Turkey and its Ethnic Minorities

The nation-building process in the Republic of Turkey necessitated two maneuvers:

1. Distancing from Islam and the adoption of secularism

2. The creation of a monolithic Turkish national identity- through language, creation of a national history that predates Islam etc.

However, due to migration, its Ottoman Empire roots, and the rich history and peoples of its geographic location, Turkey is home to tens of ethnic minority groups.

In the Republic of Turkey, the only groups that are legally considered "minorities" are non-Muslim communities of Armenians, Jews, the Rum Orthodox, and Christian groups such as Assyrians. As recognized minorities, these communities are allowed to run their own private schools, provide instruction in the mother tongue, and exercise their religion freely. However, as their numbers are very low, many of their schools are facing the danger of being closed down due to low enrollment numbers. Their churches and synagogues have also fallen on hard times.

The Muslim minority populations:

Quick note: Turkey's population was 71 million in 2009.

"Alevis are known to be the largest religious minority in Turkey. Their population is estimated to be between 10 and 33% of the total population. Their religious practices and philosophy are considerably different from the Sunni Muslim belief. Ethnically, they are mainly Azerbaijani Turkish, Arab, Turkish and Kurdish (there are also some Roma Alevis).

Kurds are the largest ethnic and linguistic minority in Turkey. The estimated numbers claimed by various sources range from 10 to 23% of the population. Kurds speak Kurdish, which is divided into Kurmanci, Zaza and other dialects. The majority are Sunni Muslims, while a significant number are Alevis. Historically concentrated in the eastern and southeastern region of the country, where they constitute the overwhelming majority, large numbers have migrated to urban areas in western Turkey.

Caucasians consist of various groups of peoples of Caucasian origin, each of which has its own language. Ninety per cent of Caucasians in Turkey are Circassian, while the majority of the remaining 10% are Abkhaz. All Caucasians are Muslim. According to the Federation of Caucasian Associations, there are 6 million Caucasians in Turkey.

Laz are a people of Caucasian origin sharing similar roots with the Migrels who live between Abkhazia and Georgia today. They speak Lazuri, a South Caucasian language related to Georgian and Abkhazian. Their number today is estimated to be between 750,000 and 1.5 million.

Roma live all across the country and their population is estimated to be around 2 million. The vast majority of Roma are Muslim (nearly half Sunni and half Alevi), while there are a small number of Rum Orthodox."

(Kaya 2009, 10)

The Ban on Teaching, Learning, and Broadcasting in the Mother Tongue

In fact, the particular social construction of Turkish nationalism in Turkey obliviates the idea of minority rights altogether. The Muslim minority populations listed above do not enjoy any minority rights. In fact, Article 42 of the Constitution bans "instruction in languages other than Turkish as mother tongue and a ban on teaching a language other than Turkish as mother tongue" (Kaya 2009). Thus, for many decades, Kurds, Circassians, Laz and other minority groups were not only de jure banned from learning and teaching their mother tongue in schools or broadcasting in their mother tongue in the mass media but also were de facto banned from even speaking it at home. This began changing in 2002.

The process of Turkey's accession to the European Union required some changes in how Turkey treated its minorities. Thus, in the last two decades, broadcast in mother tongues other than Turkish and teaching in such languages has become legal.

The Human Rights Watch notes that while the law banned education and broadcast rights in all mother tongues, other than Turkish, the real target was the Kurdish people and the teaching and learning of Kurdish. Why would that be the case?

Personal Connections

I grew up in a Turkey where I hadn't heard of the words "Armenian Genocide" until I was a junior in high-school. I also did not fully know that one of my best friends in high-school was of Armenian descent. She never told me about it. I never asked. We only briefly discussed this recently, 20 years into our friendship. I also did not know that some of my best friends were of Kurdish heritage. While Armenians and Kurds hid their identities, I remember boasting about my Circassian identity openly.

I have recently asked a friend who studies the Kurdish community in the Southeast of Turkey whether she had come across any studies comparing the Circassian diaspora in Turkey to the Kurdish community. She replied that while she didn't particularly know of any comparative academic studies, her personal take was that Circassians have been positioned as the "model minority" against Kurds. Perhaps this had to do with their migrant status. Circassians had been transplanted to the Ottoman Empire through exile. They had to make it in their new home, so they had to paint themselves as loyal and docile (although the stereotype about Circassians is that they're hot blooded and wild). On the other hand, Kurds are one of the native peoples of Anatolia and therefore, had a claim to their own territorial rights. This claim was supported by the Allied Forces in the aftermath of World War I, to be quashed completely in 1923.

The BBC writes about the historical rationale behind these claims:

"After World War One and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. Such hopes were dashed three years later, however, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no provision for a Kurdish state and left Kurds with minority status in their respective countries. Over the next 80 years, any move by Kurds to set up an independent state was brutally quashed."

The Turkish state has not been supportive of minority rights of any group since its formation. However, I do believe that Circassians have felt free to speak their own languages and follow their own customs in their communities. They have also largely assimilated to the mainstream culture. While Kurds have also assimilated, their relative geographical homogeneity has perhaps allowed them to resist the oppressive Turkish state more consistently and effectively. Therefore, they have emerged as the enemy of the state while Circassians were allowed greater autonomy.

These are some initial thoughts on the subject. I will be going deeper and reading more academic studies to answer this question. One such study I have begun reading is Ayşe Serdar's inquiry into the Laz community.