By George Gregoriou
My recent editorial «The Turkish Dilemma» in GreekNews ruffled a few Turkish-American feathers. It was expected. Insults are more insulting when discussed. Immigrants tend to be more nationalistic, even fanatic, than those in the mother country. Though, one could say that moderates and fanatics are not that far apart. They are cut from the same cloth. One feeds on the other. In this, neither Greeks nor Turks are exceptions. Greek-Americans were so far to the right in the 1960s, they supported the military dictatorship (1967-1974). It was claimed, it brought «law and Order» to an otherwise Greek political anarchy. Some Greek-Americans were so pro-American they even suggested there should be a similar dictatorship in the USA. For Turkish-Americans Turkey is «uber alles» no matter who is in charge in Ankara.
My editorial was on Turkey, not Greece. When I write about Greeks I get myself into trouble with the nationalists as well. This time, it was heartening to learn that non-Greeks read the GreekNews. I thought I wrote for Greeks only. The responses to «The Turkish Dilemma» came from far away and the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, from Kurds, Armenians and Turks. Armenian journalists and academics offered positive comments. The response from Turks was quite different.
It is difficult for some Turks to discuss «hot» issues in Turkish history, the assumption being these issues will cease to exist, at least for the Turkish nationalists. Only what is good for Turkey matters, not the truth. But facts are very stubborn: the trial of the Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, rescheduled for February, and then dropped in a peculiar way to please the EU and not to annoy the nationalists. In the end it displeases everyone. His crime (and that of another 70 intellectuals according to PEN is: «denigrating Turkishness, the government, the army and the memory of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.»
One can assume that half of the Americans and most of the Europeans would be in prison for such crimes. My critics are silent on this issue. «Orhan Pamuk Yok!»
Other e-mailers went beyond silence, hurling insults and profanity. This sheds more light on the accusers than the accused. Profanity, as with silence, does not score any points, other than an inability to articulate a policy defending «Turkishness» and «Ataturkism», which are neither holy nor sacred outside the Turkish nationalist mindset. Show me the facts. These facts on Turkey, are they not true? Soliciting a college luminary without light to charge «Greek bias» or to shed light on the sloppiness in my writing, which I do not deny, did not get the e-mailer very far. I confess, I am notoriously sloppy, especially when I write late at night. But why didn’t this professor respond to what I wrote about Turkey? This learned professor could have easily inserted the word not which I left out in my sentence [If Turkey does not change she does not deserve to be in the European Union], and proceeded to deal with the substance of my editorial.
Refute the facts. This is what real professors do, at least mentally, except those who cannot speak truth to power or swallow the official line «hook, line, and sinker». I am sure there are plenty of things wrong in Greece and with the Greeks, but skirting around the issues on Turkey is a poor excuse not to confront them because of the responder’s sensitivity to Turkishness.
The content of my article is larger than Orhan Pamuk: (1) the noted Turkish author is on trial for referring to the Armenian genocide in 1915 and the thirty thousands Kurds killed during the insurrection in the 1980s by the separatist P.K.I., for national identify and self-determination. The 15 millions Kurds are part of a Turkish dilemma, not the Greeks or this messenger. With the several millions in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Azerbaijan, these 23 million Kurds are without a homeland. And, what is Turkey’s policy on the Kurds in northern Iraq? Its war! Why an independent Turkish Cypriot state in occupied Cyprus, but not in a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq or Eastern Anatolia? And (2) the Turkish invasion and occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974 was followed by the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Cypriots and the colonization of the north by 130,000 Turks from Anatolia. Were these historical facts manufactured lies by this critic? The facts on Cyprus can be read in the Turkish Cypriot newspapers (the progressive ones). The Turkish and Anglo-American policy on Cyprus are common knowledge, at least outside the nationalistic and militaristic circles in Ankara or the Erdogan government.
So is the persecution of leftists, the death of political prisoners through torture and hunger strikes, and the “clubbing” of women by the police (last year’s International Women¹s Day). This barbarism in Turkish civilization (the political class, the military apparatus, and the legal-criminal establishment) reached its peak in the coup d’ etats in the early 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and the imprisonments of thousands of people with trials lasting for months and years. Why is it so difficult for Turks to acknowledge what is done in their name? This is not just a form of “extremist” exceptionalism, a lapse into Ottomanism, and everything else is fine in Turkey today. This barbarism is part of the ordinary workings of a modern and secular “Ataturkic” democracy.
