My take on minority related issues.
February 28, 2012 at 8:11 pm
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2012 at 8:12 pm by kılıç_mehmet.)
On demand, I've opened a thread stating my view on dealing with minority related issues.
First of all, I want to talk about minority issues in my own country, I can hear people saying, "ah, again?", but I will make references to minority issues in other countries aswell.
Our country has been in a civil war ever since the foundation of the current republic of Turkey. We had several other incidents of ethnic rebellions in the past, most of whom have their own country now, with one, namely Yugoslavia, having split up after splitting from the Ottoman empire, forming three different nation states.
The last nation within the Ottoman Empire to form a nation state were the Turks. Our forefathers abolished the Ottoman dynasty, and the caliphate, and now we have our republic thanks to them.
Of course, throughout the formation, various population exchanges were also made, which allowed our country to consist of a Turkish ethnic majority and various minorities.
Now, I'll count the minorities that I'm aware of, and how much of the population they might make up.
The largest minority are undoubtedly the Kurds(including the Zaza). They are a distinct people, with distinct customs, language and everything.
They number about 10-15 million.
The rest are made up from Caucasians, meaning,Georgians, "Circassians"(Abkhazians, Adyge, Lezgi, Ubykh and other tribes), Laz, and non-Turkish Balkan people, like Bosniaks, Pomaks(Bulgarian speaking moslems), Cigany/Roma/Gypsies(they have various names in the Turkish language, depending on the region), who in total number about 6-7 million.
The minorities I've counted so far are all of the moslem faith, and the treaty of Lausanne which defines our current borders does not count moslems of different ethnicities as minorities on their own right, instead lumping them with the Turkish majority.
Outside of these, there are the officially recognized minorities.
These are the Greeks, Armenians and Jews. These possess the right to open their own schools, print their own newspapers in their own language, although most do not have their own TV channel or radio.
Now, you'll ask, what exactly is your problem with minorities?
Answer, none. From my viewpoint, I have zero problems with any of the above mentioned minorities.
But as I said, our country has been in a state of civil war of which the authorities have denied so far to keep the population from getting into conflict.
This began before the foundation of the republic. Seeing that the christian minorities in the Ottoman empire got their own respective nation states, the moslem Kurd tried to do the same. However, after numerous failed attempts, the state of Turkey was formed. The fact that this state was built on the Turkish identity, since this country is formed from a Turkish majority, and has been known as the land of Turks for centuries, this doesn't sound too off, but to them, it did.
Until that time, Kurds were mostly independent of the Ottoman rule.
They were still under Ottoman sovereignity, however, had autonomous communities, did not pay taxes, and were not levied into the army.
With the foundation of the republic, this changed. The Kurds were told that they had to pay taxes and serve in the military just like everyone else.
Well, some did not like this, and rebelled at two different locations.
One was today's Tunceli, where the Alawi Kurdish majority lives, and the other was centered around Diyarbakır, where the Sunni moslem Kurds live.
Both of these rebellions were crushed, and the Kurds abstained from rebellion for a time.
During that time, several decisions were made, based on the nature of these two rebellions.
These rebellions arose under the leadership of charismatic, religious figures, who were also supported by the landlords of the area.
Meaning, controlling the kurds was tied to controlling the landlords, although under an act, all non-governmental religious organisations were closed down, which spelled doom for any sheikh who tried to found his own dargah there or here.
So, the landlords were kept happy, however, later on, the rise of leftist ideologies in Turkey saw a reawakening in the Kurd's rebellious spirit.
They had waited for some time, but they started anew by first joining some leftist organisations, which were not exclusively beset by Kurds, but had a Turkish majority, and well, it's understandable, since at the opposite end, lay the "nationalists", so to say, and it'd be somewhat funny if a Kurd would support a Turkish nationalist group or agenda.
After the army laid the hammer on the escalating political violence in Turkey, and condemned many people to prisons, some of these said that this was the time. Turkey was now more stable, but once the people had stopped fighting about left and right, the time had come to settle the old scores.
The Kurds founded the PKK, the Communist party of Kurdistan, and began their campaign of violence against our military at Eruh.
Even now the BDP who is the official party of the Kurds holds annual meetings on the date of the first attack.
