Turkish Forum

Category: Turkey

  • Kemal Karpat: “Turks and Jews:”

    Kemal Karpat: “Turks and Jews:”

    A Model of Coexistencekemal-karpat1

  • Russia-Georgia Tensions Harm Armenia

    Russia-Georgia Tensions Harm Armenia

    Continued closure of Russian-Georgian border crossing leaves Armenia cut off from its most important market.

    By Naira Melkumian in Yerevan (CRS No. 495, 29-May-09)

    The Armenian economy, already reeling from the global financial crisis, has suffered a new blow from Georgia’s refusal to re-open a frontier crossing with Russia – Armenia’s only link with its major ally.

    The Upper Lars border post, where the road between Tbilisi and Vladikavkaz crosses the central Caucasus, was closed unexpectedly by Russia in 2006, a major setback to Armenian exporters.

    Now, Russia has re-opened its side of the frontier but Georgia has declined to allow goods to pass through. Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia last year, says it wants Swiss mediation before it will trust its northern neighbour.

    That leaves Armenia, which currently has to use a lengthy export route via Bulgaria to reach Russia, cut off from its most important market.

    “We are desperately keen that this road should operate. Russia has assured us that on its side all work has been completed. They gave a high priority to Upper Lars functioning, especially since they have provided the customs points with all modern facilities,” said Armenian prime minister Tigran Sarksian.

    The complex geopolitics of the South Caucasus leave Armenia uniquely dependent on this crossing point. The rest of the Georgian border with Russia is closed, either being too mountainous, or controlled by Abkhazia or South Ossetia, which have had their independence recognised by Russia but not by Georgia.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan meanwhile, have not signed a formal treaty to end their war over the breakaway region of Karabakh, leaving the other half of Russia’s southern border closed to Armenian exporters. At the same time, Armenia lacks diplomatic ties with its other main neighbour Turkey, although relations are thawing and may prove a way out of the impasse.

    “Now the question is one of a political decision, and the problem is Russian-Georgian relations. I hope that soon relations between Georgia and Russian normalise and thaw, which will be good for all countries in the region,” said Armenian transport and communications minister Gurgen Sarksian.

    The Russians blame the Georgians for the crossing point being closed, but the Georgians say they cannot trust the Russians to behave honourably.

    “All negotiations in connection with the opening of the crossing point must take place in the presence of the Swiss, in as far as we cannot rule out provocations from the Russians,” said Georgian foreign minister Grigol Vashadze.

    That position, and the inevitable delays that will accompany it, is not likely to please Armenia, which has already seen its economy slump disastrously this year and has had to call on funding from the International Monetary Fund. The country’s central bank has predicted the economy will contract by 5.8 per cent this year, following a 6.1 per cent decline in the first quarter.

    The mining sector has been particularly hard-hit, and several companies have been forced to shed labourers.

    The stand-off has reminded Armenians that their country’s economy is too dependent on Georgia for its own good. Only in August last year, when the war interrupted Armenia’s export trade, the country lost 600-700 million US dollars.

    At the moment, 70-80 per cent of Armenian exports travel to Russia, leaving the Georgian port of Poti for Bulgaria, then shipped to Novorossiisk on Russia’s southern coast. The whole journey can take eight or ten days, whereas the road through the mountains and Upper Lars is relatively quick.

    “If for a long time our goods go only via ship from Poti, then it will create financial problems, increase the cost of our exports, and if you add the economic crisis to this, then you create a situation that is disadvantageous to Armenia,” said Vardan Aivazian, head of the economic committee of the Armenian parliament.

    The stand-off has also added impetus to talks to open the Armenian border with Turkey. The two countries lack diplomatic relations, and have major differences over whether the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of Armenians in the First World War constituted genocide, but the two sides agreed a so-called road map last month which could kick-start a normalisation of relations.

    Turkish-Armenian unofficial trade via Georgia almost doubled in 2008 to 270 million dollars, although almost all of this consisted of Turkish textiles, building materials and domestic goods. If the border was opened, these goods could travel directly into Armenia.

    “The opening of the border would legalise the trade, which currently goes on between the two countries via Georgia, and would reduce the high transit fees. Currently, Turkish goods are widely used in Armenia, including foodstuffs and products of light industry,” said Aivazian.

    However, the idea of opening the border between Armenia and Turkey has serious opponents, particularly the nationalist Armenian party Dashnaktsutiun, which fears Turkey could dump its products in Armenia and swamp domestic producers.

    “We have studied the economic policies of Turkey and Armenia, and the protectionist policies which Turkey conducts in defence of its own producers clearly bear witness to the fact that we, with our liberal policy, will not benefit from this,” said Ara Nranian, a member of parliament from the party.

    Naira Melkumian is a freelance journalist.

