Ethnicity: Sticky Wicket or Slippery Slope? (2018)

From the May 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ethnicity has been a very sensitive topic since the foundation of the modern Turkish Republic. The causes of this sensitivity have their roots in the endemic oppression and persecution of non-Muslims via taxation and pogroms which intensified with the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the occupation of large parts of eastern Turkey by Russia following the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) when Christian Armenians were widely perceived as collaborators. Then further with the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from the Balkans and Caucasus following the Balkan Wars, when as many as 850,000 of these usually destitute refugees were settled as a matter of policy in Armenian-populated areas leading to resentment and violence.

With the foundation of the new republic there was an obvious need to try and weld a cohesive whole, a ‘Turkishness’, that could patch over the divisions together with a need to bury the persecutions and oppression of the recent past. The latter not least because of the probable involvement of some members of the new republican authorities in those actions.

A Turk of the new republic and ‘Turkishness’ was defined as ‘anyone who is attached to the Turkish state as a citizen.’ This is enshrined in the constitution.

With the foundation of this fragile new republic came a blanket of secrecy about the turbulent and violent times leading up to it. Certain subjects were made taboo and remain so to this day. A close second after talk about ‘Armenian Genocide’ is the subject of ethnicity.

During the periods of greatest internal conflict, war, mass deportations and killings countless numbers of Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Syriacs converted to Islam to avoid the consequences of ‘being different’. Children were displaced, lost and orphaned in their thousands and were ‘adopted’ by Turks and Kurds to be raised as Muslims.

So much of this might well have stayed in the dusty cupboards of a murky period in modern Turkey’s history apart from one action by the present government – it has made available, online, the genealogical database of the ethnicity of all citizens dating back to Ottoman times.

A few short years ago, during a period of rapprochement with the Kurds, this might have made less of an impact. Today, when the AK Party government is involved in conflict with its own Kurdish population, war in Syria, internal repression and in need of a pact with the fascist Nationalist Action Party (MHP) in order to bolster its weakening support, it has caused a mighty stir. Such has been the interest that when the site went ‘live’ on the 8th of February it quickly crashed only to be back up again on the 14th February.

In a country equally divided between nationalism and tolerance Turks who thought they were ‘Turks’ have discovered that they are not as ‘pure’ as they believed, that they have a different ethnicity or religion. After so many years you might wonder if it really matters. Social media is helping to answer that question. ‘Crypto-Armenians, Jews and Greeks in the country will now be exposed’ or ‘traitors will finally learn their lineage’ are commonplace comments.

Just imagine, a man who had served as the director of religious affairs (1972-76) of this country by the name of Lütfi Doğan had a brother who was the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul Sinozk Kalustyan (1963-90). When, a few years ago, the Armenian language newspaper Agos revealed that Sabiha Gökçen the adopted daughter of Atatürk and Turkey’s first female military pilot was of Armenian parentage it convulsed the country. Hrant Dink, the author of this, was placed under investigation. He was then gunned down on the street in 2007.

Yusuf Halacioğlu, the director of the Historical Society of Turkey in 2007, who had bluntly threatened, ‘Don’t make me angry. I have a list of converts I can reveal down to their streets and homes’, went on to become a Nationalist Action Party (MHP) MP.

In 2013, Agos newspaper reported that the government was secretly coding minorities in population registers: Greeks were 1, Armenians were 2 and Jews were 3. The covert classification of religious/ethnic minorities was met with widespread outrage.

To answer the question ‘does it matter?’ If you suddenly discover that you are a Crypto-Armenian/Greek/Jew/et al consider this also: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is on record (YouTube) saying, ‘We are accused of being Jews, Armenians or Greeks.’ To his followers, nationalists, the AK Party trolls on social media and the fanatical nationalist gunmen it matters. To the non-Turkish Turk who is denied a job in public service it matters. To the young man who must undertake conscription it matters. At best they are treated with suspicion and at worst as terrorists.

Learning of their ancestral roots in other counties, particularly European ones, has led to a spike in Turks enquiring about citizenship and/or dual nationality. Those who found that their ancestry traces back to EU-member countries such as Bulgaria, Greece and Romania have been particularly keen to look into possible double citizenship opportunities. Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are also said to be receiving citizenship applications from Turkish citizens, with many submitting legal enquiries to the justice, foreign and interior ministries of the countries, as well as their consulates and embassies in Turkey.

National registers of ethnicity are divisive and dangerous – and lethal in the wrong hands.

A.N.

Turkey: What’s Going On? (2018)

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

From the March 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

 ‘What on earth is going on in Turkey these days?’ It’s a good question. What indeed is going on in Turkey.

There are no simple answers because there is usually no clear grasp of the complexities of the socio-political-cultural anachronisms that make up Turks and Turkey. A ‘riddle inside a mystery inside an enigma’ comes to mind and yet Russia is an open book when compared with Turkey.

Turkey is a one-man dictatorship, a police state.

On the day following the failed coup of 15 July, 2016 the recently elected president declared a state of emergency. This was illegal on two counts: first, the presidency does not assume executive authority until after the general election in 2019; second, constitutional law states that, ‘Extraordinary regimes (state of emergency) can be declared only in the case of widespread violence that cannot be contained.’The coup attempt of 15 July unfolded only in Ankara and Istanbul and was overturned within six hours at most.