Aside from that, we had a few ill runs with a few other moslem minorities in the past which had been forgotten, even by them, and most of the other minorities rather stay clear of the violence, although, they have recently begun to demand similiar rights to the Kurds, although not independence like they did before.
Now, what do the minorities want from our country?
Requests include;
-Recognition as minorities, and official status
-Their own schools in their own language
-Their own newspapers and TV/radio channels
-Autonomy(applicable to Kurds)
With the exception of autonomy, many non-Turkish minority organisations have expressed demands similar to what I've written down.
So, what is your opinion on these, I hear you ask.
Well, my opinion is this. At least two of these demands put the minorities in direct confrontation with the Turkish majority.
Which ones? The matter of language, for one.
And the other, autonomy.
And the recognition as minorities does not? Well, recognizing them as minorities does not put us under any obligation to give them the rights to their own schools, nor any degree of autonomy. The treaty of Lausanne is explicit on this issue as only the non-moslem minorities are officially recognized minorities on their own right, so even if we recognize any of the aforementioned groups as minorities, we do not bear any legal obligations based on the treaty to fulfill their demands regarding their language and autonomy.
Giving them their own schools would allow the minorities, especially the Kurds who want to carve their own state on our lands the ability to raise their own elite. Not only that, they'd form the basis of a country by unifying their language. The Kurdish language has several dialects which are not ver understandable to eachother. I know this from various studies and my own experiences with Kurds, most Kurds from different areas communicate using Turkish, rather than the kurdish language.
So if they were to create a common tongue, a common alphabet, and schools in which they will teach this language, they'd be an even more potent threat to Turkish interests than they were ever before.
Hell, if the whole lot of the Kurds would take up arms, it would be better on my part, than for them to have a unified language and alphabet.
Of course, the children who will graduate from these schools will have to seek work somewhere. I'm not sure where a kurd could find a job with that kurdish diploma of his/hers, and if they get their own universities, they certainly would want to work in the public sector, not by using the Turkish, but the Kurdish language.
So, this brings us to the second part of the trouble.
The Kurds will soon demand that autonomy be given to them as soon as possible. If not, they certainly will again take up arms against the state, until they can pressure a weak government to give in to their demands.
Until now, some were given unto them, like a TV channel, TRT6, which belongs to the government, and is strictly regulated.
IF they do get autonomy in the southeastern portion of Turkey, they certainly will try to improve their own infastructure to suit a Kurdish state.
Remember how Kosovo declared it's independence? Kosovo was an autonomous community within the borders of Serbia. After declaring independence, they now have gained recognition from several other countries aswell.
Of course, I'm pretty sure that a Kurdish state will not gain recognition from any of the neighboring countries, like Syria, Iran and Iraq, as the Kurds do present the same problem in their countries, as they do in our country. But I'm sure that several western and some eastern countries will recognize this newly founded state, and will pressure Turkey to do so, if a weak government should be in place as to get them as far as to declare independence, I'm fairly certain that Turkey will recognize this state aswell.
This presents a lot of problems for the Turkish majority that inhabits this country.
As a member of that majority, I have to look out for the interests of my own, as the kurds look out for the interests of their own.
The other minorities in our country are too few, and most are people who have emigrated to present day Turkey from somewhere, to actually demand autonomy and any of the following things, as they do not present a clear majority anywhere in Turkey, although they have their own associations.
So, what has been done so far in Turkey in regards to the minority question?
Well, the most obvious thing was to initiate an American-type of system, which emphasizes a single identity.
Apart from being unacceptable from the side of the majority of minority populations, this isn't acceptable from my part either.
I define Turkishness only in ethnic terms, not on terms of nationality, or country. If I did the latter, there would be no reason for me to call myself a Pan-Turkist, as anyone who declares himself to be a Turk could be one, just like anyone who lives in America is "American", even though they might have different ethnic backgrounds.
The reason why this approach does not work is the following:
The US is a country founded in the new world. Most of the people who live there had ancestors who had severed their ties with their home countries to go an live in this new country. They had married amongst other ethnic groups, and are now not really of any of their parental ethnicities, but refer to themselves only as Americans, although some may use different terms like afro-american, italian-american and etc, but my point is, that this does not lay the ground for nationalistic tendencies to sprout for any of the mentioned groups like it does in Turkey.