  • African-American Muslims The American Values of Islam

    African-American Muslims The American Values of Islam

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    There is no other country in the Western world with as many Muslim converts as in the USA. Particularly for socially disadvantaged African-Americans, mosques are places of family values and social responsibility. By Katrin Simon

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    Boy saying the Shahada, the Islamic creed, in the Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn, New York. According to estimates, about one third of US Muslims are African-American converts | “In Islam, there’s no racism, no sexism,” says Sakina*. “In Islam, I got dignity, as being black and being a woman.” She tugs at the colourful cloth wrapped around her hair like a turban. That’s why she converted to Islam at the age of 16, she says. Five years ago, Sakina was at high school in Brooklyn and still went by the name of Vivien, and all her friends were African-Americans from Christian families. Her grandmother went to church on Sundays.

    Her mother, on the other hand, had to work most weekends, waiting tables to feed her three children. The young woman has never met her father; he disappeared when she was a baby. When Vivien met Jamal aged fifteen, she already had her own experiences with boys behind her: “They abused me. I was a stupid chick falling in love easily. And they only wanted skinny girls, white and blond.”

    Islam and the rules of the community

    Jamal* was different. Not just because he told her how beautiful she was even though she wasn’t thin, even though her hair just wouldn’t straighten, even though her skin was so dark.

    The 20-year-old young man also told Vivien how he’d had to help out at a youth social project for a drugs offence. How he’d heard from other young African-American men there that they’d got their lives back under control. How Islam had helped them back on track – its rules, its community. Christianity, they’d told him, was only for whites, a religion for slave-owners who wanted to keep black men down.

    Jamal’s next stop was the Nation of Islam, which is very active in recruiting young African-American men, especially in ghettos and jails. Founded in 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) is an African-American grouping that claims Islam is the true religion of all black people, and interprets Christianity as an inherently racist, white religion. It came to prominence during the civil rights movement era, with Malcolm X as one of its star preachers and the boxer Muhammad Ali raising its public profile.

    Growing influence of Sunni Islam

    For many Americans, the group’s current chairman, the charismatic and controversial Louis Farrakhan – infamous for his numerous racist statements – is the prototype of the black Muslim. Yet the NOI is an extremely contentious organisation among other Muslims, many of whom regard it as heretic. The NOI has been in a state of decline for years, and Farrakhan too is old and sick, his leadership clearly weakened.

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    4a1ec39a31398_bild2For many, controversial Louis Farrakhan is the prototype of the black US Muslim. However, in the past few years, many Afro-American Muslims have converted to traditional Sunni Islam | Like many former NOI members, Jamal gradually shifted to Sunni Islam, now regularly attending a mosque in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant by the name of Masjid at-Taqwa. The mosque’s imam, Siraj Wahhaj, was also active in the NOI for several years as a young man before turning to Sunni Islam.

    Wahhaj is now regarded as one of the best known and most charismatic imams in America, a man who is constantly travelling, with many of his speeches available online. Young people in particular – and by no means only African-American Muslims – admire his combination of political sermons, conservative morals and an almost evangelical style of preaching.

    Dominance of “ethnic mosques”

    His mosque, though, is mainly attended by African-American Muslims. This is not unusual; the majority of American mosques are what are called “ethnic mosques”, dominated by African-American, Pakistani or North African Muslims, for example.

    The first time Jamal took Vivien along to the mosque, she was impressed by the verve of the Friday sermon. Imam Siraj spoke about American society’s lack of morals. About broken families. Alcohol and drugs. About how it was above all poverty, criminality and racism that were destroying black families in particular.

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    4a1ec92022eb1_us_muslims_2Like most mosques in the US, the Al-Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn, New York, is an “ethnic mosque”, attended mainly by Afro-American Muslims | At the time, Sakina says, she thought it was great that Imam Siraj spoke directly to the men in the mosque: “He was really screaming at them!” He told them to accept responsibility. Told them to be there for their families. Told them to get a job instead of hanging out on the streets with their friends. And that there was only one solution to rid them of all these evils: abiding by the rules of Islam. Where women had not only duties but rights too. Where men had not only rights but duties too. And he told them that the Koran forbade racism.

    Equality for all believers

    And then Imam Siraj told the story of Malcolm X. The story of a small-time gangster from Detroit who had found Islam in jail and become a better person. Who had renounced alcohol, criminality and promiscuity, first leading the Nation of Islam’s temple in Manhattan and then finding the true Islam on his pilgrimage to Mecca. An Islam in which all believers are equal, no matter what their skin colour or gender.

    Vivien recited the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of belief, in the mosque the very next Friday. From then on, she has called herself Sakina and is now one of a large and constantly growing group of African-Americans who have converted to Islam. The USA is the only country in the Western world where converts form the largest single group of Muslims. The precise figures are contentious, but the US government assumes there are some 6 million Muslims in America, more than a third of whom are African-American converts.

