Unwelcome Citizens:Muslim Turks of Greece and Orthodox Greeks of Turkey (original) (raw)
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Reciprocity Problem between Greece and Turkey: The Case of Muslim-Turkish and Greek Minorities
This study aims to show the position of the Greek and Muslim-Turkish minorities from 1923 to 2014, a period during which Turkey and Greece had ups and downs in their relations, and the effects on the relevant minorities respectively. Since 1923 Turkey and Greece have taken their minority issues within the principle of reciprocity. Accordingly, the attitudes of the two countries towards their relevant minorities have been shaped according to the level of relations between them. When Turkey and Greece's relations have been moderate; minorities have benefited but when their relations soured, they suffered. Although Turkey-Greece relations developed rapidly after 1999, the new positive atmosphere has not fully affected the positions of the minorities. For example, opening the Halki Seminary School and the election of the Muftis has continued to act as an obstacle between Turkey and Greece. In this study, the problems concerning the implementation of the principle of reciprocity and also the impossibility of using this principle within the context of human and minority rights will be discussed.
Continuity and Change in the Minority Policies of Greece and Turkey
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2006
This paper examines the policies of Greece and Turkey towards their respective national minorities, as defined in the Treaty of Lausanne. Although since 1923, both minorities have been repressed by their governments, the intensity, the instruments and the outcomes of such repression have been different in the two countries. The study explores the conduct of anti-minority policies by reference to major Greek-Turkish crisis events, which often served as pretexts for minority repression.Existing studies on Greek-Turkish affairs mainly focus on the events of the Greek-Turkish war, 1919–1923 and the 1923 population exchange. On the other hand, there is an often-polemical bibliography from both sides on current issues. Though minority issues also form part of the debate, the arguments are often limited to a comparative narrative of repressive acts, aiming to demonstrate the faults and sins of the ‘other’ side. This paper aims to contribute to the current literature, by developing a more sober analysis of the minority policies of the two countries that is both comparative in nature and historically informed.Hence, the present paper examines the elements of continuity and change in the implementation and development of minority policies in Greece and Turkey, aiming to explain the differences in the intensity, instruments and outcomes of their application. In this context, the present study argues that the disparities in the process of nation-building and the development of nationalism in Greece and Turkey constitute the reasons for the different development of their minority policies and the current condition of their respective minorities. The variables that are examined include the content of nationalist ideology, the different phases of its development, the main tools for its implementation and repression of minority ‘voices’ and the external factors that influence the two countries in the implementation of their policies.
Libra Publisher, 2019
What influences the political representation of minorities? Does a non-core group pursue a certain pattern of collective political behavior, or does it have the ability to alter it through struggle with other groups by calculating the existing opportunities and restrictions? This book addresses these important questions by focusing on the history of political representation of the Muslim-Turkish minority in Greece and the Greek-Orthodox minority in Turkey, two communities whose rights are linked to each other via the “reciprocity principle” written in the Lausanne Treaty, signed by two countries that have long-lasting conflicts. Drawing on presentation of related political history, systematic coding of parliamentary debates and works, minority and mainstream newspapers, and elite interviews, the author analyzes and explains ignored linkages between institutions, bilateral relations between Greece and Turkey, and the role of external factors that enable or constrain minority communities’ access to political life. This study which adopts a historical institutionalism approach and, by integrating theory of both comparative politics and international relations, shows how the minority groups’ political participation and the effectiveness of their representation has been determined by the triangle of the two states’ choice of nationalism, reciprocity and Europeanization policies, mainly argues that internal factors such as groups’ capability for competition and institutional features of the political system in the host-state mostly override states’ bilateral relations with the kin-state and international factors. As a result, for the Greek and Turkish case, the host-states generally pursue the policy of state-controlled involvement of their minorities in the political life, where the existence of the threatening kin-state and minority groups’ strong demographic features lead to avoidance of full assimilation and exclusion from political representation.