In short, the US is the perfect melting pot, due to the fact it partially, or totally severs the connections that people might have had with their ancestral homelands and ethnic groups.
In Turkey, this is not the case, in particular for the Kurds. Kurds still live in close knit communities, and are particularly effective at networking.
Whenever they choose to hold a protest anywhere in Turkey, they are able to muster more than a thousand people to take part in that protest, while Turks cannot even muster half of that number regionally whenever we hear that one of our soldiers has been killed in combat with the PKK.
The same goes for the other minorities, who are less in number than the Kurds and even more hellbent on preserving their numbers, as if they did intermarry, they'd cease to exist within a century, and so would their culture and language.
If I were 100% sure, that the Kurds were unable to found and support their own state, I'd be more than happy to oblige their requests for autonomy, just to see them crawl back to us asking for money.
But a state like Israel, that is backed by western funds makes me worry even more. The US has a jewish satelite in the middle east, and who knows if they don't want a moslem satelite state, homebrewn, supported by every means?
Just as Israel survives in the middle east with American assistance, a Kurdistan that is founded right at our doorstep will survive to further American interests in the middle east, and will probably supply it with all the oil they need.
What could be done?
Well, I'm not sure myself. Some of my colleagues have stated a violent resolution, but this is out of the question, as it's not possible to take wholesome violent action against any ethnic minority in the days we live in.
A peaceful resolution?
Well, resolution would mean that we would have to sit at a table with them to discuss the terms of a "truce". I certainly would not abide to it, as one cannot trust insurgents to lay down their weapons and not pick them up ever again, even if you agree to it's full demands.
The only solution that I see is to psychologically beat the kurds into submission. Not by force. But making them understand that their efforts are in vain, and that they can continue to take up arms against the Turk for centuries, but still not succeed. If Turan is formed until then, we'll perhaps create our own satelite Kurdistan somewhere in the middle east, and handle things through a peaceful population exchange.
But for now, things are more tense than they ever were.
Other politicians have suggested that we use some of the models that were used in countries like Spain and Northern Ireland.
But seeing that Basque country and Catalonia are still staunchly anti-Spain and pro-independence makes me think that giving people autonomy and other minority rights won't make issues go away in an instant.
I know it's TL;DR, but those who wish to read it, may do so.
First of all, I want to talk about minority issues in my own country, I can hear people saying, "ah, again?", but I will make references to minority issues in other countries aswell.
Our country has been in a civil war ever since the foundation of the current republic of Turkey. We had several other incidents of ethnic rebellions in the past, most of whom have their own country now, with one, namely Yugoslavia, having split up after splitting from the Ottoman empire, forming three different nation states.
The last nation within the Ottoman Empire to form a nation state were the Turks. Our forefathers abolished the Ottoman dynasty, and the caliphate, and now we have our republic thanks to them.
Of course, throughout the formation, various population exchanges were also made, which allowed our country to consist of a Turkish ethnic majority and various minorities.
Now, I'll count the minorities that I'm aware of, and how much of the population they might make up.
The largest minority are undoubtedly the Kurds(including the Zaza). They are a distinct people, with distinct customs, language and everything.
They number about 10-15 million.
The rest are made up from Caucasians, meaning,Georgians, "Circassians"(Abkhazians, Adyge, Lezgi, Ubykh and other tribes), Laz, and non-Turkish Balkan people, like Bosniaks, Pomaks(Bulgarian speaking moslems), Cigany/Roma/Gypsies(they have various names in the Turkish language, depending on the region), who in total number about 6-7 million.
The minorities I've counted so far are all of the moslem faith, and the treaty of Lausanne which defines our current borders does not count moslems of different ethnicities as minorities on their own right, instead lumping them with the Turkish majority.
Outside of these, there are the officially recognized minorities.
These are the Greeks, Armenians and Jews. These possess the right to open their own schools, print their own newspapers in their own language, although most do not have their own TV channel or radio.
Now, you'll ask, what exactly is your problem with minorities?
Answer, none. From my viewpoint, I have zero problems with any of the above mentioned minorities.
But as I said, our country has been in a state of civil war of which the authorities have denied so far to keep the population from getting into conflict.
