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31.01.2011

TURKEY: ROUND THE ISSUE OF ETHNIC IDENTITY

   

Ruben Melkonyan

The issue of the ethnic origin on the agenda of Majlis in Turkey

The issue of the ethnic identity in Turkey takes an significant place not only in the public discussions but it is also gradually acquires more important place on the political agenda. In July 2010 oppositional Kurdish Peace and Democracy party made a proposal in the Great National Assembly of Turkey which aroused violent reaction in the Turkish political field. The Kurd deputies propounded to carry out open “ethnic census” in order to clarify the real ethnic picture of the country. The same was propounded in 2009 by the deputy from the Kurdish party Hasip Kaplan and according to his proposal the census based on the ethnic origin should have been held in Turkey in 2011.

The proposal by the Kurdish party was severely criticized by both ruling Justice and Development party and oppositional the Republican People’s party and Nationalist Movement party. The tension in parliament has grown to such an extent that there were even crushes and fights between the deputies. The authors of the proposal were blamed in racism to which the representative of Peace and Democracy party Sirri Sakik responded in the following way: “There is even no trace of racism or separatism in this proposal. What we say is the following: there are different peoples in this country. So don’t we have a right to know how many Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds live here and whether a desire to know it can be considered as racism? Don’t the authorities say that our difference is our richness?” And the deputy from the Republican People’s Party Tayfun Iclin believes that it is impossible to carry out such a research and brings following reasoning: “How are you going to find it out? Are you going to make a blood test? There are many people in this country whose one parent is Turk and the other is Kurd. How are you going to register them? Policy based on the ethnic grounds contradicts to the human rights and democracy”.

During those heated discussions the opinion was sounded that it was also impossible to carry out such a research out of technical reasons because it was not clear what would be taken as a grounds for the ethnic origin – size of the scull, blood or genes. The opponents of the proposal also mentioned that in Turkey different nations had mixed also due to the mixed marriages and “they are very happy because of this”. During the discussions people constantly spoke about the mixed nature of the Turkish society: one of the authors of the Turkish “Posta” newspaper Candas Tolga Isik made rather interesting observation, according to which it was difficult to hold census based on the ethnic grounds not only for the state but also for rather big part of Turkish society because for the people of mixed origin it would be very difficult to answer clearly the question of their ethnic origin.

Finally, after this heated discussions the aforementioned proposal was not put on the agenda of Turkish parliament but the public discussion have not stopped and they tend to continue. Undoubtedly, the main impulse for the proposal of the deputies of Kurdish decent was to establish officially the real number of the Kurds living in Turkey and attaching political overtone to this issue. It is not a secret that in Turkey the struggle between the Turks and Kurds has several aspects, one of which is demographic war. According to some data, the birth rate among the Kurds living in villages and in provinces is high and there is an opinion that if it continues the same way in 2025 the number of Kurds may become equal to the number of Turks and in 2050 their number may exceed the number of the Turks with all the consequences this process may have.

“Re-flourishing of the Crypto-Armenians”

The process of re-flourishing among the Crypto and Islamized Armenians in Turkey aroused interest in different academic circles including western researchers. For rather long time a number of German, French and American researchers and journalists have been studying this issue. It should also be mentioned that their works are mostly inaccessible for the academic and research circles in Armenia. Below, an interesting translated article by Lora Marchan “Turkey: re-flourishing of Crypto-Armenians” published in Le Nouvel Observateur magazine is brought with some abridgments.

Those people are called “converts”. In the street they are Turks and Muslims and in their hearts they are Armenians and Christians. But progressively those Armenians expose themselves. Who are they in realty?

