By: Dogu Ergil
Turkish Daily News/ Nov 8, 2004
Of late there has been vociferous debate on minority issues in Turkey. The controversy stems from a six-and-a-half page report written on behalf of the Human Rights Consultative Council of the Prime Ministry by the Minority and Cultural Rights Task Group. The report was drawn up eighteen months ago but it was constantly delayed by the task groups's conservative and nationalist members until last month. When the more courageous and modern-minded members dared to release it, the nationalists tore it to pieces -- literally -- and condemned the report in public, with the government disowning it.
If this piece of work was the product of academic endeavor or from a civic organization it would at best be derided on the day of its publication and consigned to oblivion. However, the report bears the title of the Prime Ministry as the authority behind it, notwithstanding the Prime Ministry saying that it did not demand such a report when the content of it was reported in the press. The members of the task group who demonstrated the civic courage to release it insist it is part of their remit to prepare a report and to submit it to the appropriate authority. Otherwise why should they be brought together and asked to offer their thoughts on the very subject that constitutes the name of their group?
What was in the report that offended and threatened the conservatives and the nationalists so much? Firstly, it points out that most of the difficulties Turkey has undergone concerning restrictions on the cultural rights of minorities arises from the stark fact that Turkish administrations have systematically evaded obeying certain principles of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. Although Turkish officialdom expresses its adamant loyalty to this treaty in issues related to minorities and resists any other interpretation of minority or adopt different approaches to minority related matters, the report says that it is Turkey itself who has violated the treaty. Indeed, Article 39/4 of the Lausanne Treaty stipulates that there would be no restrictions for any citizen of the Republic of Turkey to use language of his/her choice in open meetings, the press or any kind of mass media, in commercial and religious affairs. Although there is an official language of the state, citizens who speak languages other than Turkish should be aided in the best way way in the courts so that they can defend themselves verbally. (This is my own translation from the Turkish text, not the official English version).
The report stipulates that if this article was properly observed and the principle therein applied, Turkey would not have been accused of violating basic human rights and tension would not have built up between the government and non-Turkish speaking cultural groups of the republic. In spite of this fact, the European Union's request of the Turkish government to be more responsive to the basic rights of cultural groups is met with disdain and suspicion by the nationalists and the conservatives. Such a request is accused of creating new minorities in Turkey. An additional source of apprehension is a suspicion of sinister plans made for the abrogation of the Lausanne Treaty that gave birth to modern Turkey. All of these were attributed to foreign conspiracies intending to dismantle Turkey and bring back the conditions of the Sevres Treaty hatched by the victorious Allies to partition the Ottoman Empire after World War I. That anxiety is the fuel of incessant efforts to maintain the status quo that guarantees their existence and privileged positions.
The report -- with its unusually undiplomatic language -- labels these suspicions and accusations as "Sevres paranoia." This label greatly offends the nationalists who see the Lausanne Treaty as the ultimate document that guarantees Turkey's independence and integrity. They want no les and no more, and that is why they are either opposed or reluctant towards Turkey's membership of the EU.
The second source of controversy is the proposal to change the name of the nation from a blood-based definition to a territorial one. Indeed, the majority of the population of Turkey is ethnically of Turkish origin, however, there are others living in this country who are quite willing to be loyal citizens of the republic but do not call themselves Turkish, and nor do they want to be labelled as Turkish. These ethnically non-Turkish citizens, together with non-Sunni Muslims, feel discriminated against because Turkishness has come to be associated with Sunnism and they would feel more comfortable and secure in a new and more inclusive definition of nationhood. The report dares to propose that rather than saying, "I am Turkish," one should be able to say, "I am a citizen of Turkey but I am Greek, Armenian, Albanian or Kurdish." Such a change would encompass all citizens but would not force them to abandon their cultural or sub-identities. Their supra or official identity would be defined by the name of the state of which they are all citizens of.
Having been reared in the cultural environment of the nation-state where nationalism is both the constitutive ideology and current psychological glue of the nation, it is very hard to dissociate this ideology from individual psyches. However, by definition, a nation is a plural entity. If political solidarity is built on the nationalism of one cultural/ethnic group, others who feel discriminated against may develop matching nationalistic ideologies. One nationalism sharpens on the other like a blade and severs the nation at the end. Cognizant of this fact, the report proposes to abandon Turkish nationalism as the constitutive ideology of the republic and adopt "constitutional citizenship" that alleviates the difference between the minority and the majority by way of equal rights.
This is a call to transform what may be called the "nation of the state" to the "state of the nation." Indeed, for the first time in republican history the omnipotent and omnipresent state is giving way to the primacy of the nation and the nation is reclaiming its characteristics that were either denied or trivialized due to national security and national unity concerns. Now unity -- necessary for any national entity -- will be realized by consensus rather than by state pressure to achieve uniformity. This is a major step towards pluralist democracy in Turkey and the opening up to the world which Turkey aspires to be a part of. The strongest resistance is from the old guard and it will take time to reach the target of "contemporary civilization," however, nationalism is finding less oxygen with each passing day.
Dogu Ergil can be reached at -- dogu.ergil@tdn.com.tr