Laiklik ve yeni anayasa

KADRİ GÜRSEL
kadrigursel@diken.com.tr - Diken - 29 Nisan 2016

Türkiye bir süredir, anayasa ve hukukun dışına çıkmış, yargı ve yasama tarafından denetlenemeyen, keyfi ve otoriter bir rejim tarafından yönetiliyor. Bu fiili yönetimin adı ‘Erdoğan rejimi’dir.
Totaliter eğilimlerini açıkça dışa vuran bu rejim Türkiye’de laikliği fiilen ortadan kaldırdı.
Eğitim, rejimin ‘dindar nesil’ yaratarak iktidarını sağlama alma amacı doğrultusunda, Sünni inancına göre adım adım dinselleştiriliyor. Tüm kesimlerden toplanan vergilerle oluşan kamu kaynakları Sünni İslamcı vakıflara kontrolsüz biçimde aktarılıyor.
Devletin kapıları Sünni muhafazakar olmayanlara kapatılmış, kamu idaresi Alevilere yasaklanmıştır. Türkiye’de adı konulmamış bir apartheid rejimi uygulanıyor.
Nüfusun önemli bir kesimini oluşturan Aleviler bu ülkenin paryası haline getirilmiştir. Ayrımcılık sistemlidir.
Yeme-içme, eğlence, giyim ve sosyal ilişkiler bakımından ‘laik’ diye tabir edilebilecek bir yaşam tarzının kamusal alanda tezahürünün önüne geçmek için gerek devlet gerekse de örgütlü mahalle baskısı sistemli biçimde yıllardır sürdürülüyor.
Mezhepçi ve İslamcı iç politikanın doğal bir uzantısı olmaya indirgenen dış politika da haliyle mezhepçi ve İslamcıdır.
Türkiye, Cumhuriyet’i yitirdi. Bu ülkenin yakın geçmişinde halkın, özgür, eşit ve kardeş yurttaşlar olarak yaşama umudundan bu kadar uzaklaştığı başka bir dönem olmadı.
Laiklik yok edildiği için sonunda toplum, toplum olma vasfını kaybederek bir toplama dönüştü.

Ucube bir kavram

Ve işte biz bu Türkiye’de yaşarken Meclis Başkanı İsmail Kahraman, İstanbul’daki bir konferansta özetle şöyle buyurdu: “Laiklik bir kere yeni anayasada olmamalıdır. Dindar anayasa meselesinden anayasamızın kaçınmaması lazım. Dini olarak bahsetmesi lazım. Ladinilik olmamalı yeni anayasada ve dindar bir anayasa olmalı”.
Erdoğan’ın seçtirdiği İsmail Kahraman, ‘dindar anayasa’ diye ucube bir kavram icat etti…
‘Dindar’ nitelemesi ki sözlükte karşılığı ‘dininin buyruklarını, kurallarını eksiksiz olarak yerine getiren kimse’ şeklinde verilmiştir, bir anayasayı tanımlamak için kullanılamaz. Maksat dinin buyruk ve kurallarını anayasa yoluyla egemen kılmak olunca doğru tanım ‘şeriat anayasası’ ya da ‘İslami anayasa’dır.
İsmail Kahraman, akla seza ‘dindar anayasa’ kavramıyla aslında bir ‘bilinçaltı mesajı’ vererek siyasi görevini ifa etti. Mesaj, ‘Laiklik dindarlığa engeldir!’ diye özetlenebilir. Bilindik bir İslamcı lafız; laiklikle dindarlık arasında gerçekte olmayan bir karşıtlığı inşa ediyor.
Tabii ki gerçekle alakası yok. Bilakis, laik bir anayasa uygulandığı takdirde dindarlığın güvencesi ve fakat İslamcılığın da engelidir.

Maksat albenisi artsın

İsmail Kahraman ‘dindar anayasa’ dedi çünkü diktatörlük anayasası projesi, üzerindeki ‘başkanlık rejimi’ etiketiyle sahibini rahatlatacak seviyede bir halk desteğine kavuşamıyor. Onay tedricen artmaya devam etse de halen yetersiz. Muhtelif araştırmalar yüzde 35 ile 40’ın birkaç puan üzerindeki seviyelerde değişen sonuçlar veriyor.
O halde laikliğe ‘tu kaka’ deyip, ‘başkanlık’ın yanına bir de ‘İslam’ etiketi yapıştırmak lazım ki Sünni muhafazakarlar nezdinde anayasal diktatörlüğün albenisi artsın. En azından AKP seçmeninin tamamına yakınını ikna etmeliler ki henüz bunun uzağındalar.
Anayasadaki laiklik ilkesi tartışmaya açılarak Türkiye’nin rotası çok daha tehlikeli sulara çevriliyor.
Bu karanlık suların kendileri için de ne kadar hayati riskler içerdiğini görmüyorlar mı?
Farkında değillerse gafletin içindeler. Farkındaysalar, kendilerini her seçeneği test etmeye mecbur kılan bir çaresizlik içinde olmalılar.
Sonra olumsuz tepkilere bakıp görüyorlar ki ‘dindar anayasa’ manevrasının astarı yüzünden pahalıya çıkabilir… Ve rejimin muhtelif cenahlarından ‘dindar anayasa’ çıkışının İsmail Kahraman’ın kişisel görüşü olarak algılanmasını temin amacıyla açıklamalar yapılıyor.

Züppece bir soru

Şimdi ise ortalıkta züppece bir soru dolaşıyor: Laiklik zaten elden gitmişse, anayasada laiklik ilkesi olsa ne yazar olmasa ne yazar?
Hiç yazmaz olur mu?
En azından bu rejimin laikliği ortadan kaldırarak anayasaya karşı suç işlediğini yazar. Suçun hesabı da bir gün hukuk dairesinde sorulur. Anayasada laiklik yazmasa, hesabı da sorulmaz.
Türkiye gibi çeşitli mezhep ve inanç topluluklarını, kültürleri ve etnik grupları içinde barındıran heterojen bir ülkeyi bir arada barış içinde tutabilmenin ön koşulu laikliği uygulamaktır.

Türkiye’nin de çökmesine mani olmanın ön koşulu

“Laiklik anayasada olmamalı” diye ortaya çıkan siyasal İslamcının ufkunda, ‘dindar’ olarak görülmeyenlerin yeni tenkil ve tehcirlere uğratılacağı totaliter bir toplum tasavvuru vardır.
“Laiklik anayasada olmamalı” dedirten siyasal İslam, bu ülke için bir iç çatışma, topyekun gerileme ve çöküş programıdır. Bu iptidai zihniyet karşısında laikliği savunmak ise siyasal İslam’la birlikte Türkiye’nin de çökmesine mani olmanın ön koşuludur.

The Iranian Revolution and the Enlightenment

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Monday, April 18, 2016

Reading Hume in Tehran

The Iranian Revolution and the Enlightenment

Ervand Abrahamian

Ervand Abrahamian is Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College.
 

When Iran [1] makes headlines, it is usually as a result of its conflicts with other countries. Far less attention is paid to Iran’s conflicts with itself, which are still raging nearly 40 years after the revolution [2] that brought forth the Islamic Republic [3]. Despite the images of a monolithic, repressed, hyper-devout society that sometimes serve as a shorthand for Iran in Western media, the country is in fact the site of a great deal of political and ideological contestation. As Laura Secor writes in her new book, Children of Paradise, “Iran does not have a culture of passive citizenship, despite the best efforts of its rulers, past and present, to produce one. What it does have in many quarters is a restless determination to challenge injustice and to seize control of its destiny.”
Secor, who has reported from and written about Iran for The New Yorker [4], The New York Times Magazine [5], and this publication [6], has produced a vibrant panorama of contemporary Iran that doubles as a thorough intellectual and political history of the country’s past four decades. She tells the stories of the men who have held power, and also those of the men—and, increasingly, women—who have opposed them: activists, journalists, lawyers, university students, and ordinary citizens who have risked their lives by challenging authority.
The Iran that emerges from her account is full of contradictions, complexities, and paradoxes. The book ranges widely, but it is held together by an underlying narrative of intellectual evolution: the descent of dissent, from the revolutionary thinkers who helped bring down the shah, to the reformists who later sought to liberalize Iranian theocracy, to the contemporary generation of activists who have directly challenged clerical rule and paid a heavy price. Throughout, the book calls attention to how each generation has dealt with the Enlightenment concepts of rights and equality and with the desire to maintain religious legitimacy. Today’s activists and reformers [7] still struggle to reconcile the fundamental beliefs of Islam with the Enlightenment concept that all people, irrespective of belief or nonbelief, are equal and endowed by nature with inalienable rights. The conservatives who rule the country, on the other hand, suffer from no such dilemma: they hold that only true believers are entitled to participate in high-level politics—and they insist that only they themselves can determine who counts as a true believer.