    Strengthening identities

    | Bild:
    4a1ec92871f8a_sirajSiraj Wahhaj, the Imam of Al-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn. Wahhaj became a Sunni Muslim in 1975, urging US Muslims to come to orthodox Islam | Like Jamal, many of them are young men whose conversion gives their lives meaning after fractures in their biographies, helping them to get back on track. Or young women like Sakina, who have experienced feelings of debasement and disrespect for their own dignity as black women and hope a conversion will strengthen their identities, who are looking for security and stable family structures.

    The black churches, many converts and even critical Christians claim, no longer fulfil these roles sufficiently. Instead of taking care of the problems in the ghettos, the churches have formed a cosy establishment closest to the black middle class.

    This vacuum is filled not only by groups like the Nation of Islam, but also by Sunni imams like Siraj Wahhaj. A worldview that combines patriarchal conservative values with critique of racist political structures – often enough legitimised by Christianity – is very attractive. Especially when it is presented through Islamic rhetoric and symbolism.

    Brother Obama, American values and polygamy

    It’s not just since 11 September 2001 that African-Americans have been able to demonstrate maximum inner distance from the Christian-dominated white majority by converting to Islam. Only to then actually return to rather American values in the name of their new faith.

    Sakina and Jamal married shortly after Sakina’s conversion. Jamal is now a social worker himself, working with ex-gang members. Sakina is studying at community college and wants to be a teacher. The couple have two daughters, who Sakina wants to be doctors or lawyers when they grow up. They were both actively involved in the Obama campaign during the election: “Although he’s not against homosexual marriages and abortion – but hey, he’s a brother. That’s even more important!”

    The only thing that worries Sakina is that Jamal recently mentioned taking a second wife. Polygamy, although officially banned in the USA, is not uncommon among African-American Muslims. “It’s his Islamic right, I know. Still. Immigrant Muslims ain’t doing that neither!” Sakina feels this is one American custom she and Jamal really don’t need to adopt: “Let’s the Mormons doing that. We could better spend the money for the wedding traveling to Mecca.”

    Katrin Simon

    © Qantara.de 2009

    * Names changed by the author.

    Katrin Simon is currently working on her doctoral thesis on African-American Islam at the Free University Berlin, Germany.

    Letter to the EditorAdd a comment Qantara.de

    The Muslim Hip Hop Scene in the USA
    Rapping with Allah’s Blessing
    In the USA, where an increasing number of African-American musicians are converting to Islam, a Muslim hip hop scene is emerging. The proponents of this style of music consider themselves to be intermediaries between Islam and pop culture. Jonathan Fischer reports

    Islamic Architecture
    Modern Houses of Worship: Mosques in the USA
    In the United States there are over 200 mosques that combine traditional designs from Islamic countries with modern American architecture. A report by Abdul-Ahmad Rashid

    Muslims in the US and in Europe
    The Tale of Two Continents
    Although the US is the prime target of Islamist extremists, it is Europe’s less integrated Muslims who provide more recruits to the terrorist cause, says Shada Islam in her analysis

  • The Fethullah Gülen Movement

    The Fethullah Gülen Movement

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    Pillar of Society or Threat to Democracy?

    Fethullah Gülen is Turkey’s most famous preacher and its most controversial. His followers run schools, hospitals and a media empire – a boon for his supporters, but a horror scenario for his critics. Daniel Steinvorth sheds some light on a cleric who polarises opinion both at home and abroad

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    Honoured by his supporters as “Hocaefendi”, vilified by his opponents as an Islamist in disguise with a hidden agenda: Fethullah Gülen | What does an Islamic school actually look like? One might expect prayer rooms, single-sex tuition, and walls lined with suras from the Koran. The Güventas School in Konya, a city in Central Anatolia’s industrial heartland, has nothing of the kind.

    It is a clean, new building with a chemistry lab on the fourth floor, a lawn with a Chinese-style pavilion in front of the school, and a silver bust of Atatürk at its entrance. As is the case all around Turkey, girls wearing headscarves are turned away by the doorman.

    There is nothing exaggeratedly or overtly pious about this freshly painted provincial school. “We consider Islam to be a personal matter,” says the cheery headmaster, Adil Halid Alici. “There is one hour of religious tuition a week, no more than that.” The syllabus is the one stipulated by the state, as is the daily oath of allegiance to the founder of the Republic, Atatürk, which is sworn every morning.

    But there must be something shady about the “best school in Konya with the best school-leavers” as it is described by an enthusiastic father of a future female pupil.

