Political climate and current debates

To start with, after researching the diplomatic relations between the countries, both Greece and Turkey in their official web pages of Foreign Ministry declare their will to cooperate in a peaceful way with each other. Greece even claims to support Turkey’s wish to join the EU and Turkey also insist on an economical partnership in terms of tourism and transport to profit both countries greatly. Therefore, at first glance there seems to be peaceful grounds on which the minority can thrive in Greece and shouldn’t raise any worries in the locals of Komotini.

Additionally, the Turkish government that feels itself responsible to look out for the Muslim minority of Western Thrace has expressed many times its concern regarding the laws and rules that discriminate the minority in many different ways. On their Foreign Ministry page they list these different discriminations, some of which have already been mentioned in the part on discrimination and some others that the participants didn’t mention (6). One example is the aftermath of a past discriminatory law that denied citizenship to the Muslim minority if they were to leave Greece, which continues to cause problems in some cases today (6). Thus, Turkey wants to position itself as a protector of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace.

Greek Orthodox worries

Thus, the Turkish Consulate in Komotini and Turkey’s ongoing concern with the Muslim minority’s rights protection proves their real involvement in the region of Western Thrace. This is what worries the Orthodox participants of this research. Furthermore, under the current climate of breakdown of the Turkish secular state because of Erdogan’s will to become an increasingly more religious state, the Greek fear of its influence on the Turkish nationalist of Western Thrace is amplified. Indeed, ‘Mr Erdogan has said that he wants to see “the growth of a religious generation”, which would replace long-standing secular domination in Turkey.'

Stefanos Gravanis and Ivi Papadouplou even went as far as saying that the peacefulness of Western Thrace rested upon Turkey not getting involved in the region. Indeed, one of the participants expressed the idea that Turkey is having a sort of ‘secret claim’ over the region of Thrace and as a result is influencing the minority to vote according to the Turkish exterior politics. Ivi Papadouplou argued that the presence of the Turkish consulate in Komotini was an unnecessary body that significantly reflected the problem of self-identification of the minority as Turkish and leads to Turkish nationalism.

Muslim community's concerns

Nonetheless, some of the Muslim participants like Amet Omer also raised the concern in regards to Turkey’s current shift away from a secular liberal democracy. Indeed, they fear the deterioration of Turkey might have an influence on how the Greek Orthodox’s perceive of their community.

Furthermore, Ibrahim Mustafa expressed his worry of the rise of the Greek nationalist party, the Golden Dawn. Indeed, the nationalist party use the refugee crisis and the growing despair in the Greek economy to fuel feelings of xenophobia that make the Muslim minority of Thrace feel vulnerable as a bearer of minority status in Greece.

Hence, it seems that both communities are worried by the same factors, specifically Turkey’s involvement in the region and the rise of nationalism from both the Turkish and Greek side. Hence, the fear of nationalism probably has a role to play in the current climate between the communities in Komotini.

Therefore, although officially Greece and Turkey have good relations, under the current circumstances, the relations seem to be tense. This unstable climate worries many of the Greek Orthodox locals but also some of the Muslim participants interviewed as the influence of Turkey in the region of Western Thrace is undeniably present. Nonetheless, it would be essential to do further research to understand to what extent it actually influences the Muslim community’s political stance.

Furthermore, another topic of political nature that some of the participants touched upon was the application of the sharia law in regards to family and inheritance issues (see historical background) for the Muslim community of Western Thrace. This topic is very controversial and remains very taboo in Greece, to the point that the Greek government seems to avoid the topic altogether. What is very interesting about the existence of sharia law in Greece first of all is that this wasn’t an idea that Turkey wanted to preserve for their minority in Greece back in 1923 once they were exempt from the population exchange. Indeed, Turkey at the time was created on the basis of an entirely secular state and therefore banned the sharia law from its justice and political system. However, in Western Thrace, Greece refused to take away this privilege from the minority that was used to it under the Ottoman rule and who at the time was also a state that placed a big importance on religion in its social and political life. However, nowadays times have changed and Greece being part of the European Union is stuck in a conundrum as to how to follow the human rights and democratic principles of the EU, while at the same time continuing to guarantee the rights of the sharia law that they promised in the Lausanne treaty. This has been a point of interest for the Orthodox participants of this research, especially in regards to the way the sharia law and the conservative approach to faith in Komotini continues to endorse unequal gender roles, in which women having to respect a system where religion and politics are intrinsically connected. Some research has shown women even expressed feeling trapped in a system that will not allow them to flourish under the Greek European and democratic system.

Indeed, it has also been observed that some women in the minority find themselves discriminated against by the sharia law and have the will to emancipate themselves from these rules and put the Greek jurisdictions before their religious political obligation. This recent case of a Greek Muslim woman from the minority bringing to the European Court of Justice the unfair terms of her husband’s inheritance under the Mufti’s sharia law jurisdictions, are a reflection of the problems the minority face under their current religious justice system.

Another participant insisted on exploring the economical situation of the minority. Indeed, according to this participant, in these times of crisis the fact that the minority doesn’t invest in the Greek economy but rather turns itself towards Turkish products and invest in Turkey is detrimental to good relations between the Greek Orthodox and the minority of Komotini. Indeed, it appears that although the Orthodox invest in the minority’s businesses in Komotini, the minority do not invest in their businesses in exchange. Therefore, this participant believed a further analysis on this was necessary.

Thus, further research on this topic was conducted. Many of the participants in response to this statement insisted that on the one hand this was a trend that was changing and on the other that the reason for their disengagement from the Greek economical frame is linked to past discriminatory rules that still influence the current situation. A policy report from 2007 by the European Regional and Local Studies, funded by the European Commission investigated these topics of discrimination in the current economical and political climate the region of Western Thrace. They found that there were still remains of this discrimination in the current economy of the region. In their words:

‘In fact, despite the increasing influx of development funds into Thrace and the participation of minority representatives in the structures of local and prefectural self-government, the integration of the minority into the economy of the region has so far been limited. (…)The disparity in funding allocation between the Christians of the south and the Muslims of the north, and the limited inclusion of minority individuals in programmes, can be attributed to the legacy of severe socio-economic exclusion, as a result of the past policy of discriminatory measures, and also to specific social idiosyncrasies of the Muslim community. Given their past economic marginalization and their occupation in tobacco growing, most lack the necessary additional private capital required by programmes. Furthermore, minority inhabitants in the mountainous north of Xanthi and Rhodope often do not have proper land ownership titles -- a condition for participation in development programmes.’ (2007,8)

Thus, this report confirms the Muslim participants responses and explains in more detail why they have not participated in the local economy.

Hence, here an overview of the current diplomatic relations between Greece and Turkey was presented and with the help of the interviewees’ responses different concerns of the Orthodox and Muslim communities of Western Thrace were raised. Other concerns listed by the participants such as to the application the sharia law in Greece and the involvement of the Muslim minority in the Greek economy were introduced. Thus, from the current political crisis in Turkey, to the rise of nationalism in both Greece and Turkey, to the ongoing economical discriminations and the ambiguous terms of the sharia law, there are many layers to the current climate that influence the communities. Politics and the current debates expressed here are topics that need to be further researched to untangle their influence on the relation between the Greek Orthodox and the Muslims of Western Thrace.