REPERCUSSIONS OF REMARKS BY DEFENSE MINISTER ON THE ‘NATION-STATE’

Today’s Zaman
Nov 13 2008
Turkey

First Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on various occasions
that those who do not like Turkey’s "one nation, one flag" structure
can leave and go anywhere they like better.

Defense Minister Vecdi Gönul took this threatening discourse to new
heights on Monday with a speech he gave at the Turkish Embassy in
Brussels. "Would we be the nation-state we are today if the Greeks in
the Aegean region or the Armenians here and there continued to stay
in Turkey?" he asked. Gönul drew harsh criticism from intellectuals
and civil society organizations for expressing ideas in a way that
could be taken for justifying ethnic cleansing.

Ali Bayramoglu of Yeni Å~^afak criticizes Gönul for implying
that the nation-state [of Turkey] managed to exist by deporting
Armenians, Greeks and other minorities. "This is an unacceptable
discourse. Gönul’s remarks remind me of one of my previous interviews
with a [Turkish] Ä°stanbulite. He said Ä°stanbul had a population of
around 1 million in 1955. ‘A considerable number of this population
comprised minority groups. They acted as if they were the real owners
of the city. They were not sympathetic. At every opportunity they
made you feel they were different,’ the man told me. Now I see that
this mindset [to see minorities as an enemy] is still alive. This
is the mindset that tore us and Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armanian
journalist who was shot dead by an ultranationalist Turk in 2007,
apart. This mindset carries the sorrow of the Sept. 6-7 incidents [a
state-sponsored campaign designed to intimidate Turkey’s non-Turkish
communities into leaving their homeland to clear the way for a
homogeneous Turkish state] to our day. The fact that this mindset
has grabbed the opportunity to be represented by a prominent figure
of the ruling party is a misfortune for all of us," Bayramoglu states.

Star’s Eser KarakaÅ~_ says he is surprised to see that a defense
minister who did not utter a single word on the Oct. 3 Aktutun
terrorist attack that left many Turkish soldiers dead and who
does not brief the nation on issues directly related to national
defense has now delivered a speech on nation building. "He says:
‘Before the foundation of the republic, there were four districts in
Ankara, where Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Turks lived. Minorities
owned the fertile lands in the Aegean region. The most important
step in building this nation was the population exchange. Mind you,
would we be such a nation-state if the Greeks in the Aegean region or
Armenians here and there [in Turkey] continued to stay?’ Everything
he said was politically and legally scandalous," remarks KarakaÅ~_,
adding that Gönul violated the Constitution and committed a crime
with these remarks. "According to Article 66 of the Constitution,
Armenians [who number around 70,000] and Greeks [who number around
3,000] live in Turkey as our citizens. Gönul made a blunder by
considering these citizens a ‘threat to the nation-state.’ This is
a crime according to the Constitution. The defense minister should
either resign or be removed from office. He should, furthermore,
be tried in accordance with Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code
[TCK] since he declared Armenians and Greeks, who are our citizens,
non-national elements. This absurdity cannot have anything to do with
freedom of expression," KarakaÅ~_ concludes.

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