AGAINST THE WEST

Secor begins with a highly accessible introduction to the Iranian radicals of the 1960s and 1970s who helped lay the groundwork for the revolution—thinkers whose legacies continue to shape Iranian politics but who remain virtually unknown in the West. She focuses on the sociologist Ali Shariati and the social critic Jalal Al-e Ahmad, who were prominent among a set of intellectuals who strove to articulate an anticolonial and anti-Western but profoundly modern vision of Iran as a revolutionary Shiite society. The shah had allied Iran with the United States and had opened up the country to Western influence and money, steps that resulted from and also accelerated what these dissidents derided as gharbzadegi: the “Westoxification” that led Iranian elites to slavishly embrace foreign ideas and technologies. Writers such as Shariati and Al-e Ahmad sought to reclaim an “authentic” Iranian identity and reinterpreted Shiite theology as a revolutionary political ideology, refiguring the martyred Imam Hussein—revered by Shiites as the rightful heir to the Prophet Muhammad—as a kind of seventh-century Che Guevara. They held that “Eastern” spirituality was superior to “Western” materialism and argued that Westerners could not possibly understand Iran because the country’s unique culture would always be fundamentally alien to Western minds.
By the 1990s, some of the intellectuals who had eagerly participated in the revolution as young people had grown disillusioned.
Most of these nativist intellectuals were religious dissidents. (Under the shah, Shariati was arrested a number of times and ultimately died in exile.) Others were leftists with Marxist sympathies. And some were even conservative supporters of the shah. But most shared one common feature: a rejection of the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment. For pro-regime intellectuals, the Enlightenment concept of individual rights placed unacceptable limitations on the state. For Marxists, the need for national unity against the shah’s tyranny and foreign influences took precedence over claims to individual rights. And for the religious dissidents, Enlightenment thinking supplanted God with humanity and thereby opened the way for materialism, atheism, and the toleration of religious “deviations” such as Bahaism. As Shariati put it, he chose to take shelter in the mosque to protect himself from the noise and dazzle of the Enlightenment, which he feared put mankind on a false path.

But Shariati, Al-e Ahmad, and their intellectual allies were a bit selective about their antipathy to the West: they were quick to accuse their opponents of gharbzadegi while in the same breath praising Western critics of Enlightenment thought, such as Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault, and adapting their ideas to the Iranian context. Indeed, the philosopher Ahmad Fardid, who coined the term gharbzadegi and later became a champion of Iranian Islamism, started out as a monarchist and right-wing Heideggerian. Such tensions in Iranian revolutionary thought would become only more pronounced after the shah fled Iran and his chief antagonist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned from exile and replaced the shah’s monarchy with a theocratic system headed by himself.

CLERICAL ERRORS

After Khomeini took power, he quickly sidelined the leftists and secularists who had joined forces with the Islamists to oppose the shah’s regime. It soon became clear that under Khomeini, the Islamic Republic would not usher in the rule of the intelligentsia, as Shariati and other dissidents had hoped and expected. Rather, Khomeini’s new constitution institutionalized the concept of velayat-e faqih, the divine right of the clergy to rule.
By the 1990s, some of the intellectuals who had eagerly participated in the revolution as young people had grown disillusioned, as the clerics and security forces maintained an ever-firmer grip on Iranian society and politics. This set of former revolutionaries began to turn away from the old discourse and search for a new language to articulate their demands and grievances, hoping that this might be the first step toward reforming the system. Theorists and activists who had once promoted ideas such as gharbzadegi, khesh (roots), shahed (martyrdom), and towhid (solidarity) now hailed demokrasi, azadi (liberty), barabari (equality), huquq-e beshar (human rights), jameh-e madani (civil society), and shahrvandi (a newly coined termed meaning “citizenship”). These intellectuals became known as “the new Islamic thinkers,” and they represented a repudiation of the earlier line of revolutionary thought: one of them, Akbar Ganji, even declared that Shariati’s work should be relegated to a museum.
The leading figure among the new Islamic thinkers was Abdolkarim Soroush. In the 1970s, Soroush was a young admirer of Shariati, doing his graduate studies in chemistry and philosophy in the United Kingdom. His writings on science and religion got the attention of many revolutionaries and dissidents, including Khomeini himself. Soroush returned to Iran in 1979, after the revolution, and soon thereafter, Khomeini appointed him to a committee charged with carrying out an Islamic “cultural revolution” in higher education (modeled in part on the campaign that Mao Zedong [8] had earlier launched in China [9]) that would rid Iran’s universities of Western influences. But once Soroush realized that the clergy had no intention of sharing power with others, especially with reformist intellectuals, he shifted gears, eschewing radical Islamism in favor of a vision more in tune with liberalism. By the mid-1990s, he had become a target for militant conservatives. At his lectures, hard-liners physically assaulted him and members of the audience. The authorities shut down the magazine he had founded, Kiyan. He was stripped of academic appointments, questioned by intelligence agencies, and even publicly criticized by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [10]. Soroush had little choice but to flee into exile, eventually taking a number of academic positions in the United States.

Secor introduces readers to thinkers whose legacies continue to shape Iranian politics but who remain virtually unknown in the West.

Soroush has been absent from Iran for many years, but Secor rightly places him at the center of the intellectual transformation that has taken place there during the past two decades. He has become for a new generation of activists and thinkers what Shariati was for the original revolutionary movement. Drawing inspiration from the work of the Austrian British philosopher Karl Popper, especially The Open Society and Its Enemies, Soroush has set out to slim down Islam, transforming it from the bloated ideology it became under Khomeini into a religion of personal piety and morality centered on the individual’s relationship with God. As Soroush told an interviewer in 1997, he seeks to purify religion, “making it lighter and more buoyant . . . [and] more slender by sifting, whittling away, erasing the superfluous layers off the face of religiosity.”

BEYOND BELIEF

Secor sympathizes with Soroush and other reformist intellectuals of his generation. That sympathy, however, leads her to underestimate two fundamental weaknesses of their movement. First, many reformists discovered the virtues of individual rights only after they had lost influence or had been pushed out of the ruling elite, more often as a result of personal disputes or power struggles than because of genuine philosophical disagreements with the regime. Take, for example, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, revered by reformers as a great champion of individual rights. Montazeri, who died in 2009, had been Khomeini’s designated heir until 1989, when, according to reformers, he broke with the regime over its prohibition of political parties and its efforts to “export” Iran’s revolution abroad, among other issues. A more skeptical view is that Khomeini’s inner circle had already started to ease out Montazeri after a relative of his was caught leaking information to media outlets about the secret U.S.-Iranian dealings that took place as part of the Iran-contra affair and that had embarrassed the regime. Only after it had become clear that Montazeri had fallen out of favor did he begin to publicly challenge the regime on substantive matters.
Second, although Iranian reformists have advocated enhanced individual rights, they have not embraced Enlightenment ideals more generally. They freely use the language of “modernity”—their pronouncements frequently feature that term—but neglect the fact that there are many varieties of modernity, including Stalinism, Maoism, fascism, and Nazism.
The main stumbling block preventing the reformists from a full embrace of Enlightenment values are the concepts of universal liberty and equality. The Enlightenment replaced divine authority with popular sovereignty, religious duties with individual rights, and, most threatening of all, obligations to God with inalienable rights derived from nature. In the Enlightenment tradition, such rights belong to all. But most reformist intellectuals have been willing to accept notions of liberty and equality only when applied to “true” Muslims. Mohammad Khatami, the reformist who served as president of Iran from 1997 to 2005 and who remains an influential figure, divides humanity into khody (“us,” meaning Muslims) and kheyr-e-khody (“them,” meaning unbelievers). Even Soroush, the reformist who comes closest to Enlightenment values, tends to endorse the idea of a political distinction between believers and everyone else.
Many reformists discovered the virtues of individual rights only after they had lost influence or had been pushed out of the ruling elite.
Secor writes that for Soroush, “there was no reason Muslim societies should not draw on secular political theories in order to design the best possible state. . . . What mattered was that those who entered politics in a Muslim state have good Muslim values. From there, everything could be debated and contested on rational merits, in the open air.” But that position requires one to determine what constitutes “good Muslim values.” As Soroush learned the hard way, for those in power in Iran, demonstrating “good Muslim values” requires one to adhere not just to Islam but to the concept of velayat-e faqih, and also to demonstrate loyalty to Iran’s supreme leader—all of which flies in the face of Enlightenment values.