This began before the foundation of the republic. Seeing that the christian minorities in the Ottoman empire got their own respective nation states, the moslem Kurd tried to do the same. However, after numerous failed attempts, the state of Turkey was formed. The fact that this state was built on the Turkish identity, since this country is formed from a Turkish majority, and has been known as the land of Turks for centuries, this doesn't sound too off, but to them, it did.
Until that time, Kurds were mostly independent of the Ottoman rule.
They were still under Ottoman sovereignity, however, had autonomous communities, did not pay taxes, and were not levied into the army.
With the foundation of the republic, this changed. The Kurds were told that they had to pay taxes and serve in the military just like everyone else.
Well, some did not like this, and rebelled at two different locations.
One was today's Tunceli, where the Alawi Kurdish majority lives, and the other was centered around Diyarbakır, where the Sunni moslem Kurds live.
Both of these rebellions were crushed, and the Kurds abstained from rebellion for a time.
During that time, several decisions were made, based on the nature of these two rebellions.
These rebellions arose under the leadership of charismatic, religious figures, who were also supported by the landlords of the area.
Meaning, controlling the kurds was tied to controlling the landlords, although under an act, all non-governmental religious organisations were closed down, which spelled doom for any sheikh who tried to found his own dargah there or here.
So, the landlords were kept happy, however, later on, the rise of leftist ideologies in Turkey saw a reawakening in the Kurd's rebellious spirit.
They had waited for some time, but they started anew by first joining some leftist organisations, which were not exclusively beset by Kurds, but had a Turkish majority, and well, it's understandable, since at the opposite end, lay the "nationalists", so to say, and it'd be somewhat funny if a Kurd would support a Turkish nationalist group or agenda.
After the army laid the hammer on the escalating political violence in Turkey, and condemned many people to prisons, some of these said that this was the time. Turkey was now more stable, but once the people had stopped fighting about left and right, the time had come to settle the old scores.
The Kurds founded the PKK, the Communist party of Kurdistan, and began their campaign of violence against our military at Eruh.
Even now the BDP who is the official party of the Kurds holds annual meetings on the date of the first attack.
Aside from that, we had a few ill runs with a few other moslem minorities in the past which had been forgotten, even by them, and most of the other minorities rather stay clear of the violence, although, they have recently begun to demand similiar rights to the Kurds, although not independence like they did before.
Now, what do the minorities want from our country?
Requests include;
-Recognition as minorities, and official status
-Their own schools in their own language
-Their own newspapers and TV/radio channels
-Autonomy(applicable to Kurds)
With the exception of autonomy, many non-Turkish minority organisations have expressed demands similar to what I've written down.
So, what is your opinion on these, I hear you ask.
Well, my opinion is this. At least two of these demands put the minorities in direct confrontation with the Turkish majority.
Which ones? The matter of language, for one.
And the other, autonomy.
And the recognition as minorities does not? Well, recognizing them as minorities does not put us under any obligation to give them the rights to their own schools, nor any degree of autonomy. The treaty of Lausanne is explicit on this issue as only the non-moslem minorities are officially recognized minorities on their own right, so even if we recognize any of the aforementioned groups as minorities, we do not bear any legal obligations based on the treaty to fulfill their demands regarding their language and autonomy.
Giving them their own schools would allow the minorities, especially the Kurds who want to carve their own state on our lands the ability to raise their own elite. Not only that, they'd form the basis of a country by unifying their language. The Kurdish language has several dialects which are not ver understandable to eachother. I know this from various studies and my own experiences with Kurds, most Kurds from different areas communicate using Turkish, rather than the kurdish language.
So if they were to create a common tongue, a common alphabet, and schools in which they will teach this language, they'd be an even more potent threat to Turkish interests than they were ever before.
Hell, if the whole lot of the Kurds would take up arms, it would be better on my part, than for them to have a unified language and alphabet.
Of course, the children who will graduate from these schools will have to seek work somewhere. I'm not sure where a kurd could find a job with that kurdish diploma of his/hers, and if they get their own universities, they certainly would want to work in the public sector, not by using the Turkish, but the Kurdish language.
So, this brings us to the second part of the trouble.
The Kurds will soon demand that autonomy be given to them as soon as possible. If not, they certainly will again take up arms against the state, until they can pressure a weak government to give in to their demands.
Until now, some were given unto them, like a TV channel, TRT6, which belongs to the government, and is strictly regulated.
