by Shant Minas
Daily Trojan (U. Southern California)
(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES -- Turkey is a large country situated at the crossroads of two continents, two religions and two civilizations. The northwest tip of Turkey sits in Europe, a continent predominantly Christian and the birthplace of Western culture. The rest lies in Western Asia, a geographical area that has been home to countless peoples and nations throughout the ages, and which is now mostly Muslim and its culture distinctly Middle Eastern.
Recently Turkey has been in the news incessantly, primarily for three issues. The first, and most salient to Americans, is the U.S. armed forces' use of Turkish air and naval bases near Iraq, from which war can possibly be waged against Iraq, as during the 1991 Gulf War. The next concern, perhaps most vivid to European Union citizens, is the issue of eventual EU membership for Turkey. Finally, and sadly, the issue that gets the least coverage is Turkey's Kurds in the eastern provinces, who make up 15 percent of Turkey's 65 million population.
The government and Turkey-boosters are trying hard to lay to rest the old negative stereotypes about Turkey, made legend in the 1978 film "Midnight Express," as Turkey has come a long way since the breakup of the sprawling Ottoman Empire after World War I.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Today, Turkey is a modern republic with a president and parliament, albeit one with overpowering military generals who often call the political shots. Turkey enjoys a huge tourist trade, as it is gifted with 5200 miles of temperate coastline. Since the land has been home to dozens of civilizations and peoples long past, there are myriad age-old monuments and historic sights, though many, if not most, were around long before Turks populated the area en masse.
When compared to its southern and southeastern neighbors, which are predominantly Muslim nations, Turkey serves as a much-heralded model of modernity combined with moderate Islamic values. Since Turkey founder Ataturk outlawed Islamic headgear and garb in public buildings back in 1926, Turkey has shunned Islamic fundamentalist traditions. It has been recently touted as a model nation for its troubled Arab Muslim neighbor nations to the south and the problematic Islamic theocracy of Iran to its east.
Troublingly, though, Turkey is still laden with some deep-rooted problems that, if not addressed, will make it even harder to achieve the E.U. membership that it wants so badly, and more importantly, will keep Turkey from realizing its full potential as a player on the world stage.
First and foremost is the issue of the Kurds. Recently reported in the Los Angeles Times ("Nameless Kurds of Turkey," Jan. 30), Kurds in Turkey are not allowed to speak their language in public, teach the language at all or name their children Kurdish names, among countless other absurd restrictions.
Failure to comply can yield horrid consequences, including long prison terms, torture and even execution. The government's current policy toward its large Kurdish minority seems to be to completely and forcibly homogenize them into greater Turkish society, as previous Turkish governments have successfully done with Turkey's large Christian minorities during World War I. Does the European Union really want as a member a nation and government that, among other ills, completely represses its Kurds?
It is no coincidence that Turkey's government continues to repress and restrict its last large minority.
Before World War I, dozens of ethnic groups called what is currently Turkey home. Among them were large contingencies of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.
Today, fewer than 100,000 total from those groups remain in Turkey. The Turkish government spends millions of dollars each year on a campaign to defame and deny the Armenian genocide of World War I at the hands of the Ottoman Turk government, in which nearly two million Armenians and tens of thousands of Greeks and Assyrians were massacred.
This denial campaign has somewhat succeeded, as mainstream publications such as The Economist, are careful never to mention this wretched national crime in articles about Turkey, most likely because of pressure from the Turkish government and advertisers.
To the chagrin of the Turkish state, the European Parliament has mandated accepting the genocide as historical fact a condition of beginning talks for E.U. membership, in addition to complete reform of its vile treatment of its Kurdish minority in accordance with civilized European standards.
It appears, then, that it would be premature to exculpate Turkey from its negative stereotypes, in the new light of how it is treating its Kurdish minority combined with long-known facts of its notoriously brutal treatment of forgotten minorities and dissidents in centuries past.
The question remains: When will Turkey become ready to shed its abject human rights practices, come to grips with the painful history of the genocide of World War I and become more secure about its own cultural identity so as to allow free, unhindered expression of Kurdish language and culture?
If Turkey aspires to join the free, developed world, it must fully satisfy these fundamental conditions.