This problem of unbelief has plagued reformers for decades. Consider the mass executions of imprisoned dissidents and antiregime militants that Khomeini ordered near the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. Secor movingly and vividly covers this grotesque bloodletting. The executions were carried out after Khomeini issued two secret fatwas (religious decrees), one calling for the death of prisoners who were moharebs (those warring against God) and the other condemning those who were mortads (apostates). The first was directed against members of the Mojahedin, a radical Islamist organization led by young intellectuals from devout Muslim backgrounds who had waged a dramatic guerrilla war against the shah but had also challenged Khomeini’s regime after the revolution. The second fatwa condemned antiregime leftists and nationalists who had grown up in Muslim families but no longer believed in Islam. The prisons set up inquisition courts that asked inmates whether they identified as Muslims, believed in basic Islamic precepts (especially the existence of an afterlife), performed their daily prayers, and fasted during Ramadan. Those who answered in the negative were promptly hanged.
In his memoirs, Montazeri claims that he wrote privately to Khomeini to protest the first set of death sentences on the grounds that the Mojahedin prisoners had already been convicted of lesser crimes and were no longer participating in violent resistance. Montazeri, however, avoided criticizing the second fatwa, which condemned the leftists and nationalists to death, probably because he did not want to get into a discussion of apostasy, which might have forced him to argue that unbelievers deserved the same rights as Muslims. That, apparently, would have been a bridge too far. If any influential reformers objected to the second fatwa, they kept it to themselves. Even now, three decades later, their silence remains deafening.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

Today, the new Islamic thinkers have been supplanted to some extent by a new generation of activists who came of age or were born after 1979 and who can be described as the revolution’s grandchildren. They formed the backbone of the so-called Green Movement that coalesced to protest the results of the 2009 presidential election, which returned the hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [11] to office despite charges of vote rigging. Secor provides colorful portraits of these young dissidents: university students, journalists turned bloggers, and human rights campaigners working for women’s equality or against the death penalty.
The regime mercilessly crushed the Green Movement through mass arrests, beatings, and forced confessions. Opposition figures aligned with the movement, such as Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have remained under house arrest even during the presidency of the relative moderate, Hassan Rouhani, who succeeded Ahmadinejad [12] in 2013. Although the promise of the Green Movement seems to have been extinguished, the reformist spirit is not altogether dead. As Secor’s book reveals, one hopeful aspect of today’s younger activists and intellectuals is that, unlike thinkers such as Soroush, who sought to criticize Iran’s theocracy without abandoning religious thought and language, they seem to be avoiding the discourse of Islam altogether and are instead exploring that of the Enlightenment.

Today’s younger Iranian activists and intellectuals seem to be avoiding the discourse of Islam altogether and are instead exploring that of the Enlightenment.

In this way, the new reformists are emulating a much earlier generation of Iranian liberals: the intelligentsia behind Iran’s constitutional revolution of 1905–7, which challenged the Qajar monarchy and led to the creation of Iran’s first parliament. The constitutional revolution’s leaders consciously avoided framing their appeals in religious terms precisely because they knew that doing so would play into the hands of the clergy, who could ultimately delegitimize the revolutionaries by calling into question their devotion to Islam. Soroush’s generation, in contrast, allowed itself to be sucked into the whirlpool of Islamic discourse in part because the popular mood after the revolution seemed to demand it and in part because Khomeini’s towering charisma allowed him to dominate Iranian politics so thoroughly that it became difficult to participate in debates without addressing religious thought.
But today’s activists and reformists do not have to contend with a figure such as Khomeini, and they are discovering that an increasing segment of the Iranian population is no longer enamored of the Khomeinist notion that “Islam is the solution.” So although the clerics remain firmly in control for the moment, it is unlikely that the regime will be able to avoid for much longer the difficult task of acknowledging and responding meaningfully to the central tenets of the Enlightenment, whose appeal refuses to wither away.

Copyright © 2016 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

Peter Balakian'nın Kaderin Kara Köpeği kitabına bir eleştiri

HAYAL VE GERÇEK ARASINDA BALAKİAN’IN KARA KÖPEĞİ - ŞALOM - 27 NİSAN 2016

Umut UZER

28.04.2016

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ŞALOM, 27 Nisan 2016

Holokost’un tarihi bir gerçek olduğundan şüphe duymayan birçok Türk aydınının Ermeni soykırım iddialarına şüpheyle bakmalarının sebebi nedir acaba?

Sanırım bu durumun başlıca nedenlerinden biri, Balkan Savaşları, I. Dünya Savaşı ve Kurtuluş Savaşı esnasında ölen Türklerin ısrarla göz ardı ediliyor olmasıdır.

Bir başka sebep ise intikam amacıyla cinayete kurban giden devlet adamlarına ve diplomatlara karşı en küçük bir acıma hissi ya da pişmanlık ifadesinin zikredilmemiş olmasıdır.

Burada üçüncü bir sebepten bahsedeceksek, o da sanırım Ermenilerin I. Dünya Savaşı’na ilişkin tarih anlatılarının son derece ırkçı kaynaklara dayanmasıdır. Hâlâ Büyükelçi Morgenthau’nun anıları temel kaynak olarak gösterilirken ve bu kaynakta Türkler vahşi, barbar ve insanlıktan nasibini almamış kişiler olarak tasvir edilirken, bu kitabın ciddiyetine ve tarafsızlığına inanmak elbette güçtür. Bugünün Batı dünyasında artık hiçbir topluma karşı böyle ifadeler kullanılamazken, Ermeni soykırımı literatürünün başlıca eserinde bu tip sözler rahatça kullanılmıştır.

Ayrıca malum olduğu iddia edilen Ermeni soykırımını kanıtlayabilmek için yalan, sahte ve sonradan üretildiği kanıtlanmış, ‘belgelere’ halen başvuruluyor olması da yine, Ermeni anlatısına karşı şüpheyle bakılması sonucunu doğurmaktadır. Örneğin, Atatürk’ün köpek yavrularına bakarken çekilmiş, son derece sevimli bir fotoğrafı, fotoşop ile değiştirilerek, Atatürk sanki açlıktan ölen ya da ölmek üzere olan Ermeni çocuklara bakıyormuş gibi tasarlanmış; Talat Paşa’ya bazı telgraflar atfedilmiş; Hitler’in Ermeniler ile ilgili söylediği kanıtlanamayan bir söz tartışmasız gerçekmiş gibi sunulabilmiştir. Ayrıca birazdan daha ayrıntılı bahsedeceğim kitabında Peter Balakian’ın, Ermenice bilmediğini açıklamasına rağmen, birkaç yıl sonra akrabası Grigoris Balakian’ın Armenian Golgotha adlı kitabını nasıl Ermeniceden İngilizceye tercüme ettiği de ayrı bir soru işaretidir.       

Bütün bu çarpıtmaların sebebi bir milliyetçi anlatının tek doğru ve tarihi hakikat olarak kabul edilmesinden gelmektedir. Bu bağlamda New York eyaletinde bulunan Colgate Üniversitesi İngiliz Edebiyatı Profesörü Peter Balakian’ın Kaderin Kara Köpeği (Black Dog of Fate) kitabından bahsetmek istiyorum. Türkçeye de çevrilen bu kitapta anılarını yazan Balakian, New York yakınlarında Teaneck ve Tenafly gibi New Jersey eyaletinde bulunan küçük şehirlerde oldukça zengin bir ailede doğup büyümesini, zaman içinde entelektüel dönüşümünde anneannesinden öğrendiği anılarının etkisini ve Ermeni kimliğini benimsemesini anlatmaktadır. Zencilerin ve Yahudilerin üye olamadığı özel bir kulübe (country club) üye olan Balakian ailesi oldukça rahat bir hayat yaşadıkları Amerika’da Hıristiyan hatta Protestan olmaları sebebiyle hiçbir ayrımcılıkla karşılaşmadan konforlu bir hayat sürmüşlerdir. Ne de olsa Amerika’daki hakim unsur Protestanlardı ve Balakianlar da Ermeni Apostolik Kilisesine değil Protestan kilisesine bağlı olduklarından ve ağırlıklı olarak İngilizce konuştukları için Amerika’daki beyaz etnik gruba eklemlenebilmişlerdir.

Teyzesi New York Üniversitesinde profesör olan Peter Balakian’ın ilgi alanı ilk başlarda şiirdi. Zamanla Ermeni kimliğini önemseyen Balakian’ın babasının İstanbul doğumlu, büyükbabasının ise Tokatlı olması hikâyeyi belki Türkler için daha ilginç kılabilir ama kitapta Balakian Almanya’da tıp eğitimi gören büyükbabasının I. Dünya Savaşı esnasında Osmanlı ordusunda yüzbaşı olarak görev yaptığını ve anlamakta zorluk çektiği bir şekilde, 1922 yılına kadar Türkiye’de yaşadığından bahsetmektedir. Yani torun Balakian “Türkiye gibi bir yerde 1922’ye kadar nasıl yaşanır?” sorusunu sormaktadır.

Balakian’ın mecburiyeti olmamasına ve yurtdışında yaşamış olmasına rağmen, yurtdışına tekrar gidebilecekken Türkiye’de kalmayı tercih eden dedesi, Türk-Ermeni ilişkilerinin o kadar kötü olmadığının, torununun anlayamayacağı ölçülerde karmaşık olduğunun en güzel örneği olsa gerektir. Balakian’ın bu şekilde düşünmesinin sebebi de sanırım Türklerle yaşama pratiği olmayan yazarın Türk düşmanlığı hastalığına kapılmış olmasıdır.