“God, we thank you for this food and ask you to bless it, - solemnly tells the Armenian blessing Mourad – the head of the family, - in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen”. His children, wife, grandmother, who wears white hijab, which is worn by Kurd peasants make a sign of a cross and proceed to the meal. This procedure takes place at night, at their apartment when the door is locked for the neighbours not to hear them. On the next day Mourad goes to work: “I’m registered in the store as Ramadan. Here everybody is conservative Muslims. Being Christian is not good for business because nobody will buy anything from gavur”. To our question whether he was a Christian, Muslim or both he answered with a smile: “My identity is in my heart and only God knows it. There is a Christ in my heart”. In his heart there is also the Genocide during which Armenians were killed and the tragedy of his family which was told by one generation to the other in a whisper. His grandfather was forced by the Ottoman soldiers to drown his younger brother in Euphrates.

Officially there is a small Armenian community left in Turkey the number of which does not exceed 65 thousand. They survived “ethnic cleansings” during which more than 1 million people were killed. In order to survive the massacres perpetrated by the Young Turks in 1915 and by sultan Hamid at the end of the 19th century, tens of thousands of the Armenians adopted Islam. They are called “dyomne” (converts). For decades they have had to conceal their identity in order to survive Turkish state policy which aimed to destroy all the traces of the Armenians in Anatolia. But the current process of democratization in Turkey is breaking taboo of the Genocide theme and Crypto-Armenians – the silent witnesses of the darkest page in the Turkish history carefully reveal their origin.

Student Damla, as many converts, has Turkish name in order to remain unnoticed: “I always knew that I’m Armenian but when I was a child my parents repeated that I’d rather not to speak about it”, - she says. Being a great granddaughter of a priest she follows many Christian traditions: “We make special pastries at Christmas in which we put raisins. At Eastertide we soak threads in blessed water and make fillets of it and if someone is sick I light a candle in a church…”

The Crypto-Armenians has acquired the art of syncretism. The wedding ceremony is carried out in the mosque but between “dyomnens” in order to preserve their identity. In order to escape social pressure a part of the converts has fully assimilated which is inevitable. “I have a relative who is imam in a mosque and the other one is a radical Islamist”, - says Sadik Bakircioglu who is also of the Armenian origin. Cruel and mean times were the best ally of the policy of rejection.

Despite the official policy some Turkish researchers has began revealing the Armenians who are “hidden in the darkest corners of the history”. “At first the Ottoman authorities did not exile the Armenians who adopted Islam, - explains historian, Professor of Bosporus University Selim Deringil, - but later, the adoption of Islam did not save Armenians anymore because their conversion was not considered sincere”. To the question how many Armenians converted in order survive, Deringil answers: “In the 19th century their number varied from 20 thousand to 150 thousand… and as for 1915 there is no information about it…”This phenomenon has preserved even after the Genocide and the result is that at present Armenian blood runs in the veins of Turkey.

In his village in Sasun Giyasettin Gelir collected the memories of those who survived the Genocide: “Everybody told me that at that time they had thought that the conversion would have been temporary till everything came to normal”.

The “sword survivors” – this is how those who survived the Genocide are called and they are still in the spotlight of the state. They acknowledge that during the administrative surveys or in the army they are considered as unreliable. Young engineer Ahmed says that his brother was not taken as an army pilot “though he successfully passed all the exams in the military academy”. One evening his drunken uncle said: “You’re Armenian that is why they did not take you”. The young man who was educated in the nationalist spirit was struck by such a revelation. “It is insulting to be an Armenian. My brother started to believe that he was chosen by Mohammed and his milieu just wanted to make him Armenian”. Later he died from mental distress – schizophrenia.

In 2007 Armenian journalist Hrant Tink was killed by the 17 years-old radical nationalist. On the day of his funeral 100 thousand Turks went to the street with posters on which it was written “We are all Armenians”. Possibly there was a consciousness of collective legacy behind this outcry of anger… After killing the main voice of the Armenians in Turkey documentaries began to be shoot, discussions, conferences were initiated which called for reconciliation, acknowledgement of the historical truth and the tribute to the memory.

Being inspired by such sympathy the descendants of the converted Armenians come out of hiding. Damla made her choice and her husband will be a real Armenian and their children will have Christian names. And 27 years-old Hakife has been baptized recently: “We have strange identity. Our grandparents were Armenians, our parents were Muslims and we are like our grandparents”,- says Hakife.


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