Today’s Zaman
23 August 2009, Sunday

Population exchange proposal anachronistic, but still terrorizing

Mümtaz Soysal

According to one man, there is a long-term plan to establish an
independent Kurdish state jointly designed by the United States,
Israel, certain Western groups and Kurdish nationalists, and an
element of this plan is the dissociation of Turkey’s southeastern
Anatolia region altogether with people living there in order to annex
this region to the soon-to-be-established state.

Also according to him, in line with the upcoming course of affairs
vis-à-vis the Kurdish issue in the country, `there will be a need
for drawing definite red lines against demands within the Southeast
that contradict the principles of the nation-state, such as regional
autonomy and education in a language other than the official language.
While highlighting the economic-social improvement, and eventually
there will be a need for proposing an exchange of the Turkmen
population in Iraq with those [Kurdish people in the Southeast] who
don’t want to obey these conditions.’
His name is Mümtaz Soysal, a former foreign minister and a
professor of constitutional law. Soysal has asserted that he has a say
not only in the lives of millions of Kurdish people living in Turkey,
but also in the lives of the Turkmen people in neighboring Iraq. His
view summarized above was reflected on Monday in his regular column,
published in the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. His column’s title was
`Absolute Solution.’
In response to critics, Soysal later said he has never been a racist
person or a supporter of ethnic separatism. `There is a Kurdish state
being established just near us. Those who don’t want to live within a
republic that is respectful to ethnic rights but is not based on
ethical rights, let them go to that `Kurdish republic.’ We can’t keep
anyone here by force,’ he said. He was still assuming that he had a
say on the fate of the Kurdish people living in this country —
apparently as a leading figure of a camp that presumably owns this
country, unlike the Kurds.
The connotations of the phrase `population exchange’ are linked with
deeply held grievances on these lands, thus this is not solely a term
related to social engineering attempts, which are also common here.
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, signed in the aftermath of the War of
Independence and after the Ottoman Empire came to an end, set in
motion a population exchange between Greek Orthodox citizens of the
young Turkish Republic and 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 according to
some, the conditions of this expulsion are the basis of Armenian
claims of genocide.
Beside the still-ongoing political disputes concerning the forced
emigration of Armenians, both Greek and Turkish literary traditions
are still producing books explaining the grievances and homesick
feelings held by Greeks and Turks who were subjected to population
exchange. Those books also explain how those feelings have been
inherited by younger generations.
Legacy of `Ýttihat ve Terakki’
Admitting that even putting forth such a proposal in itself spells a
threat against Kurdish people or those who favor a broadening of the
fundamental rights of Kurdish people living in this country, lawyer
Sezgin Tanrýkulu, however, believes that such a proposal can find
no echo within the public.
`Soysal’s proposal reflects a mentality that leads to concerns, but
at the same time, it is not possible to explain or understand the
mentality through sensible arguments,’ Tanrýkulu, the Diyarbakýr
representative of the Turkey Human Rights Foundation (TÝHV), told
Sunday’s Zaman.
`This society still has certain traumas due to similar implementations
in the 1920s, and proposing such an implementation under the
circumstances of the 21st century is not acceptable. Fortunately, such
a proposal has no ground or support in the public, and it is not
implementable either,’ Tanrýkulu added, noting that he believed
that Soysal reflected a fascist view and such fascist views should not
be under protection of freedom of expression since they reflect a
stance that contradicts basic humanitarian values.
According to Kurdish author and politician Orhan Miroðlu, proposals
such as the one voiced by Soysal are not new and unfortunately have a
degree of support within the society.
`This is basically ethnic engineering, and it is a brainchild of
Ýttihat ve Terakki [the Committee of Union and Progress]. All of
the policies implemented by Ýttihat ve Terakki following 1915 are
reflections of this ethnic engineering,’ Miroðlu told Sunday’s
Zaman, referring to Ýttihat and Terakki’s ideology, which espoused
purifying all of Anatolia through a `Turkification’ of all its
segments.
`With its recent move toward resolving the Kurdish issue, I believe
that the ruling Justice and Development Party [AK Party] is playing a
historical role, no matter whether the results of this attempt will
eventually be found satisfactory or not by the Kurdish people. What
matters is the fact that they have attempted to change the dominant
mental structure within Turkey. In response, a camp symbolized by
Soysal and others has been terrorizing both Turkish and Kurdish people
with such proposals. Unfortunately they may succeed in finding a
response from within the society via this terrorizing impact,’
Miroðlu said.
He also sarcastically questioned whether Soysal was sure that Turkmens
in Iraq would be eager to come to Turkey, as they have been enjoying
certain cultural and political rights within the Kurdish regional
administration in northern Iraq.
A professor once
This is not the first time Soysal has astonished people with his
views. In February, he openly suggested that one’s expression of a
desire for a coup falls under `freedom of expression.’ He was speaking
within the context of a debate concerning suspects in the Ergenekon
investigation. Ergenekon is a clandestine terrorist organization
accused of plotting to overthrow the government by fomenting a coup.
Earlier, following the AK Party’s clear victory in the July 22, 2007
parliamentary elections, Soysal appeared on television and asked
publicly, `Do we have to wait another four years for this party to
leave?’
Seeing Soysal expressing such views was particularly painful to those
who once attended his constitutional law lectures at the Ankara
University faculty of political sciences, known as Mülkiye. The
courses were almost legendary, with high numbers of students flocking
to the classes to listen to this professor back the protection of
fundamental freedoms and rights under the constitution.
Baskýn Oran, a professor of international relations who also gave
lectures at the same faculty for decades, considers Soysal a symbol of
the sad situation of so-called leftist ideology within Turkey.
`When I look at the 1960s and ’70s, I see that we had actually been
defending Kemalist ideology in the name of being leftists. The holy
bridge between leftism and Kemalism was then anti-imperialism, and
some of us have unfortunately still remained committed to this
understanding,’ Oran told Sunday’s Zaman. `On the other hand, please
do not ask me how a well-informed professor of constitutional law like
Soysal can offer such a population exchange proposal.’
Instead, Oran gave an anecdote from his university years: It is 1968;
Oran and his friends chat and criticize a professor for still using
his lecture notes from 1951. The late Seha Meray, a professor of law,
approaches and chides them for their critical remarks against their
professor. `Some professors teach you how you should be, and some
professors teach you how you should not be,’ Meray tells Oran and his
friends.
`Back in the 1960s, Soysal somehow taught us how we should be, and
nowadays he is teaching us how we should not be,’ Oran concluded.

23 August 2009, Sunday
EMÝNE KART ANKARA