Sunday’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 16 2008

Academics: Gönül is right, Turkey would not be the same
without population exchange

Academics have expressed agreement with Defense Minister Vecdi
Gönül, who claimed recently that if Greeks and Armenians
were still living in the country, Turkey would not be the same
nation-state it is today. According to academics, Turkey would be a
more prosperous European Union country if the Greeks and Armenians had
not been forced to leave under the program of population exchange.

Gönül’s remarks defending the deportations of Greeks and
Armenians from Anatolia at the beginning of the 20th century have been
met with harsh criticism from intellectuals and civil society
organizations. Some academics, such as Professor DoÄ?u Ergil, a
Sunday’s Zaman writer, have argued that if these ethnic groups were
still living in Turkey people, like Gönül could never
become state ministers.
In his speech Gönül claimed that reform efforts during
the last years of the Ottoman Empire had been ineffective and unable
to `save the country.’ He suggested that the `success’ of the republic
lay in the nation-building process. `If there were Greeks in the
Aegean and Armenians in most places in Turkey today, would it be the
same nation-state? I don’t know what words I can use to explain the
importance of the population exchange, but if you look at the former
state of affairs, its importance will become very clear,’
Gönül said. He added that in those days Ankara was
composed of four neighborhoods — Armenian, Jewish, Greek and Muslim
— and claimed that after the nation-building process it became
possible to establish a national bourgeoisie.

The Lausanne Treaty, signed in 1923, called for a population exchange
between the Greek Orthodox citizens of the young Turkish Republic and
the Muslim citizens of Greece, which resulted in the displacement of
approximately 2 million people.

The Armenian population that was in Turkey before the establishment of
Turkish Republic was forced to emigrate in 1915, and the conditions of
this expulsion are the basis of Armenian claims of genocide.

Although the numbers are not clear, according to a census in 1914,
approximately 20 percent of the population living within the borders
of today’s Turkey were non-Muslims, while others claim that the number
was around 25 percent.

Academics such as Soli Ã-zel, Ferhat Kentel, Baskın Oran and
Ayhan Aktar stress that if the minorities had not been expelled,
Turkey would be a different place in terms of the Kurdish question,
the economy and secularism.

Aktar says there were two nations that eradicated their own
bourgeoisie, the Russians in the 1917 revolution and the Turks, first
by killing them and second by exchanging them. `This means that during
the 1923-1934 period the bourgeoisie was liquidated. It was not
possible to reach the export level of the Ottomans until 1928. Then
there was the 1929 crisis, which introduced statism to Turkey,’ he
says.

According to Kentel, statism created the bureaucracy and the new
capitalist segment supported by it got richer but, because they didn’t
know how to invest, they fed off of the resources of the state. This
attitude brought all kinds of evils: corruption, a tolerance for
mafia-style business and the legitimization of all types of immoral
trade rules.

Oran stressed that the ability to invest, produce, export and find
markets totally disappeared in 1915 and 1923. In an article published
in the Agos newsweekly and the Radikal daily this week,
industrialization was set back by at least 50 years. Ã-zel argued
that, after losing its minorities, Turkey had to spend 60 years
creating sufficient human capital. Ergil notes that the locals in
Anatolia asked state officials to bring back some of the minorities
because it was not possible to find professionals and artisans, such
as stove makers, mechanics and construction experts.

According to many academics, Turkey would also be a better place
culturally, too. In his article Oran cited some examples and asked his
readers to imagine what Turkey would look like if the cultural
developments spurred on by minorities had not be ceased. `Anatolia
before it was cleansed was a very civilized place. In Harput alone
there were 92 schools, and there was a theater there a year before
Atatürk was born. The Sasuryan brothers introduced photography
in 1890,’ he points out. Ã-zel agrees, adding that if the Greeks
and Armenians were still living in Turkey, Anatolia would not be a
place of tensions.

Academics also say some of Turkey’s other problems would be
different. For example, since there would be different cultures,
tolerance would be learned naturally and secularism would not be a
problem for Turkey. Ergil argues that Turkey would definitely be a
pluralistic country. He also recalls that before the forced emigration
of the Armenians, no one was talking about extreme poverty in eastern
Anatolia.

They all also agree that the Kurdish question would be
different. Kentel says there would be many languages spoken and that
this would help the development of tolerance for different
cultures. Aktar underlines that Turkey cannot have a population
exchange or force Kurds to emigrate but, at the same time, it is not
able to develop a culture of cohabitation. `If even only 5 percent of
the population was composed of minorities, Turkey would have a culture
of cohabitation and the Kurdish question would be at a different
level.’

16 November 2008, Sunday
AYÅ?E KARABAT ANKARA