Öyle ki, Balakian kitabında Türk toplumunu açıkça barbar olarak tanımlamakta, Türklerin, sanat, müzik ve mutfaklarının dolayısıyla tüm kültürlerinin kendilerinden çalma olduğunu iddia edebilmektedir. Ayrıca, yazarın anneannesinden aktardığına göre, kötü ruhlar sadece suçlulara ve Türklere aittir.

Türkçe ve Türk tarihini bilmeyen yazarın yorumlarında zaman ve mekândan kopuk ifadelere de rastlamak mümkündür. Hınçak ve Daşnak partilerini reform hareketleri olarak tanımlayan yazar, aynı zamanda 1896 yılındaki Osmanlı Bankası baskınını, ki bugünün penceresinden bakacak olursak bunu kolaylıkla terörizm olarak tanımlayabiliriz, şaşırtıcı bir şekilde eşitlik talebinin yansıması olarak görebilmektedir. Ayrıca İslamcılığın ve Osmanlıcılığın güçlü olarak mevcut olduğu İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyetini laik ve milliyetçi olarak nitelendirmesi, Ziya Gökalp’in ismini hem hatalı olarak yazması ve hem de kendisini Himmler’e benzetmesi son derece cahil bir kişiyle karşı karşıya olduğumuzu ortaya koymaktadır. Ne I. Dünya Savaşı, ne II. Dünya Savaşı üzerine ciddi bir okuma yapmadığı açık olan yazar, bilimsellikten çok duyguları ile yazmayı tercih etmiş, tarih konusunda eğitiminin bulunmamasının sonuçları bariz bir şekilde ortaya çıkmıştır. Ancak bu eksiği kapatmak için ciddi bir çalışma da yapmamıştır.

Aflon (Afyon’u kastediyor olmalı) ve Erzeroum gibi şehirlerden bahsettiği kitapta, İngilizcesi Tbilisi olan şehri Tiflis[1] olarak nitelendirmiş, Türkçede bulunmayan Arapça bir sözcük olan ‘suk’ (çarşı) kelimesini Oryantalist eğilimleri sebebiyle kullanmıştır. Ayrıca Batı tarihçiliğinde hatalı bir şekilde kullanılan Ermeni vilayetleri tanımlamasını, ki Doğu ve Güneydoğu Anadolu’nun tamamını kapsayıp Sivas’a kadar uzanır, kendisi de sorgulamadan benimsemiştir.

Sonuç olarak hayalindeki son derece vahşi Türk ve Türkiye ile Türk ‘kültürünün’ tüm Hıristiyanları ve Ermenistan’ı yok ettiğine dair özcü bir dünya görüşü ile yazılan kitap aynı zamanda, Yemen Türküsünü de tersyüz etmiş, Türkiye’de yaşayan hemen herkesin ne için yazıldığını iyi bildiği bu ağıtın, Ermeni ölüm yürüyüşü için yazıldığını iddia etmiştir. Ayrıca Sevr’e özlem duyduğunu açıkça yazan Balakian, Atatürk’ün ricası ile Karabağ’ın Azerbaycan’a verilmesi için Sovyetler Birliğini ikna ettiğini, böylece Orta Asya’ya koridor açıldığı iddiasını ortaya koyarak sanki Rusların Türkiye’nin çıkarını kendi çıkarlarının önüne koyduğu sonucunu getirecek anlamsız ve tarihi olgulardan uzak ifadeler de kullanabilmiştir.        

Kendi aile tarihimizin objektif bir şekilde sunulmasının zor olduğu gerçeğinin ötesinde, bir de duygusal yaklaşımlar ve bilgisizlik devreye girdiği zaman ‘Kaderin Kara Köpeği’ni bir anı kitabından çok roman gibi okumanın daha doğru olduğu düşüncesindeyim. Ancak burada Türk karşıtlığının umursamazca kullanıyor olmasının, günümüz dünyası açısından kabul edilmez olduğunu hatırlamakta da fayda görüyorum.

Türkler ve Ermenilerin yüzyıllarca süren birliktelikleri doğaldır ki, çok çeşitli alanlarda ortaklıklar ve benzerlikler yaratmıştır. Pek çok açıdan birbirine çok benzeyen bu iki halkın yeniden yakınlaşmasının yolu, Türklerle birlikte yaşama kültürüne sahip Türkiye Ermenilerinden geçmektedir. Diaspora aşırıcılığına karşı Türkiye Ermenilerinin dengeleyici bir rol oynayacağına samimi bir şekilde inandığımı da burada belirtmek isterim.

 

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[1] Ermeniler de Tiflis’e ‘Tiflis’ demektedir. Ayrıca şehrin geçmişte bir Ermeni şehri olduğuna, Ermenilerin şehrin imarında büyük etkisinin bulunduğuna inanmaktadırlar. Büyük ihtimalle bu sebepten dolayı, İngilizce bile yazsa Balakian’ın ‘Tbilisi’ yerine ‘Tiflis’ ifadesini kullanmaktadır

ABD Başkanı'nın Ermeni idialarına ilişkin açıklamasındaki hatalar

GEÇMİŞTE YAPILAN HATALARDA ISRAR

Mehmet Oğuzhan TULUN

28.04.2016

 

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ABD Başkanı Barack Obama 22 Nisan tarihinde, son 24 Nisan açıklamasını yayınlamıştır.[1] Açıklama genel olarak, Obama’nın geçmiş senelerde 24 Nisan ile ilgili yapmış olduğu açıklamaların çizgisinden gitmiştir. Açıklamada “soykırım” suçlaması yapılmamış, bunun yerine “Meds Yeghern” (Ermenice “Büyük Felaket” anlamına gelmektedir) ifadesi kullanılmıştır. Obama, aynen selefleri gibi, 1915 olaylarıyla ilgili tartışmada bir tarafta Ermeni diasporası ve Ermenistan’ın talepleri ve söylemleri, diğer tarafta ise Türkiye’nin hassasiyetleri arasında dengesini korumaya çalışmıştır.

Beklenildiği gibi, Ermeniler bu açıklamadan memnun kalmamıştır; zira 1915 olaylarının tüm trajedisini vazgeçilmez olarak nitelendirdikleri ve gelecek hedefleri için kötüye kullanabilecekleri “soykırım” kelimesine indirgemişlerdir ve bu sebeple “soykırım” ifadesi dışında onları hiçbir şey tatmin etmemektedir.

Obama, amacı dengeyi korumaya çalışmak olmuş olsa da, bazı konularda geçen seneki ifadelerinin ötesine geçmiş ve tarafsız olarak nitelendirilemeyecek bir açıklama ortaya çıkarmıştır. Türk Dışişleri Bakanlığı, yayınlamış olduğu açıklamasında,[2] Obama’nın tarihi olaylara ilişkin tek taraflı yaklaşımını eleştirmiş, “tarihte yaşanan acıları siyasete alet etmeye yönelik çabaların kimseye fayda getirmediğine” dikkat çekmiş ve Amerikan yönetimini “tarafsız, sağduyulu ve yapıcı bir yaklaşım benimsemeye” davet etmiştir. Dışişleri Bakanlığı bu bakımdan Amerikan yönetimine uygun cevabı vermiştir.

Ancak Dışişleri Bakanlığı’nın açıklamasında bir konuya değinilmemiştir: Obama’nın geçmişte yapmış olduğu seçim vaatlerinin kendisinde yaratmış olduğu görünürdeki yükümlülük hissi. Obama, kendisinin daha önce başkanlık yarışı sırasında Ermeni kökenli seçmenlere verdiği sözü yerine getirmemiş olmasını affettirmek istercesine, Türk tarafının görüşlerini hiç hesaba katmadan, bu seneki 24 Nisan açıklamasında Ermeni görüşlerine çok fazla yer vermiştir.

Aslında Obama’nın son 24 Nisan açıklamasıyla ortaya koyduğu tutum kendisinin kişiliğinden ziyade, ABD’nin genel tutumunun bir yansımasıdır. Bu tutumu Rusya ve Fransa da sergilediği tutum ile beraber değerlendirmek gerekir.

AVİM’in daha önce işaret etmiş olduğu gibi, 2015 senesinde Ermenistan’da düzenlenen 24 Nisan etkinliklerine Rusya Başkanı Vladimir Putin ve Fransa Başkanı Francois Hollande’ın katılmış olması şaşırtıcı değildir. Bu iki ülke 1915 olaylarının çıkmasına zemin hazırlamış ve Osmanlı döneminde Ermeni milliyetçi ve ayrılıkçı hareketi körüklemiştir. Fransa ve Rusya, 1915 olaylarının çıkmasının sorumlusu iki ülke olarak, Türkler ile Ermeniler arasındaki anlaşmazlıkta aynen geçmişte olduğu gibi bugün de Ermenileri körü körüne desteklemeye devam etmektedirler. Dolayısıyla bu iki ülke, geçmişte işledikleri kabahatleri bugün de işlemeye devam etmektedirler.

