Today’s Zaman, Turkey
May 31 2009

Controversy

by DOGU ERGIL

Once again a spurious agenda item occupied the public debate when
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an said: `For years those who
had different ethnic identities have been expelled from our
country. This was the result of a fascist policy. Even we have
committed this mistake from time to time. When one thinks rationally
one tends to admit we have really committed grave mistakes.’ This
statement was made following the debate over the probable demining of
a vast area of arable land lying along the Turkish-Syrian border by
foreign firms who would receive the right of cultivating the land for
more than 40 years in return for their services. The nationalist and
xenophobic reflex surged again, becoming agitated by the putative sale
of the motherland to ill-willed `enemies’ who would eventually snatch
it away from us. The prime minister complained about this
shortsightedness that has cost the country so much in the
past. Needless to say, the opposition parties who think their role is
to oppose anything and everything the ruling party and its leader does
and says retorted by claiming that no minority has been expelled from
Turkey.

The problem of our beloved nation is that it is subjected to the
teaching of a fabricated history in which we Turks are always right
and often the victim of foreign and domestic `enemies.’ The end result
of this ideology-laden history teaching is ignorance of the historical
facts and the truth about what we have done. That is why an average
Turk believes that the 1915 deportation of over a million Armenians is
only a just measure for punishing them for committing treason. The
1923 population exchange with Greece that forced two-and-a-half
million people of Greek origin to migrate was a successful ethnic
purification that was necessary to build a nation-state. The 1934
intimidation that forced the Jewish citizens out of Thrace (European
Turkey) was a measure to secure the western lands from minorities in
preparation for the world war that was approaching. In 1941 and 1942,
non-Muslim males were drafted on short notice to work as laborers in
what were called `labor battalions.’ They were also subjected to
exorbitant taxes in order to force them to sell their property and
abandon businesses. This was a measure to Turkify the entrepreneurial
class, which was thought to be the right thing to do under the shadow
of Fascism and Nazism, then the fashion of the day. The (officially
organized and provoked) events of Sept. 6-7, 1955 saw the destruction
and looting of non-Muslim businesses and shrines in Ä°stanbul
and Ä°zmir with a number of casualties. This formidable threat
drove the point home that they were not welcome in this country. Greek
citizens mainly left for Greece and Jewish citizens, by and large,
went to Israel. These things were all done against the principles of
the constitutive Treaty of Lausanne (1923) that gave birth to the
Turkish Republic.

Then came the forced evacuation of thousands of Kurdish villages in
the ’80s and ’90s; a part of their population saw no future in the
country and left for a better life elsewhere where they would not be
oppressed and persecuted. Additionally, 15,000 leftists had either
been expatriated or forced to leave during the military regime
following the 1980 coup. In the last decade many young women wearing
headscarves were deprived of the right to higher education and had to
leave the country to receive professional education abroad. These are
all minorities of some kind whose rights have been denied for the sake
of `state security.’ One is tempted to ask `What kind of security is
this that works against the basic rights, freedom and welfare of its
citizens?’ We have not really produced a plausible answer to this
fundamental question yet. Failure to do so has left our democracy
immature and force of law has not been replaced by rule of law. Laws
continue to protect the state rather than its citizens.

In short, the prime minister was telling the truth. However, telling
the truth and being consistent with it indeed are two different
things. In the formation of the new Cabinet Mr. ErdoÄ?an has
left in place the minister of defense, who is on record as declaring
publicly how wonderful it has been to eliminate all the ethnic and
religious minorities to create our nation-state. Obviously, the
military establishment was not unhappy with this unfortunate public
statement, either; otherwise, the minister would not have been
reappointed. Additionally, all the institutions of the state have
taken part in the discrimination against minorities, limiting their
property rights through systematic confiscation to force a change of
proprietorship. The judiciary (e.g., Council of State) deems
non-Muslim minorities as `domestic aliens’ and treats their endowments
as foreign institutions in order to limit their rights to
property. Both the bureaucracy and the judiciary have been
instrumental in implementing the two principles that have been in
effect since the last decade of the Ottoman Empire: 1) to get rid of
the minorities, and 2) to transfer their properties to Muslim
citizens.

However, the usurpation of property has not made this nation any
richer. Entrepreneurship is not the same as proprietorship, and ethnic
or religious purity does not create problem-free and cohesive
nations. These truths have been realized after so much human suffering
and loss. What a pity.

31.05.2009