The report is designed to portray the ways in which ethno-cultural and religious diversity has been so far managed by modern Turkish state with regard to the usage of the discourse of tolerance. Explaining the construction of the Turkish national identity and the modern Turkish state, the report primarily delineates the constitutive elements of the state machinery as well as the technologies of citizenship. Turkey’s process of Europeanisation is also scrutinised in order to pave the way to a throughout analysis of the transformation of the Turkish polity from the Cold War years to the Post-Cold War years. In doing so, major challenges against the traditional Kemalist nation-state building process such as political islam, Alevi revival, Kurdish revival and Europeanisation/globalisation are discussed.
Subsequently, some information is given regarding the major ethno-cultural and religious minorities in Turkey. The term ‘minority’ is a very polemical concept in Turkey, and has a negative connotation in the popular imagery as it is often recalled as the main source of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The popular assumption of the Turkish nationalist myth-making is that it is the non-Muslim minorities collaborating with the colonial European powers who contributed to the death of the Ottoman Empire through the syndrome of ‘enemy within’. The report deploys the term not only through its legal definition but also its sociological/anthropological connotations.
The definition of tolerance is confined to the acceptance of Sunni Muslims and their secular counterparts under the banner of the Sunni-Muslim-Turkish nation. However, it does not mean to embrace all different kinds of ethno-cultural and religious minorities. Toleration in the Ottoman context as well as in other imperial contexts refers to the “absence of persecution of people but not their acceptance into society as full and welcomed members of community”. This report argues that toleration is actually nothing but a form of governmentality, designed to maintain peace and order in multi-ethnic and multinominational contexts. The Ottoman imperial experience and the Turkish national experience approve that the Turkish nation tolerate those non-Muslims, non-Sunni-Muslims and non-Turks as long as they did not disturb or go against the Sunni-Islam-Turkish order. If ethnocultural and religious minorities did transgress, their recognition could easily turn into suppression and persecution.
The concept of tolerance has a very long history in the Turkish context tracing back to the Ottoman Empire. It also has a very popular usage in everyday life. Turks are usually proud of referring to the Millet System of the Ottoman Empire, which is often portrayed in the popular imagery as the guarantor of tolerance, respecting the boundaries between religious communities. Such an official discourse is still vibrant in contemporary Turkey. However, this report tries to argue that tolerance is nothing but a myth in Turkey. The myth of tolerance has been functional to conceal the mistreatment of ethno-cultural and religious minorities other than the majority of Sunni-Muslim-Turks in Turkey. Those remaining outside the boundaries of the holy trinity of Sunni-Muslim-Turks are bound to be subject to the patronizing and tolerant gaze of the majority nation.