Overview on the Relations between the Orthodox and Muslim communities of Western Thrace

The positive answers will be examined first. Indeed, in most of the interviews, participants seem to be driven by feelings of positive change. They argued that overall there has been and will be improvements in the relations between the communities and the treatment of the Muslim minority. However, the rapidity of this change was not always agreed upon. While some of the participants like Stefanos Gravanis argued that change is a slow process, others argued that it is constant and has a fast pace.

Here are the current reasons that the participants pointed out would improve the relations between the communities:

- The new generation being less discriminatory and wishing to collaborate for a prosperous relation between the communities.

- Change in the educational system (for example, more Muslim students going to Greek schools or the positive discriminatory rules allowing Muslim minority university students to enter university on lower marks that Greek students).

- The influence of globalisation and the rise of Internet that connects virtually everyone and helps to create a more equal society in regards to access to information.

- The EU as a main player in the protection of the minority’s rights and a feeling of a more integrated community on the European scale.

- A rise in mixed marriages (the union of Orthodox and Muslims has been a rare case until recently, however it is becoming less and less of a taboo).

- The natural evolution of time slowly erasing the mistakes of the past and leading to a perfectly harmonious society.

There has been many counter–processes mentioned by the interview participants. This gives reason to the 51,9% survey participants’ scepticism about the improvements of the relations between the Orthodox and Muslim communities.

Here is a list of the reasons for disconnected communities according to the interview participants:

- A history of conflict between the communities.

- History not being taught properly in school.

- Mutual mistrust between the communities.

- Current discrimination of the Muslim community by the national and local government.

- Turkey’s foreign policies and involvement in the region.

- The minority not speaking Greek.

- The Muslim minority identifying more with the Turkish culture.

- The gap in the educational level between Greek and minority school.

As mentioned in the historical background, there has been a long history of aggression and mistreatment between the Muslim community and the Orthodox community over the last six centuries. Thus, both communities hold the burdens of the past injustices they suffered and inflicted on each other. Therefore, one can interpret all the reasons stated by participants in Negative Change to represent these scars that have not entirely healed and directly impact the stagnation in the current relations between the communities.

Hence, it seems important to mention here the implicit psychological reasoning that led to the above statement. Indeed, the fact that both these communities have suffered throughout their long relationship leads to what is known in psychology as historical trans-generational trauma. An association of historical oppression and psychological trauma explains these traumas (Kirmayer, Gone & Moses, 2014, 300).

What makes these traumas trans-generational is that they are past on from the original traumatised generation to the next. Although this process has mostly been explained in relation to genocides like the Holocaust or cultural suppression like the case of Aboriginals in Canada or Australia, it is a process that can also explain the current relations between the Greek Orthodox and Muslim minority of Western Thrace. Indeed, this sort of trauma can be expressed in many different ways.

For example, according to Anastasia Tsibiridou, the history has not always been fully and correctly taught in Greek schools. This could be explained as a transmission of this trans-generational trauma. Through their education Greek children understand Turkey in opposition to Greece. Thus, this continues to pass on these invisible wounds of the past onto the next generation. Ihsan Dagi points out this trans-generational trauma discourse in the relations between the Greek and Turkish in Cyprus. He says : “psychologically speaking it might also be due to the Western World’s stereotypical perceptions of Turks as the heirs to the Ottomans, who were the enemies of the West.” (2008, 98)

This can express the mistrust the Muslim minority has in the Modern Greek society that hasn’t always respected their rights (see historical background). Even though now the situation is much better than it was in the 60s or 70s, the generation that went through this ‘traumatic period’ could have possibly passed on the symptoms of these traumas like mistrust to the next generation. Indeed, mistrust is a common response to trauma and trans-generational trauma in general. For example: ‘In the case of children of survivors of the Holocaust, there has been a focus on avoidance of further adverse experiences as reflected by messages such as “be careful” and “don’t trust anybody”’ (Bombay, Matheson & Anisman, 2009, 22). Of course, these feelings of mistrust can also be expressed in other ways. However, this is another relevant example of how trans-generational trauma can influence the current relations between the communities.

To conclude this part, an overview of the reasons that promote or prevent change in the relations between the communities now and in the future was presented. Then the prominent theme of historical trans-generational trauma was explained. History not being taught accurately in schools and the feelings of mistrust reproduced in younger generations was given as examples of how trans-generational trauma influences the relations between the communities. Although, all the reasons suggested above can also be understood individually, it is essential for the reader to keep in mind the discourses produced by historical trans-generational trauma in the following sections.