ABD açısından da çok farklı bir durum yoktur, zira ABD, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’na gönderdiği Protestan misyonerlerle aracılığıyla Ermenileri ayrılıkçılığa teşvik etmiştir. Amerikan misyonerler önce Hristiyanlar için sayısız okul açmış, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Müslüman nüfusunun sahip olmadığı imkânları Hristiyan olan Ermenilere sunmuştur. Misyonerler, Ermenileri bilgi ve dünya görüşü olarak geliştirmiş, Müslümanlar ile Ermeniler arasında toplumsal bir farklılık yaratmış, toplumsal bir ayrışmaya neden olmuştur. Tüm bu faaliyetlerin sonrasında ise, ABD Ermenilerin ayrılıkçı faaliyetlerini desteklemiştir. Bunun en somut örneği ise İstanbul’daki Amerikan Büyükelçisi Henry Morgenthau’n 1915 olaylarıyla ilgili olarak Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun aleyhinde yazdığı raporlardır. Morgenthau’un bu raporlarının abartılara ve uydurmalara dayalı savaşa zamanı propagandası olduğu çoktan ortaya konmuştur. Ancak yine de Morgenthau’ya sanki tarafsız bir devlet temsilcisiymiş gibi ısrarla atıf yapılmaya devam edilmektedir (Obama’nın son 24 Nisan açıklamasın da Morgenthau’ya atıf vardır). Amerikan yönetiminin Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’na yönelik düşmanca tavrı, Morgenthau’un yaptıkları ile de sınırlı kalmamıştır. Sevr Antlaşması çerçevesindeki bir hakem kararıyla, dönemin ABD Başkanı Woodrow Wilson, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun çok büyük bir toprak parçasının yeni oluşturulacak Ermenistan’a verilmesini uygun görmüştür. Ancak Türk Kurtuluş Savaşı, Sevr Antlaşması’nı da, Wilson’un hakem kararını da tarihin çöplüğüne atmıştır.

Amerikan savaş zamanı propagandalarının ve Wilson hakem kararının Türkler tarafından bozguna uğratılmış olmasının yarattığı kuyruk acısı, ABD’de de bugün de devam etmektedir. Dolayısıyla o zamandan arta kalan bir zihniyetin, geçmişin acısıyla birleşerek bugün de devam ettirilmesi ve bu zihniyetin ABD başkanlarının açıklamalarına yansımış olması şaşırtıcı değildir. 

Ancak ABD’nin bazen algılamakta zorlandığı ortada bir gerçek vardır: ABD’nin son derece ideolojik bir bakış açısıyla hor görmüş olduğu Osmanlı İmparatorluğu artık yoktur, yerine çağdaş bir ülke olan Türkiye Cumhuriyeti vardır. Bu Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, ABD’nin yakın dostu, stratejik ortağı ve müttefikidir ve tüm bölge için model ülke sayılmaktadır. Bu bağlamda Türkiye’nin tarihi bir ihtilafla ilgili duyarlılıklarını dikkate almadan, geçmişin önyargıları ve savaş zamanı propagandasıyla şekillenmiş tek taraflı bir tarih anlatımı benimsemek; ABD’den beklenen gerçekçi ve hakkaniyetli dış politikaya uymamaktadır.

Başkan Obama’nın son 24 Nisan açıklamasında Ermenistan’a dair yorumlar da vardır. Açıklamada Ermenistan’ın demokratik, barışçıl ve refah içerisinde olmasına verilen desteğin sürdürüleceği mesajı verilmiştir. Ancak göz arda edilen, Ermenistan resmen kararını vermiş olmasıdır. Ermenistan, hem siyasi, hem askeri, hem de ekonomik anlamda Rusya’nın tarafında olmaya karar vermiştir. Bunun en somut örneği, tam Avrupa Birliği ile geniş kapsamlı bir antlaşma imzalanması öncesinde, böyle bir antlaşmaya tamamen ters düşecek şekilde Ermenistan’ın Rusya güdümlü Avrasya Ekonomi Birliği’ne girmesi kararıdır. Bunlara rağmen hâlâ Ermenistan üzerine oynamak ve bölgenin model ülkesi olan Türkiye’yi Ermenistan karşısında tek taraflı bir yargılamaya tabi tutmak, Türkiye-ABD dostluğuna yakışmamaktadır.

Son olarak belirtilmesi gereken ise şudur: şu anda ABD’de yaşayan Ermeni sayısı ile Türk sayısı eşitlenmeye yakındır. Yani tarihle ilgili Ermenilerin lehine tek taraflı bir söylem ortaya konurken, en az Ermeniler kadar kalabalık olmaya başlayan bir Türk topluluğu rencide edilmektedir. Nitekim ABD’deki Türk topluluğu, bu tek taraflı söylemlere artık etkili bir şekilde karşı koymaya başlamış, tepkilerini daha organize bir şekilde belli etmeye başlamıştır.[3]

 

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[1] “Statement by the President on Armenian Remembrance Day”, The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/22/statement-president-armenian-remembrance-day

[2] “No: 98, 22 Nisan 2016, ABD Başkanı Obama’nın 1915 Olaylarına İlişkin Açıklaması Hk.”, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı, http://www.mfa.gov.tr/no_-98_-22-nisan-2016_-abd-baskani-obama_nin-1915-olaylarina-iliskin-aciklamasi-hk_.tr.mfa

[3] “WSJ’de Ermeni iddialarına karşı ilan”, HaberTürk, http://www.haberturk.com/dunya/haber/1228830-wsjde-ermeni-iddialarina-karsi-ilan

April 22, 2016

Statement by the President on Armenian Remembrance Day

Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century—the Armenian Meds Yeghern—when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire.
As we honor the memory of those who suffered during the dark days beginning in 1915—and commit to learn from this tragedy so it may never be repeated—we also pay tribute to those who sought to come to their aid.  One such individual was U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who voiced alarm both within the U.S. government and with Ottoman leaders in an attempt to halt the violence.  Voices like Morgenthau’s continue to be essential to the mission of atrocity prevention, and his legacy shaped the later work of human rights champions such as Raphael Lemkin, who helped bring about the first United Nations human rights treaty.
This is also a moment to acknowledge the remarkable resiliency of the Armenian people and their tremendous contributions both to the international community as well as to American society. We recall the thousands of Armenian refugees who decades ago began new lives in the United States, forming a community that has enormously advanced the vitality of this nation and risen to prominence and distinction across a wide range of endeavors.   At a moment of regional turmoil to Armenia’s south, we also thank the people of Armenia for opening their arms to Syrian refugees, welcoming nearly 17,000 into their country.
As we look from the past to the future, we continue to underscore the importance of historical remembrance as a tool of prevention, as we call for a full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts, which would serve the interests of all concerned.  I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed. I have also seen that peoples and nations grow stronger, and build a foundation for a more just and tolerant future, by acknowledging and reckoning with painful elements of the past.  We continue to welcome the expression of views by those who have sought to shed new light into the darkness of the past, from Turkish and Armenian historians to Pope Francis.‎
Today we stand with the Armenian people throughout the world in recalling the horror of the Meds Yeghern and reaffirm our ongoing commitment to a democratic, peaceful, and prosperous Armenia.