The reference to the Greek junta by the e-mailers as a culprit in the events of 1974 does not provide a justification for the Turkish policy on Cyprus. I know plenty about the Greek junta and Greek right-wing nationalists. I spent seven years in the anti-junta movement. I also know enough about Turkish right-wing nationalists, such as Rauf Denktas, a neighbor of mine. Every Greek knows that the junta was installed by the US-NATO on April 21, 1967 to stop the democratization in Greece and to get rid of the Cyprus problem because Washington could not impose its partitionist policy without military intervention. The Greek junta’s coup d¹etat against Makarios was part of its mission, to serve its masters in Washington. Ankara was more than willing to implement its own policy—hence the London- Washington-Ankara axis. Recently released classified documents in London and Washington make this point very clear. The military circles in Washington (President Ford’s own confession) gave Turkey the green light to go ahead with the invasion in 1974. Washington was determine to please Turkey because of her strategic location in the war against the SU. Surely, my critics ought to know that Turkey was invited by London in 1955 to stake its interest in a Tripartite Conference in order to counteract the Greek Cypriot demand for self-determination? My critics see only the bright side of the moon, what is good for Turkey. There is also a dark side to this moon, Turkish policies at home and in Cyprus. What is amazing is that after all the bad blood in Cyprus, ordinary Turkish and Greek Cypriots have no animosity towards each other. They even embrace with tears when they meet. It is not possible to “make nice” with the powers that be in Turkey as long as Ankara is trying to legitimize the facts on the ground created by the invasion, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. People under occupation cannot be neutral or look the other way. It is more than a crime. It is a political mistake to pretend that the elephant is not in my living room, as some Greek and Turkish leftists make believe.
Now, if my Turkish critics insist that the 18% Turkish Cypriot minority be entitled to 50% of political power with the 82% Greek Cypriot majority in Cyprus, even a separate state, maybe they should start implementing the same principle in Turkey. That would be a start, good intentions. The 15 million Kurds in Turkey, are they not entitled to share political power with the Turkish majority on the basis of equality, 50-50, or their own state? A 15 million Kurdish state is viable. A 120,000 (1960 Census) Turkish Cypriot state on a small island is not viable. It will be rendered useless by the EU. Unless more colonizers flood Cyprus, which is happening daily. Or, is it one rule for Cyprus, another for Turkey?
The historical legacy in Turkey is the real problem. The effect of this legacy is insecurity, denial, and nationalism. I stated in the editorial that the Kurds were used to do the persecution of Armenians and Greeks when the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse. Once the Greek threat and the Armenians were eliminated Kemal Ataturk turned the Turkish guns on these “mountain Turks”. And Kurds have been persecuted since the creation of the modern Turkish Republic. Kurdish parents who gave a Kurdish name to their child were subject to prosecution and imprisonment. Is this a lie? Of course, there have been strides forward, as noted in the New York Review of Books (July 15, 2004), The London Economist (September 18-24, 2004), and reportage in The New York Times and Foreign Affairs (September/October 2004) in preparation for membership talks in the EU. The 15 million Kurds in Turkey were given a half-an-hour Kurdish language program of news and features in June 2004 called “Our Cultural Riches”, on how to become good Turks? Even the Kurdish language courses began in three cities (only three?) and the “fiery advocate of Kurdish rights [Leyla Zana] and three other members of Parliament imprisoned in 1994 were released”.
These are all cosmetic changes, so Turkey could qualify to be in the EU, as were the dropping of the charges against Pamut. PM Erdogan is trying, but not very hard. The military is still in charge. The AP reported (November 2005): “The Turkish PM walks out of press conference with Denmark’s Prime Minister, because of the presence of Kurdish journalist”. It must have been a frightening sight, a Kurdish journalist!
If Turkey joins the EU in 10 or 15 years it will be for one of these reasons: (1) Turkey has been transformed into a modern secular state with fundamental democratic freedoms guaranteed to all citizens, including the Kurds; Turkey stopped bullying her neighbors; supported a solution to the Cyprus problem, which unified the island with a stable, functional, democratic, and acceptable to both communities. A solution which would eliminate all foreign military forces and colonizers from the island. This would the real qualification for Turkey, otherwise there should be a veto by Athens, Nicosia, and other EU members; (2) because the EU key players (France, Germany, and Britain) have big investments in the Turkish economy and want her market and cheap labor; and (3) it is due to the geopolitical struggle between the US, EU, and other major powers to control this “Eurasian” corridor (Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Central Asia) where major oil and natural gas resources are located. In these struggles, the vast majority of ordinary men and women, including the Turkish masses, will be mere bystanders/spectators to a game played for big profits and with big guns. In this hegemonial game, neither the Koran nor the Bible, nor Ataturk’s name or “Turkishness”, nor the Greeks will be important, other than being used to pit one group against another so the ruling classes can go about their business without the inconveniences from the people in the streets.
**** George Gregoriou
Professor, Critical Theory and Geopolitics
The Wm Paterson University
Wayne, New Jersey 07470
e-mail: gregorioug@wpunj.edu
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