    However conventional it might appear, the Güventas School is no ordinary Turkish school. It is a private establishment, one of hundreds that belong to the world’s largest Islamic movement, the Fethullah Gülen Movement – the very mention of which sets alarm bells ringing in secular Ankara.

    A nuisance for the country’s secular elite

    Gülen’s mysterious network is a nuisance for the country’s secular elite. Some even consider the followers of the Muslim preacher, who are also known as “Fethullahcilar”, to be the greatest threat to the Turkish Republic since its establishment. Websites such as irtica.org (“Regression”) or vatanhainleri.wordpress.com (“Traitor to the fatherland”) warn against a return to the Middle Ages, millions of veiled women, and courts meting out Sharia justice.

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    4a1c8621ae505_4a1bcd888aad9_buch_fethullah_faruk_mercan2Reformer or Islamist? Researchers says that Gülen’s interpretation of Islam is closer to the conservative mainstream than anything else | Commentators like Yusuf Kanli are asking whether the Fethullahcilar even intend to revive the caliphate, slowly, step by step, using methods of secret indoctrination via schools, universities and the media.

    But it is not only in Turkey that people are raising the alarm; there have also been warnings from overseas. Michael Rubin, formerly of the Pentagon and now working for the Neo-Con American Enterprise Institute, has compared Gülen, who is currently living in exile in the United States, with another famous Muslim preacher, the deceased Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran.

    “Istanbul in 2008 could end up like Teheran in 1979,” says Rubin ominously. In view of the fact that, in his opinion, “never before has the secular order in Turkey been in such a precarious position,” Rubin also cautions against allowing the Turkish cleric to return home.

    Is Fethullah Gülen really a fundamentalist in disguise? If outward appearances are to be believed, it would appear not: he wears neither a turban nor a bushy beard and looks rather like a wistful grandfather. But could it be that he is a master of the Taqiyya, the Islamic concept that allows believers to conceal their true faith under certain circumstances? Or is he really a voice of reason, one of the most progressive Muslims of our time, as his followers claim?

    Up until recently, the founder of the largest Islamic movement in Turkey was only known to his compatriots and a handful of Islamic experts abroad. Then the American magazine Foreign Policy and the British magazine Prospect published the results of a poll in which readers were asked to name the 100 most important intellectuals in the world. Fethullah Gülen topped the poll.

    It was an unexpected result: a Muslim scholar, an Oriental, was able to overtake the West’s intellectual giants, leading thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, Al Gore, Umberto Eco and (an also-ran in this poll) Jürgen Habermas!

    An “avalanche of voters”

    This surprise result is easy to explain. Most of the votes cast (over 500,000) were submitted shortly after the daily newspaper Zaman, which is associated with Gülen, called on its readers to vote for him. Foreign Policy wrote that while it had not expected such an “avalanche of voters”, the result revealed something “quite unique” about the “influence of the men and women we selected for the survey”.

    | Bild:
    4a1c83a4c72d4_4a1bc9ec86cb3_fethullah_guelen_papst_paul_21Travelling the world on an interreligious mission for his network: Fethullah Gülen during his audience with Pope John Paul II | For its part, Prospect quickly published an article about the winner entitled “A modern Ottoman” in which it wrote that the winner of the poll was “the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman tradition.”

    The phenomenon that is Fethullah Gülen began in Korucuk, a remote village in eastern Anatolia. The village is home to just under 600 people; the houses are made of clay and straw. Life is simple; prospects are bleak. In 1941 (according to some sources, in 1938), a son was born to the village imam, Ramiz Gülen.

    The young Fethullah was eager to learn. Legend has it that he began to learn the Koran by heart at the age of five. By the age of ten he had completed his task, learned to speak fluent Arabic, and had familiarised himself with the teachings of the most important Muslim scholars. Just under four years later, he preached for the first time.

    He began to learn “the correct reading of the Koran” from senior clerics and to study “Rislae-i Nur”, the writings of the Muslim mystic Said Nursi.

    Inspired by Nursi’s writings, which would provide him with the logical and scientific foundation for his views on how to face the challenges of the modern era, Gülen began to take a critical look at orthodox Muslim law. He soon began adopting his own stance.

    Although he considers the Islamic principles as revealed in the Koran to be unalterable, he is convinced that these principles must be adapted and reinterpreted in the light of the times we live in. The state order should be accepted as the framework for the individual’s actions; modern science provides the means of rationally understanding God through the study of his creation.

    Itinerant preacher on the path to spirituality

    Gülen soon began moving around the country as a state-approved itinerant preacher. In an era rocked by political unrest and military coups, he called for peace and dialogue and condemned violence and terrorism, quoting the great masters of Islamic mysticism, Muhyiddin-i Ibn Arabi and Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, who showed the “path to true enlightenment through spirituality and love”.