The Turkish Minority in Greece (Western Thrace)

DESTROYING ETHNIC IDENTITYDESTROYING ETHNIC IDENTITY:

THE TURKS OF GREECE

 

August 1990

 

A Helsinki Watch Report

 

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch

485 Fifth Avenue 1522 K Street, NW, #910

New York, NY 10017 Washington, DC 20005

Tel. (212) 972-8400 Tel. (202) 371-6592

Fax (212) 972-0905 Fax (202) 371-0124

 

Table of Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................................... i

Introduction.........................................................................................................................................1

The Greek Government's Obligations

Under International Law............................................................................................5

Treaty of Lausanne .......................................................................................................5

1968 Protocol...................................................................................................................6

European Convention for the Protection of Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ................................................6

Helsinki Final Act ...........................................................................................................6

1989 Concluding Act of Vienna Follow-up Meeting

to the Conference on Security and Cooperation

in Europe...........................................................................................................7

The Greek Constitution.................................................................................................................9

Greek Violations of the Human Rights 

of the Turkish Minority.................................................................................................................11

Deprivation of Citizenship.......................................................................................11

Freedom of Movement: Passport Seizures...................................................13

Freedom of Movement in Restricted Areas.................................................14

Denial of Ethnic Identity ..........................................................................................14

Cases Against Dr. Sadik Ahmet and

Mr. Ismail Serif ........................................................................................... 17

Degrading Treatment ..............................................................................................22

Freedom of Expression............................................................................................23

Religious Freedom....................................................................................................26

Mosques........................................................................................................26

Selection of Muftis..................................................................................28

Control of the Wakfs (Pious Foundations)................................29

Political Freedom.......................................................................................................29

Equal Rights...................................................................................................................30

International and National Guarantees.....................................30

Land and Houses......................................................................................32

Expropriation of Land.............................................................................35

Business and Professional Life.......................................................36

Licenses.........................................................................................................37

Civil Service Jobs......................................................................................37

Credit ..............................................................................................................39

Schools..........................................................................................................39

Schoolbooks................................................................................................41

Recommendations ......................................................................................................................43

Appendices.......................................................................................................................................45

Acknowledgments

This report is based largely on information gathered by Lois Whitman, Deputy

Director of Helsinki Watch, during a fact-finding mission to Western Thrace in May

1990. It was written by Lois Whitman.

 

 

 

Preface

Between 120,000 and 130,000 ethnic Turks live in Western Thrace, in the

northeastern part of Greece. Members of the Turkish minority speak Turkish as

well as Greek, send their children to schools in which they are taught in both

Turkish and Greek, and are proud of their Turkish origins and resentful of Greek

efforts to deny their ethnic identity. The Greek government refers to them as

"Greek Moslems," or "Hellenic Moslems," and flatly denies the existence of a

Turkish minority in Western Thrace.

Ethnic Turks emphasized to a Helsinki Watch fact-finding mission that

went to Western Thrace in May 1990 that they are loyal Greek citizens and that

there is no separatist movement in Western Thrace. "We don't want to go to

Turkey," a Moslem lawyer said. "We just want the invisible Berlin Wall to come

down; we want to have our origins recognized and our human rights protected."

The policy of the Greek government with regard to the Turkish minority

seems to be, as described by the Minority Rights Group, a "deliberate policy of

  

discrimination with a long-term aim of assimilation."1 The findings of the Helsinki

Watch mission certainly confirm this analysis. The many abuses of human rights

documented in this report reveal a pattern of denying the Turkish minority the

rights granted to other Greek citizens; the pattern includes outright deprivation of

citizenship; denials of the right to buy land or houses, to set up businesses or to

rebuild or repair Turkish schools; restrictions on freedom of expression,

movement and religion; and degrading treatment of ethnic Turks by government

officials.

The Turkish minority reports that for many years the Greek government

has been trying to reduce the number of ethnic Turks in Western Thrace. This has

been done by techniques ranging from deprivation of citizenship to "encouraging"

emigration to Turkey, to efforts to assimilate the Turkish minority. A Greek policy

that began in 1985, for example, made it easier for Greek Turks who are willing to

leave Western Thrace to establish themselves in other parts of Greece. It is

possible for ethnic Turks to buy land and houses, and to find employment in

Athens, on Crete, in Kavala, or in other places in Greece, so long as they are willing

to take along their families, to give up residence in Western Thrace and to vote in

the new areas. The Turkish minority reported to Helsinki Watch, however, that

those who leave cannot get civil service jobs if they identify themselves as Turks

1 Minority Rights Group, Minorities in the Balkans, Report No. 82, October 1989, page 33.

ii

or as Moslems, and, of course, that there are no Turkish schools for their children.

Sadik Ahmet, a surgeon who is now a member of Parliament, pointed out that "for

the rich it's easy to move, but for the poor, impossible."

In any case, the pull of identification with Western Thrace is strong. "This

is my fatherland," Dr. Ahmet told Helsinki Watch. "I was born here, I want to stay

here. I want to spend my life in Western Thrace. It's the home of my family, my

friends, my village, my grandparents. I don't want to leave."

* * *

This is Helsinki Watch's first report on human rights in Greece. Although

we have been following for some time the plight of the Turkish minority in Western

Thrace, the fact-finding mission on which this report is based was in response to

18-month prison sentences that were handed down to two ethnic Turkish political

candidates for Parliament, Dr. Sadik Ahmet and Mr. Ismail Serif, in January 1990,

for the crime of using the word "Turkish" to describe the Turkish minority in

Western Thrace. The Court held that this act violated the Greek Penal Code by

"openly or indirectly inciting citizens to violence or creating rifts among the

population at the expense of social peace."

This flagrant denial of the ethnic identity of the Turkish minority in

Western Thrace was not an isolated event. The Greek High Court in 1988 had in

fact upheld a 1986 decision by the Court of Appeals in Western Thrace in which

the Union of Turkish Associations of Western Thrace was ordered closed because

it was called "Turkish." The word "Turkish," the court held, could refer only to

citizens of Turkey, and its use to describe Greek Moslems was held to endanger

public order.

Further research suggested a pattern whereby the Greek government

has been denying to the Turkish minority many rights accorded to other Greek

citizens, and curtailing their free expression and political freedom. This pattern in

a Western democracy like Greece is of great concern to Helsinki Watch. This

report describes some of the policies and practices that seriously restrict the

human rights of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace.

Greek officials were cooperative and helpful during the Helsinki Watch

mission to Western Thrace. The Nomarks (governors) of both Xanthi and Komotini,

Constantine Thanopolous and Dionysus Karahalios, gave interviews on short

notice. Mr. Evangelos Damianakis, the Greek official responsible for Western

Thrace, was extremely generous with his time.

This report could not have been written without the help of the Turkish

minority in Western Thrace. Special thanks go to Dr. Sadik Ahmet, Ahmet Faikoglu,

İran Dışişleri Bakanı Cevad Zarif'inashington Post'taki makalesi

Zarif Op-Ed in Washington Post

April 20, 2016

 

On April 20, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif published an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing its Sunni Gulf neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia, for spending huge sums of money on arms and allegedly supporting militant extremism. He criticized the West for raising alarms about Iran’s development of military technology while hardly discussing Saudi Arabia’s arms procurement or bombing of Yemen.  

 

Zarif wrote that the Iranian people “want nothing more than peace and cooperation” with their neighbors and the world at large. But he also defended Iran’s development of defensive military technology, recalling Saddam Hussein’s use of missiles and chemical weapons during the devastating 1980-1988 war with Iraq. “We have no other choice, as we continue to face major hurdles in fulfilling our military hardware needs from abroad, even as our neighbors procure such hardware in mind-boggling quantities,” he wrote. Zarif’s op-ed coincides with President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Obama met with Saudi King Salman on April 20 and will meet with leaders from other Gulf states on April 21. The following are excerpts from Zarif’s op-ed.

 

Nearly three years ago, the newly elected Iranian president called for constructive engagement on a momentous undertaking: resolving the nuclear crisis dividing Iran and the West. The fruit of 22 months of unprecedented diplomacy — the historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — was formally implemented in January. Yet despite this important achievement, the worrying reality is that we now face a far greater challenge. …

 

Some of those who agitated against the JCPOA were blatant in their efforts to drag the region into yet another disastrous war. They did — and continue to do — their utmost to convince their Western allies to return to the broken taboo against engaging with Iran. They have repeatedly resorted publicly to raising the specter of military — even nuclear — attack on my country, in blatant disregard for international law.

 

Others have been less blatant. Amid their backroom efforts to thwart the constructive engagement between Iran and six world powers, they resorted to a rapid build-up of their already excessive military hardware. Alarmingly, some also boosted their support for militant extremism, in the belief that it could serve as a tool to achieve short-term political aims. The disastrous outcome of these efforts are clear for all to see.

 

Having spent a staggering amount of their peoples’ petrodollars on weapons-hoarding, these actors are now seeing their literal, and political, fortunes plummet in step with oil prices. Meanwhile, the extremist lost souls they have empowered are no longer terrorizing only others in the region and the wider world but are also biting the very hands that feed them.

