To trace back their first cohabitation one has to go back to 1362 when the Ottoman commander Gazi Evren Bey took over the region of Komotini, ending the Byzantine era and installing the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the region. The Ottoman Empire ruled the region for five centuries. It is during this time that Muslim people who mainly settled in villages in Western Thrace in order to cultivate the region occupied the region. During this time many Christian fled the region out of fear of persecution and of a new regime. In 1453, the Sultan Mehmed II installed the millet law: ‘provided that Christians submitted to the dominion of the caliphate and the Muslim political administration and paid appropriate taxes, they deserved consideration and freedom of worship.’ During this time, the Christian and Muslim cohabited and lived side by side in a reasonably peaceful way.
Nonetheless, it is essential to point out that during this time, ‘Any Christian mission or proselytism among the Muslims, however, was considered a capital crime. In fact, Christians were formally reduced to a ghetto existence: they were the Rūm millet, or “Roman nation” conquered by Islam but enjoying a certain internal autonomy.’
Therefore, although the Ottoman Empire didn’t entirely strip all the Christian rights away, life was certainly not equal between the Muslims and the Christians.
However, at the beginning of the 19th century, following the fall of the monarchy in France and the whole revolutionary movement at the time, the Orthodox Greeks started to revolt against the Ottoman Empire. This was the time of the Greek independence War against the Ottoman Empire. This revolt was strongly influenced by the Greek Orthodox priests of the time that encouraged the Greek people to take on the authoritarian government they were under and claim back their freedom and independence. This is one of the reasons why the Greek Church remains today an important symbol of independence and freedom, in opposition to the ‘Muslim enemy’. Indeed, ‘Among the national Orthodox churches, the Church of Greece is the only one that preserved the legal status it acquired in the 19th century as the national state church.’
Nonetheless, although some areas of Western Thrace did revolt during the Greek Independence War, the region stayed under rule of the Ottoman Empire until the Balkan Wars. During the First Balkan war in 1912, the Ottoman Empire was defeated and the Bulgarian forces took over Thrace. It is during this time that the number of Bulgarian Muslim’s known as Pomaks increased in the region. After World War One and the fall of the Central Powers with which Bulgaria sided, the region of Western Thrace was handed over to Greece, under the terms of the Treaty of Neuilly in 1919.
In July 1923, the Lausanne Treaty was signed, which finally ended the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Romania and Greece.
For Greece, this meant the end of their ongoing conflicts with Ottoman Empire and the settling of borders with the new State of Turkey.
In order to reach an agreement, Eleftherios Venizelos the Prime minister of Greece and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk the founder of the Republic of Turkey, decided that a massive exchange of populations was necessary.
Thus, for 2 million people (around 1.3 million Anatolian Greeks and 500,000 Muslims in Greece) an exodus on religious terms started, which would shape their future and reshape their identity. Greece being mainly Orthodox and Turkey being mainly Muslim implied all people who didn’t fit the religious frame of his country had to move to where their religious roots belonged, in disregard of their place of residence. Therefore, this treaty had an active role into the shaping of the Greek and Turkish identity around its religion but also on the reduction of Muslim and Christian Diasporas and minorities in the respective countries.
However, amongst this huge exodus movement a few specific places were exempt from this movement. For example, the rich Christian community of Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) was allowed to stay. The Muslim community of Western Thrace was also able to stay settled . Thus, with the fall of the Ottoman empire, the creation of Turkey, the exodus of all other Muslims in Greece, and the rise in the sense of Orthodoxy in Greek identity, there was been measures and discourses that show the particular situation in which this minority was placed in Western Thrace.
Further Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Thrace#History
http://www.historyguy.com/fall_of_the_ottoman_empire.htm#.WLGCwBDcaqA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eastern-Orthodoxy#ref64189
http://users.sch.gr/gkelesidis/images/PDF/Meionotika/Treaty%20of%20Lausanne.pdf
Since 1923, the Muslim community has continued to live in Western Thrace but without the millet system and their status demoted to a minority, their protection in regards to Greek law was not always clear. Here is a list of the rights the Lausanne Treaty promised them.
List of Rights that the Lausanne treaty provides the Muslim community:
However, these rights have not always been entirely respected, even today. These topics will be explored in more depth in the following parts. Here, a brief overview of the evolution of the status of the Western Thrace minority from the Lausanne treaty agreement to the present is discussed.