    While preaching, Gülen often burst into tears, weeping for minutes at a time, a feature that would become a future trademark of the “Hocaefendi” (venerable teacher), as he is now called by his followers.

    The charismatic preacher, whose following grew steadily, called for involvement instead of retreat. Society, says Gülen, can only be changed by the individuals in it, and the key to change is education. Gülen’s motto: build new schools instead of new mosques!

    For Gülen, whose advice by this time had taken on distinctly protestant overtones, work is also a key virtue. “For endurance and patience, we are rewarded with success; the punishment for lethargy is penury,” wrote Gülen in his book Essentials of the Islamic Faith.

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    4a1c89b378a34_4a1bcf452b8bc_verlagshaus_zaman41The building where the daily newspaper Zaman is published in Istanbul: the fact that Gülen’s movement has also established political and economic associations and has built up a media empire has generated a feeling of mistrust | In the years that followed, the number of Gülen supporters from Anatolia’s emerging middle class rocketed: the link between serving God and earning money appealed to what the European Scientific Institute, ESI, referred to as Turkey’s “Islamic Calvinists”.

    But the man from Korucuk also preaches about the reprehensible nature of atheism and Darwin’s theory of evolution, which he roundly rejects. Moreover, his texts do not deny the existence of angels and demons.

    According to Bekim Agai, an expert in Islamic studies, these attitudes alone mean that Gülen could never don the mantle of the “Muslim reformer” so eagerly awaited by the West. Nor, says Agai, does Gülen stand for his own or any revolutionary new theology. On the contrary, his interpretation of Islam is closer to the conservative mainstream.

    Cemal Usak, one of Gülen’s close advisors and the vice president of the Istanbul-based Journalists and Writers Foundation, acknowledges that Gülen is not a theological reformer. “But he is a democrat and a great humanist, and that is what matters.”

    Gülen’s educational mission

    Countless private, state-recognised educational establishments, schools, universities, residences, and institutes of tuition were set up in the 1980s and 1990s after Gülen finished working as a state preacher.

    He then focussed his efforts on the movement that bears his name. His standing with the people grew as the social activities of his sponsors filled a gap that the Turkish state either could not or would not fill: the standard of education in provincial Turkey and in the suburbs of the country’s major cities is catastrophic.

    The fact that the movement also established political and economic associations gave rise to mistrust. Not only that, but a media empire comprising publishing houses, magazines, a television channel and the second largest daily newspaper in Turkey, Zaman (Time) also emerged.

    By the end of the 1980s at the very latest, Gülen had become a public figure. When he preached in Istanbul’s famous Sultanahmet Mosque – “at the request of the people”, as he himself says – people like the former prime minister Süleyman Demirel and his foreign minister, Ihsan Sabri Çaglayangil, came to hear him speak. Even Turgut Özal, one time prime minister and later president, maintains contact with the preacher.

    Nevertheless, having clashed with the law on a number of occasions, Gülen soon found out that having friends in high places in the world of politics does not always guarantee immunity. In most cases, he was arrested on charges of “antisecular activities” and released a short time later.

    In 1994 he founded the Journalists and Writers Foundation, of which he would later become honorary president. At this stage, he began giving regular interviews to all important newspapers and meeting members of the country’s political elite, including the politician Tansu Çiller, with whom he opened Bank Asya in 1996.

    While travelling abroad he was granted an audience with Pope John Paul II and met John O’Connor, archbishop of New York. His network continued to grow: schools and universities were founded in the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Turkic states of Central Asia, Europe and the USA. No-one, even the Fethullahcilar themselves, are able to say exactly how many have been opened.

    Hidden agenda?

    “How could they?” asks an exasperated Zaman journalist Selçuk Gütasli, who cannot understand the fuss surrounding the movement to which he belongs. “We are not an organisation that you can join as a member. We are a community of people who are all pursuing roughly the same objective!”

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    4a1ea978da64b_rumi_wikipedia_commonsEarly 16th century miniature painting with a poem by Sufi mystic Rumi: According to Gülen, the great masters of Islamic mysticism showed the “path to true enlightenment through spirituality and love” | This, he continues, is why Necla Kelek, a German critic of Gülen, is so wrong when she describes the movement as a “non-transparent Islamist sect with a corporation structure”. “Anybody who accuses us of having a hidden agenda, is welcome to come and quiz us. We have nothing to hide,” says Gütasli.

    The main sponsors of the network’s charitable projects, including Gülen himself, are listed on a website of the aid organisation “Kimse Yok Mu” (Is no-one there?). Moreover, the fact that the majority of the 16 shareholders in Bank Asya, which gives interest-free credit to the country’s most important entrepreneurs in line with Islamic principles, are closely associated with the Gülen network, is available for all to read on Gülen’s own website.

