantee Turkey’s integration with Europe," he says.

Vasiliadis points out to a debate last year in parliament over
reform-minded legislation introduced by the AKP that would have
liberalized the strict rules governing minority-run foundations
and would have created a mechanism for returning minority property
confiscated by the state. The bill was strongly opposed by MPs from the
secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition
party. Opponents claimed the bill would give foreign powers more
control in the country. "When you look at the other [Turkish political]
parties, they consider minorities as part of another nation. They
see us as a cancer within the nationalist structure," Vasiliadis says.

In contrast, members of Turkey’s 20,000-member Jewish community appear
to be leaning towards the CHP, currently the only viable secular
opposition to the AKP, despite the fact that the party has grown
increasingly hostile to the United States and the EU over the last
several years and has a poor track record when it comes to minority
rights. The party has also hinted that it might form a coalition with
far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), whose stance on minority
issues is even worse.

Still, for many Jews, Islamism in Turkey has been synonymous with
anti-Semitism, and concerns about the AKP’s Islamic roots and agenda
have not been allayed. Nisim Cohen, a textile merchant eating at a
kosher restaurant on Buyukada, the largest of the Princes’ Islands,
says he will vote for the CHP, though he’s not happy about it. "I
don’t like [the CHP], but I don’t have a choice," Cohen says. "The
AKP shows a nice face, but in their hearts I fear they want to make
this an Islamic country. They will not keep the Republic as it is."

Adds Viktor Kuzu, an advertising executive who is also a former
columnist for Salom, the Jewish community’s weekly newspaper: "The
last year put questions in our mind. If [the AKP] could have the power
to change the educational system, the court system and the interrupt
the way we live, then that is not a good option."

"So let’s have an AKP government that is still in charge, but has
less power. Hopefully that will be the scenario," Kuzu suggested.

Members of Turkey’s religious minorities are keenly aware of the
reality that they are effectively, though not legally, excluded from
top positions in public service, politics and the military. No party,
for example, is running with any high-profile Christian or Jewish
candidates. "In this country, Turk means Muslim Turk," Baskin Oran,
an Ankara University professor who is running as an independent
candidate for parliament in Istanbul, and who is also expected to
get strong support from Armenian voters, told the English-language
newspaper Today’s Zaman.

Rifat Bali, an Istanbul-based independent researcher and historian
who has written extensively on Turkey’s minorities, says despite some
improvement, the AKP’s track record on minority rights is spotty. "I
don’t think they tried to change the atmosphere regarding minorities,"
he says. "Take the Malatya murders or the Dink murder: besides paying
lip service, nothing was done. There was no strong statement issued."

Critics have pointed out that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime
minister and leader of the AKP, continues to host on his private
airplane writers from Vakit, an Islamist newspaper that publishes
rabidly anti-Semitic articles. And when the mainstream media recently
raised hackles after it turned out that one of the foreign investors
in a consortium that bought Turkey’s state-owned chemical company
was of Armenian descent, the government quickly stated that it would
review the sale.

Bali suggested that there was a superficial quality to Turkey’s
EU-mandated efforts to democratize society as part of the accession
process, asserting that the AKP has taken no action to curb both
Islamist and ultra-nationalist media outlets from promoting racist and
anti-Semitic views. "It goes on as before, with no one interfering,"
Bali said.

Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in
Istanbul.