To start with, during the time that Ataturk and Venizelos were the leaders of Turkey and Greece, the relations between the countries were good and as a result the Muslim minority of Thrace didn’t suffer many violations of their rights. Both countries had common interests and fear of the development of neighbouring countries such as Bulgaria. Thus ‘As Ankara and Athens became increasingly dependent on each other for their respective defence, issues of minority protection almost disappeared from their bilateral diplomatic agenda'. (Sfetas, 2015, 207)
Nonetheless, it is essential to point out that since the population exchange there has been fear of a rise of nationalistic ideas in both countries’ minorities. This fear increases as the relations between the countries decayed. However, during that time their concerns were mainly focused on other Balkan countries and Bulgaria in particular. This entailed a close surveillance of the Pomak community (Muslim Greeks originating from Bulgaria) of Western Thrace, out of fear of espionage from Bulgaria (Sfetas, 2015, 208).
After Second World War until 1955, Turkey and Greece amplified their diplomatic dialogue which entailed positive change for the minorities of Greece and Turkey. In Greece, 'The minority schools were officially called Turkish instead of Muslim for the first time in 1954. (…) Turkish was the official language in all minority schools, attended by both Turkish- speaking and Pomak-speaking children.’ (Sfetas, 2015, 209).
However, from the mid 50s to the 80s because of the conflict of interest between Greece and Turkey on Cyprus, the minorities of both countries suffered harsh treatment and injustices because of the problems their respective countries mirrored onto them. In Turkey this tense climate and certain particular events that will not be defined here lead to the large movement of the Christian population. Thus, ‘in 2000, only 1,500 to 2,000 members of the Greek minority still resided in Turkey’ (Dayioglu & Aslim, 2014, 42).
In Greece, there was also a big emigration of Muslims from Western Thrace to Turkey.
Furthermore, ‘After 1964 Greece imposed some restrictive measures on the Muslims: expropriation of land, difficulties in real property transactions, in starting and running businesses, in licenses for home building, tractor driving, hunting rifles etc. In 1972 by decree the Turkish schools were called again Muslim schools.’ (Sfetas, 2015, 211).
During this time, the fear of Turkish nationalism and of a political Islam in the minority of Western Thrace entailed the Greek government pushing further its restrictions on the rights the minority was provided by the Lausanne treaty. Indeed, in 1987, ‘the Xanthi Turkish Union (1927) and the Western Thrace Turkish Teachers Union (1936) were closed down on the grounds that the word “Turkish” should only refer to citizens of Turkey and that its use to describe Greek Muslims put public order at stake.’(Sfetas, 2015, 211). The government also violated the religious rights and judicial rights provided by the Lausanne Treaty. Indeed, they decided on electing the mufti without, consulting the minority. These issues will be discussed in more depth in the part on Discrimination of the minority. Thus, it seems essential to point out that one of the minority’s sources of suffering comes from the strained relations between Turkey and Greece.
However, in the 90s when Greece strengthened its relation with the European Communities the status of the Muslim minority in Greece slowly changed. Indeed, the EU’s concerns with human rights have helped for the minority’s voice to be heard.
In the recent development of the relations between Turkey and Greece, Greece has made progress in order to come out of the tensed relation to Turkey. The change of mentality of ‘an eye for an eye’ has helped to stop this vicious circle of tension between the countries and promoted better treatment of the minority.
Indeed, ‘Papandreou’s letter to Erdogan on 25 January 2010 gave the first sign that the government of Greece was aiming to change its mentality on the concept of reciprocity. Greece immediately announced some measures to ease the life of the Muslim-Turkish minority. Greece put the minority issues under the control of the Ministry of Interior to show that minorities would not be perceived as “foreigners” but as citizens. Without expecting any move from Turkey, Greece united some schools and published the Turkish books for the minorities’ (Dayioglu & Aslim, 2014, 45).
Thus, with the help of the EU and a different approach to the relation between Greece and Turkey, the Muslim minority’s situation nowadays seems to be much better than during the 60s and 70s. However, as it has already been stated some issues still remain today but the existence of the international community has made it possible for the minority to have an international supporter to protect their rights and recognise the issues they are facing in Greece.
Therefore, although this deeply rooted community has been settled in Greece for longer than some Greeks, its status and identity is constantly shifting and influenced as political, economical and social relations change with time in Greece.