IF they do get autonomy in the southeastern portion of Turkey, they certainly will try to improve their own infastructure to suit a Kurdish state.
Remember how Kosovo declared it's independence? Kosovo was an autonomous community within the borders of Serbia. After declaring independence, they now have gained recognition from several other countries aswell.
Of course, I'm pretty sure that a Kurdish state will not gain recognition from any of the neighboring countries, like Syria, Iran and Iraq, as the Kurds do present the same problem in their countries, as they do in our country. But I'm sure that several western and some eastern countries will recognize this newly founded state, and will pressure Turkey to do so, if a weak government should be in place as to get them as far as to declare independence, I'm fairly certain that Turkey will recognize this state aswell.
This presents a lot of problems for the Turkish majority that inhabits this country.
As a member of that majority, I have to look out for the interests of my own, as the kurds look out for the interests of their own.
The other minorities in our country are too few, and most are people who have emigrated to present day Turkey from somewhere, to actually demand autonomy and any of the following things, as they do not present a clear majority anywhere in Turkey, although they have their own associations.
So, what has been done so far in Turkey in regards to the minority question?
Well, the most obvious thing was to initiate an American-type of system, which emphasizes a single identity.
Apart from being unacceptable from the side of the majority of minority populations, this isn't acceptable from my part either.
I define Turkishness only in ethnic terms, not on terms of nationality, or country. If I did the latter, there would be no reason for me to call myself a Pan-Turkist, as anyone who declares himself to be a Turk could be one, just like anyone who lives in America is "American", even though they might have different ethnic backgrounds.
The reason why this approach does not work is the following:
The US is a country founded in the new world. Most of the people who live there had ancestors who had severed their ties with their home countries to go an live in this new country. They had married amongst other ethnic groups, and are now not really of any of their parental ethnicities, but refer to themselves only as Americans, although some may use different terms like afro-american, italian-american and etc, but my point is, that this does not lay the ground for nationalistic tendencies to sprout for any of the mentioned groups like it does in Turkey.
In short, the US is the perfect melting pot, due to the fact it partially, or totally severs the connections that people might have had with their ancestral homelands and ethnic groups.
In Turkey, this is not the case, in particular for the Kurds. Kurds still live in close knit communities, and are particularly effective at networking.
Whenever they choose to hold a protest anywhere in Turkey, they are able to muster more than a thousand people to take part in that protest, while Turks cannot even muster half of that number regionally whenever we hear that one of our soldiers has been killed in combat with the PKK.
The same goes for the other minorities, who are less in number than the Kurds and even more hellbent on preserving their numbers, as if they did intermarry, they'd cease to exist within a century, and so would their culture and language.
If I were 100% sure, that the Kurds were unable to found and support their own state, I'd be more than happy to oblige their requests for autonomy, just to see them crawl back to us asking for money.
But a state like Israel, that is backed by western funds makes me worry even more. The US has a jewish satelite in the middle east, and who knows if they don't want a moslem satelite state, homebrewn, supported by every means?
Just as Israel survives in the middle east with American assistance, a Kurdistan that is founded right at our doorstep will survive to further American interests in the middle east, and will probably supply it with all the oil they need.
What could be done?
Well, I'm not sure myself. Some of my colleagues have stated a violent resolution, but this is out of the question, as it's not possible to take wholesome violent action against any ethnic minority in the days we live in.
A peaceful resolution?
Well, resolution would mean that we would have to sit at a table with them to discuss the terms of a "truce". I certainly would not abide to it, as one cannot trust insurgents to lay down their weapons and not pick them up ever again, even if you agree to it's full demands.
The only solution that I see is to psychologically beat the kurds into submission. Not by force. But making them understand that their efforts are in vain, and that they can continue to take up arms against the Turk for centuries, but still not succeed. If Turan is formed until then, we'll perhaps create our own satelite Kurdistan somewhere in the middle east, and handle things through a peaceful population exchange.
But for now, things are more tense than they ever were.
Other politicians have suggested that we use some of the models that were used in countries like Spain and Northern Ireland.
But seeing that Basque country and Catalonia are still staunchly anti-Spain and pro-independence makes me think that giving people autonomy and other minority rights won't make issues go away in an instant.
I know it's TL;DR, but those who wish to read it, may do so.
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