    The followers of the “Hocaefendi” invoke an organisational structure that dates back to the Ottoman Middle Ages, namely that of the religious Sufi brotherhoods.

    Without ever gaining the status of a legal body, the orders continued to exist under the Kemalist system. Fethullah Gülen entered the Nurcu, the order of the mystic Said Nursi that distanced itself from radical Islam at an early stage. Gülen welcomed the toppling of the former Prime Minister and fundamentalist Necmettin Erbakan in 1997. He recommended that Turkey should look to Europe and not to Iran or Saudi Arabia.

    In March 1999, the preacher paid a surprise visit to the USA. A short time later, a Turkish television channel broadcast a speech by Gülen that had obviously been secretly filmed. In the recording, Gülen is heard calling on his supporters to “work patiently and to creep silently into the institutions in order to seize power in the state”.

    The public prosecutor in Istanbul promptly demanded a ten-year sentence for Gülen for having “founded an organisation that sought to destroy the secular apparatus of state and establish a theocratic state”.

    Gülen claimed that the recording had been “manipulated”; his supporters claimed that a smear campaign was being waged against him. Nine years later, in June 2008, he was acquitted on all counts. However, he remains in exile in Pennsylvania – “for health reasons” by his own account.

    His friends claim that they do not know when the hodja will return, but they hope it will be soon. “If I cannot see him, I will weep like a child; it would be as if I was prevented from seeing my beloved,” says Ihsan Kalkavan of Bank Asya.

    A renowned media entrepreneur, on the other hand, hopes that Gülen will stay away for a long time to come. “He won’t come back like Khomeini, but he will continue the Islamicization of Turkey,” says the entrepreneur, who intends to fight to ensure that his daughter and her boyfriend “will be able to go on holding hands on the street in the future.”

    Irrational fears or a reliable instinct? Overcoming the mistrust of his opponents is likely to be the most important task Gülen will face for the rest of his life.

    Daniel Steinvorth

    © New York Times Syndicate / Qantara.de 2009

    The author is Turkey correspondent for the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL.

    Letter to the EditorAdd a comment Qantara.de

    Portrait of Fethullah Gülen
    A Modern Turkish-Islamic Reformist
    Fethullah Gülen, founder of a worldwide Islamic education movement, regards morality and education as the engine for a contemporary Islam that is compatible with laicism. By Bekim Agai

    Interview with the Political Scientist Cemal Karakas
    “A Ban on the AKP Would Be a Setback for Democracy”
    Turkey is veering towards a full-scale domestic political crisis. The German-Turkish political scientist Cemal Karakas from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) fears a provisional end to the reform process if the governing AKP is banned. An interview by Dogan Michael Ulusoy

    Islam and Democracy in Turkey
    Squaring the Circle
    Ioannis N. Grigoriadis takes a closer look at the AKP and its drive to democratise the Turkish Republic and bring it into the European Union. He concludes that the Turkish Constitutional Court’s decision not to disband the ruling party prevented serious damage being caused to efforts to reconcile democracy and Islam

  • Turkey, the Jews and the Holocaust

    Turkey, the Jews and the Holocaust

    Interview with Corry Guttstadt

    Turkologist Corry Guttstadt has published a comprehensive study of the behaviour of the Turkish government towards its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust. In doing so, she has investigated a chapter of twentieth-century history that has thus far been all but neglected by international Holocaust research. Sonja Galler spoke to her about her findings

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    Corry Guttstadt: “Over the course of many centuries, the Ottoman Empire was an immigration destination for Jews fleeing the Reconquista in Spain and pogroms in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, to portray the Ottoman Empire as a ‘multicultural paradise’ is absurd and ahistorical.” | Much is made of the fact that there are approximately 20,000 Jews in Turkey today, a figure that is frequently held up as evidence of the country’s tolerant attitude towards its Jewish minority. It is often claimed that this success story began when persecuted Sephardic Jews found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of the modern Turkish state …

    Corry Guttstadt: Well, there are currently over 20,000 Jews in Iran too. A number alone is not necessarily a reliable indication of whether somewhere is safe or free from anti-Semitism. As far as Turkey is concerned, it is important to emphasise that only 20,000 Jews now live in the country. That’s in stark contrast to the estimated 120,000 to 150,000 that lived in the region at the end of the First World War. Both before and after the Second World War, and most particularly after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the vast majority of Jews left Turkey. This was a reversal of the trend of previous centuries.

    Over the course of many centuries, the Ottoman Empire was an immigration destination for Jews fleeing the Reconquista in Spain and pogroms in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, to portray the Ottoman Empire as a “multicultural paradise” is absurd and ahistorical. As non-Muslims, the Jews were subject to countless constraints. Like the Christians, they had to pay a poll tax and were obliged to behave in a submissive manner towards Muslims. Moreover, it must be said that there were numerous fluctuations in the fortunes of the Jews in the 600-year history of the Ottoman Empire.

