Identity politics: Is a Christian or Kurd 'a Turk'?

An advisory council report that calls on the country to broaden its official definition of minorities and to embrace multiculturalism is stirring a bitter public debate here about national identity.

It has become so heated, in fact, that when the head of the council tried to present the document at a press conference Nov. 1, another council member tore the notes out of his hands and publicly denounced the report, forcing the event to be canceled.

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, meanwhile, have distanced themselves from the report.

The document, which cites a lack of cultural rights and freedoms in Turkey for minorities, comes on the heels of a recent European Union progress report on Turkish political and human rights reforms which detailed problems with the country's treatment of Kurds and non-Muslims.

The overwhelmingly Muslim country, meanwhile, is pinning its pro-West dreams on an EU summit Dec. 17, when a final decision will be made on its pending membership in the organization.

Some of the backlash to the advisory council's work appears to be fueled by a fear that further highlighting human rights shortcomings in Turkey could jeopardize its EU bid.

But analysts here say the debate reflects something much deeper.

The struggle, they say, is between a Turkish national identity forged in the crucible of World War I and its aftermath, and the growing desire to create a more inclusive, multicultural society.

It is something akin, they say, to a second modernizing - and sometimes difficult - transformation for the country.

"The search is for a democratic reconceptualization of what a Turk is," says Etyen Mahcupyan, a researcher on democratization at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), an Istanbul think tank. "We need to redefine what a Turk is based on citizenship, not any single ethnic identity."

Officially, the only minorities in Turkey are Jews, Greeks, and Armenians, as spelled out by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, which led to the establishment of the Turkish Republic after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

But the board's report says Turkey has fallen behind modern norms in its understanding of minority communities.

It calls for Turkey to recognize groups such as non-Sunni Muslims, Assyrian Christians, and cultural and linguistic minorities. It also calls for constitutional changes to protect individual and minority rights.

Elcin Macar, a political scientist at Istanbul's Yildiz Technical University, who specializes in the study of Turkey's minorities, says the report's recommendations have tapped into long-held Turkish fears that trace their roots to the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, when European powers tried to carve up its territory through appeals to the empire's minority groups.

Page: 1 | 2