 

Perplexingly, amid these disturbing developments — including the recent tragedies in Paris and Brussels — the West does not appear to be focused on joining hands to eradicate militant extremism. Neither is there much discussion of how a country such as Saudi Arabia has become the world’s third-biggest military spender, overtaking Russia. And rather than focusing on how Yemen was bombed to rubble for 12 relentless months — and thus turned into a tinderbox of famine and poverty and a breeding ground for al-Qaeda — scare-mongering about Iran and its defensive capabilities is back in full swing. …

 

In 1980, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein launched a war against Iran fully supported financially and militarily by almost all of our Arab neighbors and by the West. Unable to secure a quick victory, Hussein used chemical weapons against our soldiers and civilians. …

 

On top of this, having listened to the outdated U.S. mantra of “all options are on the table” for 37 years, our people understand that we need to be prepared to prevent that illegal and absurd threat from ever becoming a reality. …

 

It is against this backdrop that we develop and test our indigenous defensive capabilities. We have no other choice, as we continue to face major hurdles in fulfilling our military hardware needs from abroad, even as our neighbors procure such hardware in mind-boggling quantities. …

 

Our people want nothing more than peace and cooperation with our neighbors and the world at large. We have not launched a war in more than two centuries and continue to make an unequivocal commitment of never commencing such foolishness. We challenge all our detractors — large and small — to commit likewise. …

Saudi Arabia and Obama

Saudi Arabia and Obama: Time to Reset Relations

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by Emile Nakhleh - April 21st, 2016
President Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia comes in the midst of a changing kingdom with a different outlook on its regional role and its relations with the United States. The US-Saudi relationship is becoming less “special,” which is not a bad thing. Washington cannot remain slavishly dependent on the Kingdom. Nor can the Saudis expect to ride on the American coattails freely. According to The New York Times, Obama will find Saudi Arabia “deep in turmoil.”
If the two countries are interested in maintaining a close but not necessarily a special relationship, they should be free to address each other’s needs, concerns, and interests honestly and openly without resorting to economic threats or blackmail. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs the United States as a protector against potential regional threats, a provider of military security and weapons systems, a trading partner, and as a global ally. Similarly, the United States would very much like to see Saudi Arabia as an agent of regional stability, a partner in the fight against terrorism, and a potential player in moderating Sunni extremist ideologies, which underpin al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), and other terrorist groups.
The Saudi leadership would do well to study Obama’s views on the Arab Islamic Middle East, as articulated in Jeffrey Goldberg’s lengthy article in The Atlantic.
Informed by many hours of interviews with the President, Goldberg’s article offers three important take-aways. First, Obama believes that the Middle East is no longer a critical region in global affairs as it was in previous decades. His pivot to Asia underscores the growing significance of that region economically, militarily, and demographically.
Second, the president believes that multilateralism is the wave of the future and that the “defense of the liberal international order against jihadist terror, Russian adventurism, and Chinese bullying depends on other nations sharing the burden with the United States.” Friends and allies should no longer expect the United States to foot the bill or to bail them out whenever they get in trouble. “Free riders aggravate me,” he said to Goldberg in one of the interviews. The Saudis took umbrage at the statement, maintaining that they have paid their fair share.
Third, although Muslim Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia are embracing the future with innovative economic and technological policies, and although their youth are more and more involved in entrepreneurial enterprises, America’s Middle Eastern allies, including Saudi Arabia, remain mired in “tribalism, fundamentalism, sectarianism, and militarism.” They are “on the wrong side of history.”
President Obama expressed his implicit desire for Saudi Arabia and neighboring Sunni states to promote a program free of authoritarianism, sectarianism, and fundamentalism that allows their citizens the freedom to pursue entrepreneurial initiatives and modern education. He specifically urged Saudi Arabia to “share the neighborhood” with its neighbor Iran and to tone down its militarism.
The 9/11 Report
At least two other issues are at the heart of the cooling relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The first involves both the 9/11 Report and the Senate bill allowing potential terror victims’ families to sue Saudi Arabia. According to media reports, the 9/11 Report contains 28 pages that have not been released despite intense pressure from the victims’ families, their lawyers, and many current and former members of Congress. The families’ lawyers are demanding the release of these pages in the belief that they might contain information that could indirectly implicate elements of the Saudi government in the 9/11 hijackings. The release of these pages could strengthen the families’ lawsuit against the Saudi government.
Senate Bill S. 2040, meanwhile, would allow American citizens to sue the Saudi government and other governments for providing aid to terrorist organizations and individuals. Saudi Arabia is particularly targeted in this bill because of 9/11. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair has threatened economic retaliation against the United States if the Senate bill becomes law.
Al-Jubair, who served as the Saudi ambassador in Washington, should have known that his government’s threats to divest their dollar holdings would not sway the United States to act one way or the other. A threat to destabilize the dollar would be shortsighted, unwise, counterproductive, and in the long run harmful to Saudi interests and security.
Although one can appreciate the legitimate Saudi concerns about the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran and the Arab Spring before that, it is difficult to imagine that Saudi threats could force the US to adopt policies that contradict American strategic interests or values just to appease the Saudis.
The foreign minister’s threats, on the other hand, could reflect a sharpened power struggle within the Saudi ruling family. Al-Jubair could be caught between the pragmatic, deliberate approach of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef and the brash assertive posturing of the deputy crown prince and the king’s son Muhammad.
The Obama administration opposes the release of the 28 pages and the passage of the Senate bill on grounds of national security. The president promised in his interview with Charlie Rose, however, that once the director of national intelligence finished his review of the 28 pages, which should be relatively soon, they would be released.
Many believe these materials are being held not because of national security concerns but because of political considerations designed to protect the Saudi family and its actions immediately before and right after 9/11. Reviewing the materials for intelligence “sources and methods” should be done quickly. If the Saudis were involved in any way in the heinous attacks on 9/11, they should be held accountable. Period.
The same goes for Senate Bill 2040. In order to satisfy the president’s legitimate concerns about a potential explosion of lawsuits against the United States, which he also expressed in his interview with Charlie Rose, the sponsoring senators could limit the bill to 9/11 and Saudi Arabia. Some academics, consultants, former diplomats and senior military officers, think tankers, and corporate executives who benefit financially from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states obviously oppose the release and the Senate bill. Their influence and lobbying on behalf of the Saudis should not be allowed to hold American policy hostage. 
Spreading Wahhabism 
The second point of contention is Saudi Arabia’s radical Sunni ideology, which drives radicalization and terrorism. In discussing Muslim ideologies in Southeast Asia, President Obama expressed concern that school children in Indonesia are becoming more radicalized thanks to this intolerant Wahhabi Salafi ideology. American leaders and policymakers have worried about this ideology and the Saudi role in proselytizing it for over two decades but have been either unable or unwilling to confront the Saudis about it.
The Hanbali Wahhabi Salafi intolerant interpretation of Islam became the official religion of Saudi Arabia over a century ago when Al Saud forged an alliance with Al Shaikh in their attempt to conquer the territory that has become Saudi Arabia. Al Saud were given wide leeway to rule as they saw fit, but Al Shaikh anointed themselves as the guardians of the puritanical Wahhabi religious ideology and the official theologians of the new Saudi state.
The Saudi regime began to preach Wahhabi Islam worldwide following the decision by King Faisal in the late 1960s to make proselytization a cardinal principle of Saudi foreign policy. The newfound oil revenues following the oil crisis of 1972 gave the Saudi government unprecedented wealth to spread their brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world, from Marrakesh to Bangladesh, from Tashkent to Jakarta, and from northern Nigeria to the southern Philippines.
The Saudis established and funded Islamic NGOs, including the Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief Organization, al-Haramayn, and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. They built Koranic schools, funded local organizations to propagate the Wahhabi religious ideology, and distributed millions of free copies of Saudi-printed Korans to schools and mosques all over the Muslim world and to Muslim communities in the West. Although the Arabic text is the same in all Korans, the Saudi editions of the Koran contain a Wahhabi religious interpretation or exegesis around the Arabic text.
Over the years, Saudi Arabia has provided scholarships to thousands of Muslim students worldwide to study in Saudi colleges and universities, mostly in the top three conservative religious universities in the Kingdom—Imam Muhammad in Riyadh, Umm al-Qura in Mecca, and the Islamic University in Medina. Graduates usually return to their countries as teachers and preachers. This is the worrisome force multiplier of Wahhabi proselytizing.
This narrow-minded doctrine is also taught in Saudi schools from grade school through college. It does not allow young men and women the freedom to pursue education and entrepreneurial initiatives that are commensurate with the globalized world of the 21^st century. Because of this doctrine, Saudi and IS youth are stuck in the 7^th century when the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
The Salafi Wahhabi interpretation is intolerant of Shia Islam and of other Muslim sects such as Sufism, Ahmadiyya, and other doctrines. It is equally intolerant of Judaism and Christianity. Salafi Wahhabism has been the bedrock of al-Qaeda and IS. Terrorist organizations have used this doctrine to radicalize receptive youth across the globe through the Internet and social media and to encourage them to undertake violent jihad.
Salafi Wahhabism advocates severe punishments or Koranic hudud, such as beheadings, lashings, and stoning. Thus, the barbaric beheadings, which IS practices regularly in Musul, Raqqa, and other areas under its control, are not alien to the penal system in Saudi Arabia, which carries out its beheadings in the public square. Because of its Salafi Wahhabi religious doctrine, Saudi Arabia views its neighboring Shia Iran through a sectarian lens and is reluctant to pursue rapprochement with it. Proxy wars seem to be the Saudi metric by which it measures its relations with Iran. 
The United States should reset its relations with Saudi Arabia on the basis of mutual interests, openness, and candor. If the Saudis are interested in maintaining a close relationship with the United States, Washington should be able to convey its concerns about radicalism, militarism, sectarianism, and human rights abuses to the Saudis without fear of threats of economic retaliation. Although American foreign policy is going through a period of retrenchment and constrains, the Saudis should know, as the president has stated, that American leadership in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf in particular is indispensable