    The period of Jewish persecution on the Iberian peninsula coincided with the expansion of the Empire, whose rulers were keen to increase the urban population. Another reason why they were happy to welcome the Sephardic Jews was because they brought with them important skills and expertise. Jews who had settled in Anatolia and in the Balkans before the Ottoman conquest, on the other hand, were forced to resettle – also for demographic reasons – and were subject to a number of considerable constraints.

    What was life like for the Jews around the time the Turkish state was created?

    Guttstadt: The foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 was the final chapter in the protracted disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, which had lost most of its territory in a series of wars against major Christian European powers. The situation for the Jews varied because unlike the Christian populations in the Balkans, they were not pursuing any separatist goals. In response to European protests about the Armenian massacre, Ottoman leaders liked to point to the Jews as a “model minority”.

    | Bild:
    Guttstadt reveals that the dissemination of anti-Semitic tracts in the 1930s heralded the birth of modern Anti-Semitism in Turkey | For their part, the Jews were often the target of anti-Semitic attacks at the hands of Christian minorities around this time and were, for that reason, reliant on the protection of the state. Consequently, most Jews initially regarded themselves as allies of the Kemalist movement and looked to the new Republic with largely positive expectations. These hopes were quickly dashed because despite their attempts to adapt and their declarations of loyalty, the Jews quickly became a target for the rigid nationalism of the young Republic. One of the defining policies of the young republic was the “Turkification” of state, economy, and society.

    In this light, the Kemalist leadership regarded the rights that had been granted to non-Muslim minorities in the Treaty of Lausanne as a continuation of the interference of major imperialist powers. It put non-Muslim religious communities under pressure to renounce these rights “voluntarily”. Jews were also successively driven out of a number of professions and economic sectors. This prompted many Jews to emigrate, particularly to France, but also to the USA, Italy or Germany.

    Once war broke out, how did the Turkish state, which managed to remain “neutral” until the end of the Second World War, behave towards the Jews who lived within its borders?

    Guttstadt: I think we have to differentiate here between anti-Semitism and anti-minority nationalism, which targeted not only the Jews, but other groups too. On the one hand, anti-Semitic tracts like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion reached Turkey and were translated into Turkish in the 1930s. Following a visit to Germany, Cevat Rıfat Atilhan, who could be described as the father of Islamic anti-Semitism in Turkey, started publishing the anti-Semitic newspaper Millî İnkîlâp (National Revolution) in Istanbul, which contained anti-Semitic caricatures that had been lifted directly out of the Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer. Although this and other magazines were banned for a certain period, they mark the birth of modern anti-Semitism in Turkey.

    Both the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf have gone through umpteen new editions to this day. Nationalist measures that affected not only Jews, but also Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks, included forced resettlement, the so-called “wealth tax” – which led to the confiscation of assets of those who were not in a position to pay the arbitrarily fixed and frequently astronomical sums they were required to pay – and forced labour in camps in eastern Anatolia. Although these measures are in no way comparable with the persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis, they destroyed the Jews’ faith in the Republic so utterly that the majority of the country’s remaining Jews left the country in 1947/48.

    At this time, Turkish Jews were scattered all over Europe. How did they fare?

    Guttstadt: At the start of the war, approximately 25,000 to 30,000 Jews of Turkish origin lived in Europe, most of them in France. Only about 10,000 of them still held Turkish citizenship, which became a matter of life and death during the Holocaust. There were many people who came to Europe as “Ottoman citizens”, but whose place of birth had been assigned to other states once the Empire was no more. In France, it was relatively easy to obtain French citizenship. From the start of the 1930s, the Kemalist Republic began checking the nationality of citizens living abroad and revoking the citizenship of non-Muslims in particular.

    | Bild:
    Ceremony to mark the opening of the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul, one of the few remaining synagogues in Turkey: “During World War II, Turkey was not a major country of exile for persecuted Jews,” says Guttstadt | This policy of denaturalisation, which the Turkish state could initially pass off as a normal consequence of the new state order, focussed primarily on the Jews during the Holocaust. In October 1942, Germany delivered an ultimatum to the Turkish government to repatriate its Jewish citizens from the states occupied by the German Reich. Above all, however, the government in Ankara wanted to prevent a mass influx of Turkish Jews and decided to use the instrument of mass denaturalisation as a means of preventing it. What proved particularly fatal in this regard was the fact that according to Turkish law, people who had either voluntarily changed their nationality or had been denaturalised were not allowed to set foot on Turkish soil ever again – even as a tourist or a refugee.