What followed the declaration of the state of emergency and its renewal every three months since has had a profound effect upon the lives of every Turk. Over the past eighteen months the number of people sacked from the bureaucracy (armed services, police, judiciary, doctors, administrators, schools and universities, etc.) stands at approx. 125,300. 50,500 have been arrested, 169,000 are subject to legal proceedings. These people are not just without jobs, they are now unemployable. They have families who depend on them. Six news agencies, 50 newspapers, 18 television channels, 29 publishing houses, 20 magazines, 22 radio stations and 1,528 associations have been banned. 145 journalists have been arrested, and 2,500 journalists have been left jobless because of the closure of media outlets. Ten members of parliament have been arrested and are held in prison. Many elected mayors from the HDP and CHP political opposition parties have been removed from office and ‘administrators’have replaced them.

Dissent or disagreement is dangerous and can lead to assault, imprisonment and death. Illegal, armed militias such as Halk Özel Harekatı (People’s Special Security) and the Osmanlı Ocakları 1453 (Ottoman Hearths 1453) which are aligned with the ruling party are seen on the streets, dressed in similar style to ISIS and other Takfiri groups, ready to attack any protesters often in collusion with the police. This is their slogan: ‘Erdoğan means the nation. One dies for Erdoğan, one kills for Erdoğan. Those who tried to test this on 15 July saw it for themselves.’

Social media is patrolled by paid trolls looking for deviants. A wrong word on Facebook or Twitter can result in a midnight raid by police and internment for months awaiting a hearing in a system purged of non-believers. Social media platforms are monitored nationally and controlled via regional throttling or ‘off switches’. Regardless of your ISP everything passes through just one state-controlled portal. The list of banned or censored websites is massive –from the atheistic views of Richard Dawkins to Wikipedia. A single word in a blog-post can see a site blocked.  The levels of control are what Big Brother’s wet dreams were about. Virtual Private Networks are the only way of avoiding censorship. Self-censorship is the most common way to avoid the all-seeing eye.

So, if Erdoğan and the AK Party divide the country almost exactly in half, as they do –what unites it? Nationalism and the symbols of nationalism. Turkey is a young country born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Back then there was no real concept of what a ‘Turk’ might be or a Syrian or Kurd for that matter. Within the empire there were only Ottomans and as Ataturk set about creating the Turkish state (founded 1923) he was faced by a largely uneducated and indifferent population. His tool to weld these disparate peoples into one entity was his own brand of ultra-nationalism and personality cult as the saviour of the Turks. It served him and his successors well but as time has shown it is an explosive force on a very short fuse.

Turks have been raised on a diet of nationalism, first via their parents, then at school, the national football and basketball teams, flags everywhere—flying from flagpoles and houses, carved into the mountainsides along with Ataturk’s words in letters a mile high, ‘Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyene’ or ‘Happy Is He Who Calls Himself A Turk’. Then, for young men, comes conscription and ‘serving the nation’ and the chance to become a ‘martyr’ with a full military funeral and a flag flying over their grave. Conscientious objection has no status in the legal code. Money can buy the more affluent a reduced term at a ‘cushy’ posting.

For the vast majority national pride is not an option—they have mostly been offered no other way of thinking. Turks are some of the kindest, most warm-hearted and generous of people. Self-deprecating, they are masters of making fun of themselves and yet if you insult their country or their flag, something they would never do, then you could well be facing your worst nightmare.

It is this characteristic that politicians like Erdoğan foster and exploit when the need arises. At the height of his popularity he began a truly constructive process of reconciliation with the Kurds. ‘Secret’negotiations were happening with Abdullah Öcalan from his prison cell. Whilst things were moving ahead on that front behind the scenes there were problems with the credit-bubble powered economy and deep levels of corruption within the regime, with their cronies and by Erdoğan personally. As the reality began to dawn on people he and the AK Party began to dip seriously in the polls –something had to give and that something was rapprochement with the Kurds.

A series of, probably, false-flag bomb attacks occurred including in Ankara. In what amounted to a civil war in the south-eastern provinces the army and paramilitary police were unleashed complete with tanks and helicopter gunships. Kurdish towns and enclaves were obliterated. Unknown numbers were killed and displaced before ‘peace’ was achieved. The flags waved, the media cheered and every political party except the predominantly Kurdish HDP applauded the strength of Erdoğan. Then came another astute move. He invited into the administration the far-right National Action Party/MHP and thus cemented his nationalist credentials and shored up his falling popularity.

Finally, like a gift from the gods, on 15 June 2016 came the attempted coup followed by the declaration of a (permanent?) state of emergency and rule by presidential decree. This will probably extend beyond the upcoming election period and ensure that countless thousands of opposition ballot papers that disappear into rubbish tips at each election will not be the subject of any recounts. The rest, as they say, is history.

What does the future hold for this country? Whilst Erdoğan lives, he rules. That said there are persistent rumours about his health and there is no successor in sight who has his metal and political cunning. Many Turks speak of civil war, but not openly, of course.

A.N.