Perceptions of Christians in Turkey: A Study of the Climate of Accusations against Christians in Turkish Newspapers (original) (raw)
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The Historical Background of the Highly Critical Perception of Christians by the Turkish Society
In Turkey, considered a secular and democratic role model for other countries with a Muslim majority, both state and society perceive Christians very critically. There are historical experiences and ideas that contribute to this surprising finding. In the Qur’an, the Holy Book of Muslims, Christians who do not accept the claim of Muhammad to be God’s prophet, are perceived as rebellious liars. Christians in early Islamic society were widely tolerated, but had a status as second-class-citizens. The Ottoman Empire as the front state against the Christian world and the savior of Sunni Islam widely tolerated Christians; the dhimmi status of Christians as second-class-citizens however was continued in the millet-system. As the power of the Ottomans decreased and Western ideas of nationalism began to influence the Empire during the nineteenth century, the Muslim majority began a search for identity. Secessions of Christian peoples and interference by “Christian” foreign nations triggered more severe clashes between the remaining Christian population and the state. The wide-ranging activities of Western missionaries in the Ottoman Empire were perceived as a part of Western colonialism. During the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, the leaders of the Young Turk movement were motivated by their desperate battle to save a rest of the Empire as a homeland for the Muslim population. The perception of Christians as the enemy of the new Republic was more firmly established. Though Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave a revolutionary modern and secular character to Turkey, there was an intentional Turkification of society. A study of Turkish newspapers confirms that these perceptions are widely valid until today. Missiology has to help develop an appropriate response of Christians to the situation inside and outside of Turkey.
Przegląd Europejski 3/2019, 2019
The aim of this paper is to follow and analyse the public discourse on religious minorities in Turkey after the failed coup d’état of 15th July 2016. However either Turkish state’s policy or social attitudes towards these groups have always been controversial and their real position has always differed from their legal status, the author decided to put a hypothesis that the coup attempt is indeed what has significantly affected the way they are being perceived by mass media in Turkey and hence, by Turkish public opinion. Thus, the purpose of this analysis is to study the chosen media content concerning religious minorities and to answer the question how the post-coup reality affects the situation of persons belonging to these groups. In order to achieve this goal several research methods specific for political science and humanities are applied and Polish, English and Turkish language sources are widely referred in the article.
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Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023
Türkiye was the centre of Christianity until the Ottoman Empire invaded Constantinople in the 15 th century. The Ottoman Empire granted rights and protection to the Orthodox Christians, but major conversions to Moslems with political purposes occurred during this period. In 1924, Türkiye became a modern state based on the secularism of Kemal Ataturk and then controlled religious affairs. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has held power since 2003, amended the constitution and strengthened Islamic politics in Türkiye in the last decade, benefiting conservative Muslims. Therefore, this study aimed to elaborate on the impact of religious political dynamics in Türkiye from the Roman Empire to the Erdogan regime on Christianity in the country. The theory of religious politics and a qualitative methodology with a historical comparative approach was adopted. The result showed that the political transformation in Türkiye, from the Ottoman Era and Kemal's secularism to Erdogan's Islamism, did not change the political attitude of the Turkish government towards Christianity. Regrettably, Christians continue to experience unpleasant and discriminatory treatment from the government, particularly after the failed 2016 coup, due to the perception that Christians are often associated with the interests of the US and Western countries.
This paper introduces and utilizes a systematic and unified four-dimension democratic approach to the study of newspaper religion reporting to examine the coverage of faith, particularly Christianity and Islam, in the British and Turkish national press. While the research employs a sample from 2014 and uses framing analysis through content analysis of 1,022 news articles supplemented by qualitative examples, this democratic approach crosses time and country boundaries. The findings reveal that, in both countries, alongside the contrasting portrayals of the minority religions, even the dominant religions had disproportioned employment of the four dimensions: spiritual, world life, political, and conflict. The spiritual dimension had limited use in both countries, particularly in the UK. There was significantly less employment of context for putting faith in action in the reporting of Christians in the world life dimension in the UK compared to the coverage of Muslims in Turkey. The results suggest a potential, though untested, application of this approach as a democracy index against which the press can improve its faith coverage. This study’s theoretical and methodological contribution to scholarship outweighs its empirical findings in the fields of religion in the news, comparative journalism studies, and empirical research on news media’s democratic performance.