Turkey and Turkish/Muslim Minorities in Greece and Bulgaria (1923-1938)
This thesis examined how Turkish perception of insecurity, which was based on its suspicions about Greek and Bulgarian intentions and politics towards its territorial integrity and stability of its regime, shaped its view of Turkish/Muslim minorities living in these two states in the early Republican period. Using a wealth of archival material and newspapers, it questioned to what extent these physical and ideological concerns of the Turkish Republic played a role in its approach to these minorities in the period between 1923 and 1938. Turkey perceived the Greek and Bulgarian maltreatment of these minorities as a part of these states’ hostile intentions regarding the new Turkish state. Thus, what this thesis argued is that Turkey responded to pressure on Turkish/Muslim minorities in these two states not only because of humanitarian concerns but according to its security concern, which became an important factor to determine Turkish interventionist approach to the minority issues in Greece and Bulgaria in this period.
A Tale of Reciprocity: Minority Foundations in Greece and Turkey
TESEV Publications , 2010
The word most frequently uttered by Greece and Turkey with regard to their Muslim and non-Muslim minorities, respectively, is most probably ‘reciprocity.’ For more than half a century, in both countries, virtually all administrations,irrespective of their political leanings and ideological base, resorted to the good old ‘reciprocity argument’ to legitimize their laws, policies, and practices restricting the minority rights of Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Both states have for decades justified their policies on the basis of a theory that argues that Article 45 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne provided the legal basis for reciprocity. Deliberately distorting a crystal-clear provision, which simply confers parallel obligations on Greece and Turkey for the protection of the Muslim and non-Muslim minorities, respectively, both states have for decades held their own citizens hostage, pitting them against each other in the name of defeating the other in foreign policy. Disregarding the objections of international lawyers and institutions that the reciprocity principle does not apply to human rights treaties and that states cannot condition the protection of the fundamental rights of their citizens on the policies of other states, both Greece and Turkey have successfully manipulated their national public opinion into believing in the legitimacy of treating minorities as lesser citizens. This report analyzes the implications of reciprocity policies on the day-to-day lives of Muslim and non-Muslim minorities in Greece and Turkey, specifically their impact on the community foundations2 belonging to these minorities. With a specific focus on the property and self-management issues of Muslim and non-Muslim community foundations in Greece and Turkey, the report situates the issue in its historical context and trace the evolution of the ‘community foundation issue’ from Lausanne to the present day. Drawing similarities and differences between the laws, policies, and practices of Greek and Turkish states vis-à-vis their minority foundations, the report critically assesses the progress made to this day as well as identify the outstanding issues.
Bilig, 2019
Comparing political approaches toward Turkish/Muslim minorities in Bulgaria and Greece became a necessity in order to examine the integration of minority groups under different conditions. This study focuses on the policies of integration of ethnic/religious minorities in Bulgaria and Greece during the Cold War period, studies various methodologies adopted by the communist rule in Bulgaria and the liberal democratic rule in Greece. Since Turkish/Muslim minorities in Bulgaria and Greece claim Turkey as their kin-state, the study partially reflects the perception of minority groups by the majority. Several factors such as educational policies, religion and political approaches to integrate minorities have been evaluated in order to give an overview on the peculiarities and similarities in both cases that are compared. There is detailed analysis also on the issue of national identities and how their conditionality has been defined with the coexistence of minority groups in Bulgaria and in Greece.
Recensione Minorities and diasporas in Turkey Occhiali 11 2023
Occhialì - Rivista sul Mediterraneo islamico, 2022
In recent years, the denied rights of minorities have been in the headlines more and more due to the increasing attention being paid to them. On the one hand, we have a world where states are increasingly becoming multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities. On the other, we have the friction caused by this reality. It is astonishing to see how very often states are blind to the evolution of the population's social composition within their borders and how they fail to guarantee all people within their borders the enjoyment of the same rights, be they related to religion or other basic issues. Reading this volume, one seems to understand that Turkey is no exception to this reality. It emerges from these pages how, since the birth of the republic in 1923, the Anatolian state has had problems recognising that it is a truly multi-ethnic and multireligious state, whereas it was constitutionally born and developed as a single nation's state. Between the pages of this volume, besides the long-standing and famous issue of relations with the Kurdish minority, the stories (and struggles) of the other minorities present in the Anatolian country emerge, all more or less united by a history in which they are not recognised as an ethnic group or population in their own right, and are therefore unable to speak in their language, to educate their children in their traditions and customs, and to practise their religion. Not only the story of the Kurds, therefore, but also the stories of the Greeks of Istanbul, the Armenians, the Circassians, and the Alevi. Stories that, in one way or another, see people struggling against a culture, a bureaucracy and sometimes even