    Moreover, in 1938, Turkey passed a secret decree that forbade “foreign Jews who are subject to restrictions in their native countries, regardless of what religion they currently practice” from entering Turkey. With this decree, Turkey adopted the criteria that characterised anti-Jewish legislation in Germany and its allied countries.

    What did the Turkish government at the time know about what was happening in the countries controlled by Germany and about the fate of Turkish Jews living in those countries?

    Guttstadt: Naturally, the Germans did not tell the Turkish authorities that Jews who were not repatriated would be deported and murdered, but obscured the reality of the situation by saying that they would be “subject to the general measures applied to Jews”. However, in view of the fact that numerous Jewish aid organisations had representatives in Istanbul, Turkey was a one of the places where concrete information about the Holocaust was available. From there, journalists reported about the systematic murder of Jews.

    Jews that had escaped the concentration camps or ghettos and managed to make it to Istanbul, were questioned by aid committees and given the assistance they needed. Their reports were passed from Istanbul to other offices around the world. Both journalists and Jewish activists were undoubtedly under observation by the Turkish secret service. In March 1943, the Turkish government newspaper Ayın Tarihi reported about the mass murder of Jews in Germany. Several Turkish Jews living in Europe turned to the Turkish government for help.

    About 3,000 Turkish Jews were deported to German concentration camps during the Shoah. To what extent can Turkey be held responsible for their fate?

    Guttstadt: The Germans are responsible for depriving these people of their rights and for their persecution and murder. In view of current attempts in Germany to rewrite history again and in view of the German “victim” debate, I refuse to qualify German responsibility in any way. Turkey could have repatriated a much greater number of Jews and opened its borders to refugees. Despite the fact that aid organisations offered to assume the costs that would ensue, the Turkish government generally refused. That being said, Turkey was certainly not the only country to adopt a passive stance.

    However, until such time as the Turkish archives are opened, we can only speculate about domestic discussions and criticism of the official policy towards the Jews. We must remember that the Turkish regime at the time was dictatorial; there was a one-party system; the press toed the regime line and was subject to strict censorship. The Jewish community was also completely intimidated and impoverished by the measures taken in the 1940s.

    The official Turkish line is that Turkey was a safe harbour for Europe’s Jews.

    Guttstadt: Because of its close ties to Germany, Turkey actually had extensive opportunities to save Turkish Jews living abroad. Isolated Turkish diplomats frequently grasped these opportunities. In Paris, for example, Turkish consuls brought about the release of a number of incarcerated Turkish Jews. Turkish consuls in Milan and Vienna also protected individual Jews. Even though these acts were not always performed for purely humanitarian reasons – some consuls may have used their influence to line their pockets – it shows the great latitude they had. In many cases, it was enough to confirm the Turkish citizenship of a Jew to prevent him or her from being deported.

    The hiring of German Jewish academics at Turkish universities is often mentioned as a humanitarian act. What is your view?

    Guttstadt: It is true that from the autumn of 1933 onwards, a considerable number of German Jewish academics and artists found jobs in Turkey, where they played an outstanding role in building up new universities, hospitals, theatres etc. Even though they were not received for humanitarian reasons, but for reasons of utility, the Turkish government gave these people work, in most cases allowed their families to follow them to Turkey, and protected them against persecution by the Nazi regime. Nevertheless, Turkey was never a major country of exile for persecuted Jews. In terms of numbers, the few refugees that were allowed to enter the country do not appear in any pertinent statistics.

    Interview conducted by Sonja Galler

    © Qantara.de 2009

    Corry Guttstadt: Die Türkei, die Juden und der Holocaust (Turkey, the Jews and the Holocaust) Verlag Assoziation A, Berlin-Hamburg 2008. 520 pages, 26 euros.

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    eva-filipiSANLIURFA (A.A) – 30.05.2009 – The senior Czech diplomat in Turkey saw on Saturday Turkey’s geopolitic importance as a reason for European Union (EU) membership.

    Eva Filipi, the ambassadress of the Czech Republic to Turkey, said that there were many reasons to make Turkey a full member of the EU.

    Filipi enumerated these reasons as Turkey’s geopolitic and strategic importance and location.

    The Czech Republic has been holding the rotating presidency of the EU since the beginning of 2009, and will hand over the presidency to Sweden as of July 1, 2009.

    The ambassadress expressed her country’s full support for Turkey’s EU membership bid, and said both Turkey and the EU should be fair as much as they could and fulfil their obligations.

    Filipi said that the EU was not a Christian club, and had many universal principles and values that were not related with religion.

    Turkey became an EU candidate country in December 1999. The union launched accession talks with Turkey on October 3, 2005. (BRC)

    Source: haber.turk.net, 30.05.2009