Turkish Studies THE DEBATES ON RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE: THE CASE OF TURKEY
The relationship between the public sphere and religion is a very important issue, particularly from sociological, political, ideological, ethical and judicial viewpoints and in terms of international relations at the local and global levels. The public and political significance of religion has an important place in debates concerning the social aspects and functions of religion. The history of debates related to the situation of religion in the public sphere is politically and academically very long. Religion in the public sphere has always been the subject of lively debate in the context of politics, ideology, sosciology, political science, etc. in Turkey, too. One of the most important reasons for this debate is the fear that religion may gain power in the secular state (" the public sphere "). Under the influence of this fear, the concept of the public sphere in Turkey is discussed in a political, ideological, and emotional framework based on laicism and is used with the same meaning as the sphere of the state or the official sphere. Debates on religion in the public sphere are held in the framework of this perception and of official practices with respect to this perception. This study examines some sociological, ideological and political dimensions of the debates related to religion in the public sphere in Turkey from a sociological perspective.
THE DEBATES ON RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE: THE CASE OF TURKEY
The relationship between the public sphere and religion is a very important issue, particularly from sociological, political, ideological, ethical and judicial viewpoints and in terms of international relations at the local and global levels. The public and political significance of religion has an important place in debates concerning the social aspects and functions of religion. The history of debates related to the situation of religion in the public sphere is politically and academically very long. Religion in the public sphere has always been the subject of lively debate in the context of politics, ideology, sosciology, political science, etc. in Turkey, too. One of the most important reasons for this debate is the fear that religion may gain power in the secular state (“the public sphere”). Under the influence of this fear, the concept of the public sphere in Turkey is discussed in a political, ideological, and emotional framework based on laicism and is used with the same meaning as the sphere of the state or the official sphere. Debates on religion in the public sphere are held in the framework of this perception and of official practices with respect to this perception. This study examines some sociological, ideological and political dimensions of the debates related to religion in the public sphere in Turkey from a sociological perspective.
Turkey Turns On Its Christians
Middle East Quarterly, 2018
While Christians make up less than half a percent of Turkey’s population, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Reconciliation Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) depict them as a grave threat to the stability of the nation. With Erdoğan’s jihadist rhetoric often stereotyping Christian Turkish citizens as not real Turks but rather as Western stooges and collaborators, many Turks seem to be tilting toward an “eliminationist anti-Christian mentality,” to use historian Daniel Goldhagen’s term. Small wonder that the recent launch of an official online genealogy service allowing Turks to trace their ancestry has kindled a tidal xenophobic wave on the social media welcoming the fresh possibility to expose “Crypto-Armenians, Greeks, and Jews” mascarading as true Turks. [1]
Persecution as a Battle for Defining Identity: Reflections from Turkey
In Turkey, we find a remarkable degree of prejudice against Christians. Opinion formers of the nationalistic and the Islamist ideologies use and deepen the existing prejudice to define Christian identity in a way that may lead to more violent forms of persecution and to a wrong self-image of the Christians themselves. Therefore, an important element of persecution in today’s Turkey is a battle for defining Christian identity. As a response to wrong definitions, Christians have to focus on the real Christian identity. The First Letter of Peter speaks into a similar situation of suffering through prejudice and ostracism. The letter focuses on the assurance of real Christian identity and on a warning of Christians to provoke wrong definitions by inconvenient behavior.
For some milieus in Turkey Christian missionaries are perceived as a danger. The very small Protestant minority is the community that is most active in spreading its faith. Therefore, very often public accusations in Turkey are directed against Protestants. However, the perception of Christians as being an instrument of hostile powers is not limited to Protestant missionaries but often indicates a general distrust against Christians in the country.