Turkey's Christians face backlash

Several recent murders have confronted Turkey's growing ranks of Christian evangelicals.

from the April 25, 2007 edition

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"There are always communications from the authorities and the media accusing Christians and missionaries of trying to divide the country, and this [the murders in Malatya] is, in a way, a result of these declarations and this approach to Christians in the country," says Mr. Madrigal. "They cut their throats like an animal, like a sacrifice. They were the first martyrs of the evangelical church in this country."

Despite the murders' religious overtones, experts believe they can be better attributed to the extreme nationalism and anti-Western xenophobia that are both on the rise in Turkey.

"Islam is a strong identity and you have these people who think they are Muslims and Turks and that all others are infiltrating the country and plotting against it," says Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist who writes frequently about Islam and nationalism. "The problem is that this kind of ideology – anti-Western and anti-Christian – is being promulgated by some very powerful people."

Some of the most forceful language warning against missionary activity has actually come from Turkey's secular establishment. For example, a 2001 report by Turkey's National Security Council (MGK) listed missionaries (along with Islamic fundamentalists) as a security threat.

Last year, Rahsan Ecevit, the wife of late prime minister Bulent Ecevit, who was a paragon of the Turkish secular left, told the press that missionaries are working to divide Turkey and are paying Muslims to convert. "We are losing our religion," she said.

Salim Cohce, a professor of history and sociology at the state-run Inonu University in Malatya, says he believes that the missionaries working in Turkey are focusing on "on destabilization, manipulation, and propaganda."

"If they are not controlled, this can be dangerous for Turkey, " adds the professor, who claims that Turkey today has 500,000 of what he calls "crypto-Christians."

The influx of evangelicals joins a historical Turkish antipathy toward missionaries, who were active in the region during the final days of the Ottoman Empire and who were seen as little more than agents for the European powers that opposed the Ottomans.

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