About the Author

Emile Nakhleh is an expert on Middle Eastern society and politics and on political Islam. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico. He previously served in the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993-2006, first as scholar in residence and chief of the Regional Analysis Unit in the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis and subsequently as director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program. Until 1993 Nakhleh taught at Mount St. Mary's University, where he was the John L. Morrison Professor of International Studies. Nakhleh's publications include, among others, A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America's Relations with the Muslim World (2009), Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society (1976 and 2011), and The Gulf Cooperation Council: Policies, Problems, and Prospects (1986). Nakhleh holds a PhD from American University, an MA from Georgetown University, and a BA from Saint

Turkey’s Strategy for Syria and Iraq

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by Robert Olson
Turkey is in a strong position to achieve its geopolitical objectives in the both Syria and Iraq. In Iraq, for instance, Turkey’s objective after the U.S. invasion in 2003 was to ensure that the Kurdistan Region Government (KRG), led by Massoud Barzani, would become economically dependent on Turkey. This was a successful. Turkey today is by far the most important economic and political partner of the KRG with trade exceeding $12 billion. As of 2016 over 2,000 Turkish companies operated in the KRG, many of which have built the KRG’s infrastructure.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003, it was clear to Ankara that in order to manage Kurdish nationalist movements in Turkey it would need the help of the KRG. Turkey desired to isolate the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) —and its political arm, the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK). The uneasy relations between Erbil and Baghdad after 2003, especially over the distribution of oil revenues, consolidated the relationship between Turkey and the KRG. Nouri al-Maliki’s tenure as prime minister from 2005-20014 and his strong Shi’a bias drew Erbil even closer to Ankara.
By the first decade of the 21^st century, Ankara doubted that Iraq would remain unified Iraq as the US hoped. By this time Turkey had already tightened its grip on the KRG economy. It was also in a good position to contribute to the management of relations between the KRG and Sunnis of central Iraq. This was the case after 2007-8 with the insurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq and then the Islamic State (ISIS or IS).
The fragmentation resulting from IS’s onslaught on Shi’a as well as Kurds and Sunnis—in addition to the possibility of IS conquering Baghdad—strengthened the Ankara-Erbil axis. The completion in 2013 of an oil pipeline from the KRG to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, bypassing the Baghdad-controlled Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, further tied the two economies.
The completion of the pipeline made the KRG more dependent on Turkey for its survival. It ensured that the KRG would be a dependable ally in Turkey’s war against the PKK/KCK. Although Turkey negotiated intermittently with the PKK, including its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, the discussions never reached a meaningful conclusion. For one, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) thought that by 2013, with the KRG firmly in its pocket, it could draw out negotiations until the PKK/KCK accepted the conditions proffered.
The consolidation of relations between Ankara and Erbil from 2003 onward gave a free hand to Turkey to adopt an even more unaccommodating position toward the PKK.
Turkey’s close relationship with the Kurds of northern Iraq is of long standing. Turkey did not relinquish the province of Mosul under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. It abandoned its claim to the province of Mosul only in 1926 when it became part of Iraq. Turkey was compelled to accept its loss as result of the Sheikh Said rebellion, which threatened to evolve into a larger war against Kurds. Another irony is that Great Britain agreed to pay Turkey 500,000 pounds sterling. Only in 1970 did Saddam Hussein forfeit the remainder of the payment when Turkey granted Iraq the right for the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline to traverse Turkey on its way to the Mediterranean.
Less than a month after the signing of the treaty there were British reports that Turkey was planning to settle Muslim Albanians from the Kosovo region in the areas where the rebellion had taken place. There were also reports that Turkey planned to settle 40,000 to 50,000 Circassians in Kurdish areas. The deportations reminded British intelligence officers of the deportations of Armenians in 1915. This history makes Kurds particularly sensitive to the recent expropriations of Kurdish property in southeast Turkey. Similar displacements are occurring along the Turkish-Kurdish/Alevi fault line of Maras, Malatya, Elazig, and Dersim regions where deportations of Kurds took place in the late 1920 and 1930s.
Turks are well aware that they lost the province of Mosul to the British Empire and that the rebellion of Sheikh Said was a major reason. Ironically, Turkey has regained its strong position in the KRG as a result of the U.S. war against Iraq.
Turkey’s Geo-economic Interests in Syria
Turkey’s ties to the Kurds of Syria, like those of Iraq, have also been in place for some time. Ankara’s concerns increased after the Sheikh Said and subsequent rebellions were crushed in 1938. The rebellions compelled thousands of Kurds to flee to Syria. Some of the progeny of those Kurds are now leaders of the Kurdish nationalist movements in Turkey, including the PKK/KCK.
Kurds who participated in the creation of the PKK and who then fled to Syria in 1978 to escape an impending military coup found fertile ground to expand their fight against Turkey. They commenced armed conflict in 1984. Over the last 35 years, thousands of Syrian Kurds have fought in the ranks of the PKK, some as top commanders. Turkey has always been concerned withthe potential of Syrian Kurds uniting effectively with Kurds in Turkey.
This became a reality in 2012 when the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the leading Syrian Kurdish nationalist party, declared the autonomy of the three disconnected cantons—Jazira, Kobane, and Afrin—stretching along the 510 mile Turkish-Syrian border. In 2015, the PYD managed to connect Jazira and Kobane.
As far as Turkey is concerned there is no difference between the PKK and the PYD. Indeed, they are closely connected with interchangeable commanders and similar ideologies. The fragmentation of Syria since 2012 and the growing strength of the PYD and its armed force, People’s Protective Units (YPG), further reinforce Ankara’s belief that the two nationalist movements threaten what Ankara perceives to be its national security. U.S. support for the PYD/YPG during and after the battle of Kobane in late 2014 and early 2015, and its efforts to enlist the PYD/YPG into the war against IS enraged Ankara.
Ankara knows that in order to expand it geopolitical power into northern Syria, it has to deal a devastating blow to the PKK/KCK. This would also make it easier to manage the PYD/YPG after IS and jihadists forces are weakened or defeated. It wanted to weaken the PKK/KCK to the point that it would not be able to impede effectively the settlement of Syrian refugees in the Maras, Malatya, Elagiz, and Dersim provinces. Turkey is creating numerous new military and police installations to facilitate settlement of refugees in these provinces. It is engaged in building dams as defensive barriers between the Kurds of Turkey and Iraq. The dams also serve to destroy habitats used by the PKK. The destruction in Shirnak province seems to be intended to remove population from the border areas from a planned oil pipeline from the KRG.
Turkey’s Role in the Region
In the future, Turkey will be the major player in the economy of northern Syria and perhaps elsewhere in Syria. Other major players—Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the U.S.—simply do not have the wherewithal or ability to match Turkey’s potential. Russia will retain its bases in Latakia and with the Alawites whether Bashar al-Assad remains in power of not, but it is not in a position to contribute or to benefit economically in the rehabilitation of Syria. Facing other global challenges, Russia will largely focus on maintaining its military capabilities in the Black, Aegean, and eastern Mediterranean Seas as well as the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Iran is not able to be a major economic factor in Syria. Like Russia, it supports Alawites and Hezbollah, the latter mostly in Lebanon. Both can help Iran project its geostrategic power into the Mediterranean and play a role in containing Israel. Saudi Arabia’s interest in Syria will diminish as a result of myriad challenges. The weakening and/or destruction of the military power of IS and the rejuvenation of secularism and Sunni nationalism will lessen Saudi influence. The U.S. has declared that in the coming decades its main global interests lie in East and South Asia. The U.S. has never shown much interest in developing or nurturing the economies of the peoples of Syria and Iraq or any Middle East country.
Turkey’s geopolitical and geo-economic interests in Iraq and Syria now stretch some 729 miles from its border with Iran, across Iraq (219 miles) and Syria (510 miles). From 100 to 150 miles on each side of these borders live approximately 20-25 million people depending on where the borders are drawn. It includes the large cities of Diyarbakir, Erbil, Selamani (Sulaymaniaya) Gaziantep, Aleppo, Adana, and Iskenderun.
The collapse of state institutions in Iraq and Syria makes it clear that in the emerging vacuum only Turkey is poised to take the great advantage of its position. In Iraq, Turkey will have to share a condominium of power with Iran, especially with regard to the KRG. The two-hour discussion between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 15 in Istanbul reportedly dealt at length with how to deal with the challenges of terrorism, sectarianism, and Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq.
The 20 million Kurds of Turkey and 9 million of Iran will demand close management by Ankara and Tehran. Both countries realize this. But Iran will not be a major factor in the unfolding developments in Syria. It does not have enough people on the ground. Only Turkey is poised to benefit from the ongoing turmoil.